Extractive industries

The jade gemstones that generate billions of dollars a year in Myanmar — the world’s biggest exporter of the stone — are beloved in China, where they can sell for more than gold. But they are a symbol of tragedy and suffering for the people who ...

Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation Ministry will investigate reports of illegal gold mining in a forest near Watwun mountain in Kyaikto township, Mon State, a senior official said. U Ye Myint Swe, the ministry’s deputy minister, said an area in the forest has been leased for ...

Southeast Asia’s response to the Covid‑19 outbreak has curtailed electricity use and industrial production, pushing down coal consumption even further this year, according to the latest report from a non-governmental organisation which monitors worldwide fossil fuel infrastructure. Even before Covid-19, new coal plant construction was already slowing in the ...

Good sand is surprisingly hard to find, and some of the best — the kind used to make glass, concrete and even iPhones — is usually found only in riverbeds and along coasts. Now researchers are discovering that a global boom in sand mining is ...

The tragedy was all too familiar in Myanmar’s infamous northern jade mining town of Hpakant: In the early hours of the morning, hundreds of jade pickers teetered on the edge of unstable mountains to scavenge the loose debris dumped by trucks. They are convinced finding ...

A team appointed by the Myanmar government to probe a massive landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar has begun its investigation into the deadly accident that killed at least 172 people, a Kachin state official said Tuesday. Heavy rains caused piles of loose dirt ...

Five Yay Ma Hsay – or ‘unwashed’ as the jade miners of northern Myanmar are known – arrived early Thursday at the pit to scrape out a living on a scraggy hillside, lured by the prospect of finding a stone that could transform their lives.  But ...

Walking across the world, you encounter human beings engaged in various repetitive behaviors. Raising babies. Fixing machines. Boiling tea. Planting crops. Posting videos on TikTok. Looking for gold. Our species’ pervasive quest for gold is ancient and tireless. Along my 11,000-mile trail out of Africa, I have ...

China’s Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining Co has said it will begin processing gold ore from its mine in Sepon, Laos, after a six-year hiatus. According to a report by Reuters, the restart of gold production at the mine is due to gold prices hitting a seven-year ...

Next to water, sand is our most consumed natural resource. The global demand for sand and gravel stands between 40 billion and 50 billion tonnes annually, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and its scarcity is an emerging global crisis. The world may run out of sand if we ...