Toxic Thailand rivers pinned on Myanmar mines
A sprawling new mine is gouged into the lush rolling hills of northeast Myanmar, where civil war has weakened the government's already feeble writ, and pollution levels are rising downstream in Thailand.
The complex is one of around a dozen extraction operations that have sprung up in Shan state since around 2022, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of conflict-wracked Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups.
A few kilometers away across the border, locals and officials in Thailand believe toxic waste is washing downstream from the mines into the Kok River, which flows through the kingdom's far north on its way to join the mighty Mekong.
Thai authorities say they have detected abnormally high arsenic levels in their waterways, which could pose a risk to aquatic life and the people farther up the food chain.
The price fisherman Sawat Kaewdam gets for his catch has fallen by almost half, he says, because locals fear contamination.
"They say, 'There's arsenic. I don't want to eat that fish,'" he said.
Tests in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai by a government pollution agency found levels of the toxic element as high as 49 micrograms per liter (mcg/l) of river water — nearly five times international drinking water standards.
Experts say that while the effects on human health would not be visible immediately, the fish-heavy local diet risks a cumulative impact over several years.
"We already know where the contamination is coming from," says fisherman Sawat.
"They should go fix it at the source."
Fivefold rise
Pianporn Deetes, campaign director of the International Rivers NGO, blames the arsenic levels on Shan state's unlicensed mines, which operate outside any regulation or control by the central government.
It was Thailand's "largest-ever case of transboundary pollution," she added.
The mines are believed to be run by Chinese companies with close links to the UWSA, whose members themselves have longstanding ties to China, speak Mandarin and use China's yuan currency.
It is unclear whether the mines are digging for gold, rare earths or a variety of minerals, and it is also difficult to gauge the size of an industry operating in a secretive gray zone.
But videos on Chinese social media suggest much of what is produced in Myanmar ends up being sold to Chinese buyers.
In a report Tuesday citing Chinese customs data, think tank ISP-Myanmar said the country was the source of around two-thirds of China's rare earth imports by value.
The Asian giant had imported five times as much rare earths from Myanmar in the four years since the 2021 military coup than in the equivalent preceding period, it added.
Many modern mines use a system of tailing ponds to reuse leftover waste and water and stop it being released into rivers, said Tanapon Phenrat of Naresuan University's civil engineering department.
But "in Myanmar, they reportedly discharge it directly into natural waterways," he added, increasing the risk of contamination spreading into the food chain.
"What we need is for mines to treat their waste properly and stop discharging toxic substances into shared waterways."
UWSA officials could not be reached for comment.
'Legal and orderly'
From its Myanmar headwaters, the 285-kilometer Kok River is a vital resource for thousands of people as it wends through Chiang Rai province on its way to feed the Mekong.
In Chiang Rai City, a tranquil place popular with tourists, environmentalists dressed as wart-afflicted fish dance in protest.
The Thai government has proposed building a dam to prevent contaminated water from entering the country, but campaigners say physical barriers alone cannot stop pollution.
Bangkok acknowledges that Myanmar's junta may be unable to stop Chinese companies operating mines in militia-controlled areas.
And Chonthicha Jangrew of Thailand's parliamentary foreign affairs committee met senior Beijing officials last month, urging them to supervise Chinese mining firms "in order to stop the impact on people downstream," she said.
The Chinese embassy in Bangkok posted on Facebook on Sunday that it had instructed Chinese companies "to comply with the laws of the host country and to conduct their business in a legal and orderly fashion at all times."
The Myanmar junta did not respond to questions.
"The water isn't beyond saving yet," said Tanapon of Naresuan University.
"But this is a clear signal," he added. "We need to act now."
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Japan Times
2 days ago
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China-backed militia secures control of new rare earth mines in Myanmar
A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them: the war-torn country was the source of nearly half those imports in the first four months of this year, Chinese customs data show. Beijing's access to fresh stockpiles of minerals like dysprosium and terbium has been throttled recently after a major mining belt in Myanmar's north was taken over by an armed group battling the Southeast Asian country's junta, which Beijing supports. Now, in the hillsides of Shan state in eastern Myanmar, Chinese miners are opening new deposits for extraction, according to two of the sources, both of whom work at one of the mines. At least 100 people are working day-to-night shifts excavating hillsides and extracting minerals using chemicals, the sources said. Two other residents of the area said they had witnessed trucks carrying material from the mines, between the towns of Mong Hsat and Mong Yun, toward the Chinese border some 200 kilometers away. Reuters identified some of the sites using imagery from commercial satellite providers Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies. Business records across Myanmar are poorly maintained and challenging to access, and the ownership of the mines could not be independently identified. The mines operate under the protection of the United Wa State Army, according to four sources, two of whom were able to identify the uniforms of the militia members. The UWSA, which is among the biggest armed groups in the Shan state, also controls one of the world's largest tin mines. It has long-standing commercial and military links with China, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, a conflict resolution nonprofit. Details of the militia's role and the export route of the rare earths are reported by Reuters for the first time. A satellite image shows an overview of a West River rare earth mine in Myanmar on May 6. | Maxar Technologies / via REUTERS University of Manchester lecturer Patrick Meehan, who has closely studied Myanmar's rare earth industry and reviewed satellite imagery of the Shan mines, said the "mid-large size" sites appeared to be the first significant facilities in the country outside the Kachin region in the north. "There is a whole belt of rare earths that goes down through Kachin, through Shan, parts of Laos," he said. China's Ministry of Commerce, as well as the UWSA and the junta, did not respond to questions. Access to rare earths is increasingly important to Beijing, which tightened restrictions on its exports of metals and magnets after U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his trade war with China this year. While China appears to have recently approved more exports, and Trump has signaled progress in resolving the dispute, the move has upended global supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers and semiconductor companies. The price of terbium oxide has jumped by over 27% across the last six months, Shanghai Metals Market data show. Dysprosium oxide prices have fluctuated sharply, rising around 1% during the same period. Chinese influence A prominent circular clearing first appears in the forested hills of Shan state, some 30 km away from the Thai border, in April 2023, according to the satellite images reviewed by Reuters. By February 2025 — shortly after the Kachin mines suspended work — the site housed over a dozen leaching pools, which are ponds typically used to extract heavy rare earths, the images showed. Six kilometers away, across the Kok river, another forest clearing was captured in satellite imagery from May 2024. Within a year, it had transformed into a facility with 20 leaching pools. UWSA soldiers in a tin mine factory at Man Maw at ethnic Wa territory in northeast Myanmar in 2016. | REUTERS Minerals analyst David Merriman, who reviewed two of the Maxar images for Reuters, said the infrastructure at the Shan mines, as well as observable erosion levels to the topography, indicated that the facilities "have been producing for a little bit already." At least one of the mines is run by a Chinese company using Chinese-speaking managers, according to the two mine workers and two members of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, an advocacy group that identified the existence of the operations in a May report using satellite imagery. An office at one of the two sites also had a company logo written in Chinese characters, said one of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters. The use of Chinese operators in the Shan mines and transportation of the output to China mirrors a similar system in Kachin, where entire hillsides stand scarred by leaching pools. Chinese mining firms can produce heavy rare earth oxides in low-cost and loosely regulated Myanmar seven times cheaper than in other regions with similar deposits, said Neha Mukherjee of London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. "Margins are huge." Beijing tightly controls the technology that allows for the efficient extraction of heavy rare earths, and she said that it would be difficult to operate a facility in Myanmar without Chinese assistance. A satellite image shows an overview of an East River rare earth mine in Myanmar on Feb. 7. | Maxar Technologies / via REUTERS The satellite imagery suggest the Shan mines are smaller than their Kachin counterparts, but they are likely to yield the same elements, according to Merriman, who serves as research director at consultancy Project Blue. "The Shan State deposits will have terbium and dysprosium in them, and they will be the main elements that (the miners) are targeting there," he said. Strategic tool The UWSA oversees a remote statelet the size of Belgium and, according to U.S. prosecutors, has long prospered from the drug trade. It has a long-standing ceasefire with the junta but still maintains a force of between 30,000 and 35,000 personnel, equipped with modern weaponry mainly sourced from China, according to Ye Myo Hein, a senior fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute. "The UWSA functions as a key instrument for China to maintain strategic leverage along the Myanmar-China border and exert influence over other ethnic armed groups," he said. Some of those fighters are also closely monitoring the mining area, said SHRF member Leng Harn. "People cannot freely go in and out of the area without ID cards issued by UWSA." The Shan state has largely kept out of the protracted civil war, in which an assortment of armed groups are battling the junta. The fighting has also roiled the Kachin mining belt and pushed many Chinese operators to cease work. China has repeatedly said that it seeks stability in Myanmar, where it has significant investments. 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Japan Times
3 days ago
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Toxic Thailand rivers pinned on Myanmar mines
A sprawling new mine is gouged into the lush rolling hills of northeast Myanmar, where civil war has weakened the government's already feeble writ, and pollution levels are rising downstream in Thailand. The complex is one of around a dozen extraction operations that have sprung up in Shan state since around 2022, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of conflict-wracked Myanmar's largest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups. A few kilometers away across the border, locals and officials in Thailand believe toxic waste is washing downstream from the mines into the Kok River, which flows through the kingdom's far north on its way to join the mighty Mekong. Thai authorities say they have detected abnormally high arsenic levels in their waterways, which could pose a risk to aquatic life and the people farther up the food chain. The price fisherman Sawat Kaewdam gets for his catch has fallen by almost half, he says, because locals fear contamination. "They say, 'There's arsenic. I don't want to eat that fish,'" he said. Tests in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai by a government pollution agency found levels of the toxic element as high as 49 micrograms per liter (mcg/l) of river water — nearly five times international drinking water standards. Experts say that while the effects on human health would not be visible immediately, the fish-heavy local diet risks a cumulative impact over several years. "We already know where the contamination is coming from," says fisherman Sawat. "They should go fix it at the source." Fivefold rise Pianporn Deetes, campaign director of the International Rivers NGO, blames the arsenic levels on Shan state's unlicensed mines, which operate outside any regulation or control by the central government. It was Thailand's "largest-ever case of transboundary pollution," she added. The mines are believed to be run by Chinese companies with close links to the UWSA, whose members themselves have longstanding ties to China, speak Mandarin and use China's yuan currency. It is unclear whether the mines are digging for gold, rare earths or a variety of minerals, and it is also difficult to gauge the size of an industry operating in a secretive gray zone. But videos on Chinese social media suggest much of what is produced in Myanmar ends up being sold to Chinese buyers. In a report Tuesday citing Chinese customs data, think tank ISP-Myanmar said the country was the source of around two-thirds of China's rare earth imports by value. The Asian giant had imported five times as much rare earths from Myanmar in the four years since the 2021 military coup than in the equivalent preceding period, it added. Many modern mines use a system of tailing ponds to reuse leftover waste and water and stop it being released into rivers, said Tanapon Phenrat of Naresuan University's civil engineering department. But "in Myanmar, they reportedly discharge it directly into natural waterways," he added, increasing the risk of contamination spreading into the food chain. "What we need is for mines to treat their waste properly and stop discharging toxic substances into shared waterways." UWSA officials could not be reached for comment. 'Legal and orderly' From its Myanmar headwaters, the 285-kilometer Kok River is a vital resource for thousands of people as it wends through Chiang Rai province on its way to feed the Mekong. In Chiang Rai City, a tranquil place popular with tourists, environmentalists dressed as wart-afflicted fish dance in protest. The Thai government has proposed building a dam to prevent contaminated water from entering the country, but campaigners say physical barriers alone cannot stop pollution. Bangkok acknowledges that Myanmar's junta may be unable to stop Chinese companies operating mines in militia-controlled areas. And Chonthicha Jangrew of Thailand's parliamentary foreign affairs committee met senior Beijing officials last month, urging them to supervise Chinese mining firms "in order to stop the impact on people downstream," she said. The Chinese embassy in Bangkok posted on Facebook on Sunday that it had instructed Chinese companies "to comply with the laws of the host country and to conduct their business in a legal and orderly fashion at all times." The Myanmar junta did not respond to questions. "The water isn't beyond saving yet," said Tanapon of Naresuan University. "But this is a clear signal," he added. "We need to act now."
