A deeply reported AP investigation exposed the human rights and environmental impact of mining for the rare earth metals vital to high tech.
Extensive reporting by an Associated Press investigative team found that the mining of rare earth elements in Myanmar hides a dirty open secret: Their cost is environmental destruction, the theft of land from villagers and the funneling of money to brutal militias, including at least one linked to Myanmar’s secretive military government.
Rare earth metals reach into the lives of almost everyone on the planet, turning up in everything from hard drives and cellphones to elevators and trains. They are especially vital to the fast-growing field of green energy, used in wind turbines and electric car engines. In a cruel twist, as demand soars for clean energy, the abuses are likely to grow.
Reporters Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Lori Hinnant, based in Paris, had each noticed opaque references to China’s rare earth supply chain and wanted to know what was behind it.
They teamed up with Asia-based investigative reporter and video journalist Dake Kang to dig deeper, using his expertise on that county’s supply chains, finding links to Europe and North America. Meanwhile, AP researcher Si Chen in China spoke to miners who had labored in Myanmar; they described a web of small, primitive, unlicensed mines that sell to China’s big state-owned mining conglomerates.
The reporters worked with digital illustrator Peter Hamlin and video journalist Shelby Lum in New York and digital storyteller Dario Lopez in Phoenix to create “The Sacrifice Zone” an immersive package revealing how demand for rare earths incentivizes destructive practices, and how the metals are found in the supply chains of some of the most prominent companies in the world, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Tesla and Apple.
Holes are drilled into the side of a mountain to mine for rare earth minerals in the Kachin state of Myanmar in a 2022 image from video provided by environmental nonprofit Global Witness. Ammonium sulphate solution is injected into the holes, effectively liquefying the earth. Once the chemicals have percolated through the mountainside, the solution is drained into bright blue collection pools, where minerals are precipitated out.
Global Witness image from video via AP
Rare earth ores that have been burned down before transport to China are shown at a site near mines in Myanmar, in a 2022 photo provided by Global Witness. Bleaching agents used to extract rare earth elements have tainted tributaries of Myanmar’s main river, prompting landslides and poisoning the earth, according to witnesses, miners and local activists.
Global Witness via AP
A new rare earth mine is dug into the side of a mountain in Pangwa, Kachin, Myanmar, in a 2022 photo provided by Global Witness. The region is close to the Chinese border and home to hundreds of rare earth mining sites.
Global Witness via AP
Rare earth mining pools northwest of Myitkyina, Kachin, Myanmar, are shown in a 2022 satellite image provided by Planet Labs. near the border with China. The chemical solution from mining operations is drained into the pools, where minerals are precipitated out.
Planet Labs via AP
A site where rare earth ores are burned down before being transported to China is shown near mines in the Kachin state of Myanmar, in a 2022 photo provided by Global Witness.
Global Witness via AP
A creek in Myanmar's Kachin State is lined with trash and construction debris from a former rare earth mining site, in a 2022 photo provided by Global Witness. Local villagers have said water from the creek is no longer usable for drinking or growing crops and that their skin itches after being exposed to water near rare earth mining sites.
Global Witness via AP
Sacks of rare earth ores in Kachin, Myanmar, await transport to China, in a 2022 photo provided by Global Witness. Tracing the supply chains for rare earths is complicated, because they pass through many layers of processing before ending up in a high-tech product.
Global Witness via AP
The multiformat AP investigation drew on dozens of interviews, customs data, corporate records and Chinese academic papers, along with satellite imagery and geological analysis by environmental nonprofit Global Witness, tying rare earths from Myanmar to the supply chains of 78 companies.
About a third of the companies responded to AP’s queries. Of those, about two-thirds didn’t or wouldn’t comment on their sourcing, including Volkswagen, which said it was conducting due diligence for rare earths. GM said it understood “the risks of heavy rare earths metals” and would source from an American supplier soon. Nearly all said they took environmental protection and human rights seriously.
Mary Rajkumar, deputy editor for international investigations, handled the text edit; Jeannie Ohm, Washington news editor for video, produced the video piece; and Raghu Vadarevu, digital editor for global investigations, developed the online presentation.
While other news organizations have covered the rare earths supply chain, none have had the depth and range of AP’s reporting. The AP story was widely cited by human rights groups and international governmental agencies. The U.S. State Department said after the story ran that it was “deeply concerned” about illicit mining operations in Myanmar. But no less rewarding, the editor of a small-town newspaper in central Pennsylvania wrote AP: “It makes me feel like I chose the right profession when I see stories like this. ... Thank you so much for giving journalism a good name.”
For this global exclusive about the complex, disturbing intersection of green supply chains and human rights abuses, the team of Kang, Milko, Hinnant, Chen, Lum, Hamlin and Lopez is AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner.
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