By Peter CATTERALL
Ganzhou, China (AFP) Dec 21, 2025
Buried within the reddish soil of southern China lies latent energy: one of many largest clusters of essential uncommon earths is mined across the clock by a secretive and closely guarded trade.
The hills of Jiangxi province are residence to most of China’s uncommon earth mines, with the supplies utilized in a variety of merchandise together with smartphones and missile steerage know-how.
The flourishing trade is intently protected by Chinese language authorities and media entry is seldom granted.
In a uncommon go to to the area final month, AFP journalists had been trailed and monitored by minders who declined to establish themselves. Corporations didn’t settle for requests for interviews.
Enterprise has been booming: the variety of uncommon earth processing factors in China noticed by the US Geological Survey jumped from 117 in 2010 to 2,057 by 2017. Many of the 3,085 nationwide recorded by the USGS right this moment are clustered within the hills of Jiangxi.
Locals there advised AFP that one uncommon earths mine was sustaining near-constant operations.
“It is busy 24 hours a day, seven days every week,” a resident within the city of Banshi stated.
Close by, development work was getting began for the day on an unlimited new industrial park housing amenities together with uncommon earth processing websites.
The bustling mining area is the results of a decades-long push by Beijing to construct up its may within the strategic sector.
These efforts paid off this 12 months, with a tentative truce in a commerce struggle with the USA reached when China relaxed stringent export controls on uncommon earths.
Washington is now racing to determine various provide chains, however specialists warn such efforts will take years.
In an indication of deepening concern amongst different Western governments, the European Union introduced new measures this month to scale back the bloc’s dependence on China for securing the crucial minerals.
The bloc stated it could earmark almost three billion euros ($3.5 billion) to help initiatives in mining, refining and recycling very important supplies, and proposed the creation of an EU provide hub — the European Centre for Important Uncooked Supplies.
– Heavy metallic –
“The Center East has oil, China has uncommon earths,” former Chinese language chief Deng Xiaoping stated in a 1992 speech.
Since then, China has taken benefit of its pure reserves — the most important of any nation — to dominate processing and innovation within the subject.
The nation’s uncommon earths trade is concentrated in two essential hubs.
One is the Interior Mongolia area’s Bayan Obo mining district on the sting of the Gobi Desert, which is wealthy in “mild” uncommon earths used for magnets in on a regular basis gadgets.
The opposite hub, across the metropolis of Ganzhou in Jiangxi, specialises in “heavy” uncommon earths — tougher to extract however extra beneficial due to their use in heat-resistant magnets, fighter jet engines, missile steerage programs and lasers.
The rugged hills surrounding Ganzhou are residence to the world’s largest mining and processing operations of the strategic “heavy” parts, together with dysprosium, yttrium and terbium.
And within the county-level district of Longnan alone, USGS counted 886 such places, accounting for 31.5 p.c of Jiangxi’s whole.
An AFP workforce in Longnan noticed rows of enormous uncommon earths processing vegetation in an industrial district adjoining to that dense smattering of extraction websites.
– ‘Shifting mountains’ –
Heavy uncommon earths are fashioned over tens of millions of years, as rainfall weathers igneous rocks, breaking them down and leaving parts concentrated close to the floor.
Jiangxi’s mild slopes, excessive rainfall and pure stone make it a main location for such parts.
Mining strategies within the area have developed all through the many years.
Authorities have criticised extremely damaging approaches and cracked down on what they name “chaotic extraction” for the reason that early 2010s.
One technique — termed “transferring mountains” — was described in 2015 by China’s high trade and know-how regulator as “first slicing down timber, then clearing weeds and eventually stripping away the topsoil, inflicting irreparable harm”.
Unlicensed mining has been drastically diminished over time.
Massive indicators in rural areas now warn in opposition to unlawful extraction of uncommon earth sources. Others provide money rewards for reporting such actions.
The trade has been largely consolidated into two enormous state-owned firms.
On a Ganzhou avenue dubbed “Uncommon Earth Avenue”, development employees bustled to finish a sprawling new headquarters for a type of giants, China Uncommon Earth Group.
However the province’s hills nonetheless bear the scars of bygone mining practices, with naked patches of pink soil seen the place vegetation has struggled to regrow.
Beetles block mining of Europe’s greatest uncommon earths deposit
Ulefoss, Norway (AFP) Dec 20, 2025 -
As Europe seeks to curb its dependence on China for uncommon earths, plans to mine the continent’s greatest deposit have hit a roadblock over fears that mining operations may hurt endangered beetles, mosses and mushrooms.
A two-hour drive southwest of Oslo, within the former mining neighborhood of Ulefoss residence to 2,000 folks, lies the Fensfeltet treasure: an estimated 8.8 million tonnes of uncommon earths.
These parts, used to make magnets essential to the auto, electronics and defence industries, have been outlined by the European Union as crucial uncooked supplies.
“You may have uncommon earths in your pocket whenever you carry a smartphone,” stated Tor Espen Simonsen, an area official at Uncommon Earths Norway, the corporate that owns the extraction rights.
“You are driving with uncommon earths whenever you’re on the wheel of an electrical automobile, and also you want uncommon earths to make defence materiel like F-35 jets,” he added.
“Right this moment, European trade imports virtually all the uncommon earths it wants — 98 p.c — from one single nation: China,” he added.
“We’re due to this fact in a scenario the place Europe should procure extra of those uncooked supplies by itself,” he stated.
In its Important Uncooked Supplies Act (CRMA) geared toward securing Europe’s provide, the EU has set as an goal that a minimum of 10 p.c of its wants must be extracted throughout the bloc by 2030.
No uncommon earth deposits are at the moment being mined in Europe.
– ‘Rush slowly’ –
Because of environmental issues, Uncommon Earths Norway has already been compelled to push again its schedule. Now it goals to start mining within the first half of the 2030s.
Its so-called “invisible mine” mission is meant to restrict the mine’s environmental footprint. It plans to make use of underground extraction and crushing — versus an open-pit mine — and re-inject a big a part of the mining residue.
However the location of the mineral processing park, the place ore extracted underground could be dealt with and pre-processed, has posed an issue.
The corporate had deliberate to move the minerals on an underground conveyor belt rising above floor behind a hill, in an space out of sight from the city and largely coated by historical pure forests, wealthy in biodiversity.
However specialists who examined that website discovered 78 fauna and flora species on Norway’s “pink record” — species susceptible to extinction to various levels. They included saproxylic beetles (which depend upon deadwood), wych elms, widespread ash timber, 40 sorts of mushrooms, and numerous mosses.
Consequently, the county governor formally opposed the situation throughout a latest session course of.
Including to issues was the truth that disposing of waste rock would happen inside a protected water system.
“We have to begin mining as rapidly as attainable so we are able to bypass polluting worth chains originating in China,” stated Martin Molvaer, an adviser at Bellona, a Norwegian tech-focused environmental NGO.
“However issues shouldn’t transfer so rapidly that we destroy a big a part of nature within the course of: we should due to this fact rush slowly,” he stated.
– ‘Lesser of two evils’ –
Confronted with such objections, the municipality has been compelled to evaluation the plans and take a better take a look at alternate places for the above-ground a part of the mine.
Whereas there’s one other much less environmentally delicate zone, neither the mining builders nor the native inhabitants favour it.
“We settle for that we must sacrifice a major a part of our nature,” native mayor Linda Thorstensen stated.
“It comes down to selecting the lesser of two evils.”
Thorstensen helps the mine mission, given the small city has seen jobs and younger folks transfer elsewhere for many years. It’s “a brand new journey”, she stated.
“Lots of people stay outdoors the job market, many obtain social welfare help or incapacity pensions. So we’d like jobs and alternatives,” she stated.
Within the almost-empty streets of Ulefoss, locals had been cautiously optimistic.
“We would like a dynamic that makes it attainable for us to grow to be rich, in order that the neighborhood advantages. We want cash and extra residents,” Inger Norendal, a 70-year-old retired trainer, advised AFP.
“However mining clearly has its downsides too.”
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