Illegal mining for critical minerals needed for the global renewable energy transition is increasingly driving deforestation in Indigenous lands in the Amazon.
In recent years, these illegal miners, who are often self-employed, mobile and working covertly, have expanded their gold mining operations to include cassiterite or “black gold”, a critical mineral essential for the renewable energy transition. Cassiterite is used to make coatings for solar panels, wind turbines and other electronic devices. Brazil, one of the world’s largest exporters of this mineral, is now scrambling to manage this new threat to its Amazon forests.
