A human rights research group has linked major mining companies to a surge in human rights abuses, environmental harm, and community conflict. In its latest annual analysis, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has uncovered the staggering scale of these abuses that the global rush for transition minerals to power the clean energy transition is fanning.
Transition minerals: linked to human rights abuses and environmental harms
The Centre has recorded some 834 allegations since 2010. These involve environmental harm, water pollution, land grabs, unsafe working conditions, and attacks on Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
It found a staggering 156 allegations of abuse connected with the mining of key minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines in 2024 alone. These included minerals like nickel, lithium and zinc.
Despite the widespread allegations, less than half of companies involved have a human rights policy in place. It means they are missing the opportunity to create a just transition, rid their projects and supply chains of abuse, and build sustainable business models that are attractive to workers and investors alike.
Mining giants meting out abuse in the Global South
Key findings from the new research on transition minerals included:
The top three minerals it most frequently linked to abuses since 2010 were: copper (44% of cases); copper-cobalt (12%); zinc (10%)
The top three environmental impacts in 2024 were: impact on clean, healthy and sustainable environment; water pollution; violation of environmental standards.
Some 595 allegations caused at least 853 different impacts on local communities and their environment.
Just five firms – Georgian American Alloys, China Minmetals, Codelco, Grupo México, and Sinomine Resource Group – were linked to nearly a quarter of allegations.
South America was the region with the highest number of allegations (48) in 2024. Projects in Peru and Chile accounted for almost one in five allegations in 2024.
Europe and Central Asia’s emergence as a new hotspot for transition minerals extraction and supply coincides with a 50% rise in allegations in the region.
Hazardous working conditions led to 10 deaths in 2024.
Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in the mining sector accounted for just under 8% (12) of last year’s allegations and 20% since 2010.
The Resource Centre calls on policymakers, business leaders, and investors to urgently embed human rights protections into the transition mineral supply chain. This would be in order to ensure they build an energy transition on a corporate duty of care for the rights of communities and workers. That means fair negotiations, and a commitment to shared prosperity.
A transition built on exploitation is not just
Head of just transition and natural resources at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Caroline Avan said:
The urgency of the energy transition is real. But it cannot be used to justify an unprincipled scramble for transition minerals. This is driving widespread human rights abuse, environmental destruction and growing community conflict which slows the transition.
A transition built on exploitative supply chains of minerals is not simply unjust – it is unstable, unpredictable, and ultimately unsustainable – and this should deeply concern investors, governments and downstream users of minerals in the renewable energy space.
If companies and States continue to pursue minerals recklessly, they risk undermining the very future they claim to support. We urgently need a reset. One that seeks to curb global demand through mineral recycling and delivers shared prosperity in the necessary mining. In doing so, this will embed human rights at the centre of the clean energy economy, builds trust and shared prosperity with affected communities and protects the environment on which we all depend. The path to net zero cannot be paved with more injustice and global inequity. A just transition will be one that is fast but also fair.
Frontline community defenders from the global majority united in Luxembourg to challenge steelmakers ArcelorMittal and Ternium on Tuesday 6 May. They turned to disrupt the human rights violating companies’ AGMs, and to demand an end to a culture of corporate impunity.
ArcelorMittal and Ternium: steel companies harming communities in the Global South
The delegation is part of the Fair Steel Coalition, a global network of civil society organisations. It includes representatives of frontline communities and families of those forcibly disappeared. The day of action was part of a Europe-wide advocacy tour, as community defenders step up pressure on the steel giants, the banks that finance them, and key EU governments, to demand an end to decades of climate devastation, corporate impunity, and human rights abuse.
Steel companies like ArcelorMittal and Ternium have forced local communities to live with the negative impacts of steel plants and mining. This of course includes increased rates of health issues like respiratory problems and heart complications, as documented in the Fair Steel Coalition’s The Real Cost of Steelreport last year.
The report highlighted the environmental racism underlying corporate impunity in steel companies, as the corporations have different standards for the global majority. These frontline communities have been constantly bringing their concerns about the lack of monitoring and need for remedies for health and livelihood issues, but have been met with constant failure to tackle these problems seriously.
One year after the Fair Steel Coalition’s initial attempts to engage with ArcelorMittal and Ternium, both companies have failed to take responsibility. Ternium has refused to even meet with the group. ArcelorMittal has yet to resolve the serious human rights and climate concerns the Coalition brought to the company. Worse yet, in the past year, it has backtracked on its climate commitments.
Solidarity walk of the defenders: ‘No more excuses, no more delays’
On Tuesday 6 May, as Ternium began its AGM, representatives of the families of disappeared activists, environmental defenders, and community leaders from Brazil, Liberia, Mexico, South Africa and Bosnia & Herzegovina gathered in front of the company’s headquarters in Luxembourg:
Outside Ternium’s headquarters, the group held banners and called for an end to years of corporate impunity:
Ana Luisa Queiroz gave a powerful speech criticising Ternium’s practices in Brazil, calling for justice and urgent remedy, declaring:
Profit ends up here in Luxembourg, meanwhile we’re left with literal dust in Brazil.
Campaigners also distributed flyers to Ternium employees and passersby. This exposed Ternium’s role in over 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
Complaint with the OECD over disappeared land defenders
Global Rights Advocacy (GRA) and Seattle University International Human Rights Clinic have filed an OECD complaint against Ternium. This cites its failure to meaningfully engage with the families of Antonio Diaz Valencia and Ricardo Lagunes Gasca, two disappeared environmental defenders in Mexico. It also underscores the company’s failure to properly investigate its operations in the country.
Director of GRA Alejandra Gonza said:
It’s time that the company sits down with us, and we need Luxembourg authorities to make it happen.
Following the announcement, the group walked to the Ministry of Economy to reiterate the call of 350 civil society organisations: to demand corporate accountability and stop the culture of impunity and disregard for local communities.
There, community defenders urged Luxembourg ministers to save the CSDDD – an EU directive that would allow communities to hold companies like Ternium and ArcelorMittal accountable in court.
Reaching their final destination outside ArcelorMittal’s headquarters, the group raised their voices against ArcelorMittal’s shameless backtracking over the last year.
Performers demonstrated this ‘backtracking’ outside the company’s HQ, to the backdrop of the activists and their banners:
Lists of community grievances still unanswered by ArcelorMittal
Fair Steel Coalition members then attended the AGM, asked questions, and met with senior executives.
Speaking afterwards, John Brownell from Green Advocates Liberia, said:
I went to the AGM with pages of grievances from families across 3 counties. They answered my question by discussing their investment in jobs and hospitals, but did not address these harmful impacts. My next step is to send the full list of grievances from the lack of community consultation to the impacts on livelihoods. We now expect action and always free prior and informed consent.
Eduardo Mosqueda said:
I asked why ArcelorMittal has not engaged meaningfully with the coalition since we met last May. In response, a senior executive committed to even more formal communication links. True dialogue must happen, and must lead to an action plan that drives real change.
Executive Director of SteelWatch Caroline Ashley added:
Today confirmed that ArcelorMittal is in the back seat, not the driving seat of decarbonisation. AGM day should be the day to seek shareholder support for big strategic decisions. Serious action in line with the climate crisis and the climate footprint of the company needs a new strategy and serious investment. There was absolutely no sign of that today.
Over sixty organisations have written to UK government ministers ahead of a major meeting of the Council of Europe. They’re urging the Labour Party government to back proposals for an additional binding Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Specifically, it’s one that would finally recognise the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
ECHR: the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment
An Additional Protocol would strengthen the rights of all 675 million citizens living in Council of Europe member states. Recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment would harmonise standards in the region, provide legal certainty, strengthen domestic environmental legislation, protect vulnerable communities, and support environmental defenders.
It would also reaffirm the European Court of Human Rights’ legitimacy in addressing matters related to environmental rights. This would enable it to build on its significant and growing environmental jurisprudence, and improve the protection of lives and livelihoods for current and future generations.
On 13 May, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Drafting Group on Human Rights and the Environment will decide whether to move forward in drafting an Additional Protocol. This would formally recognise the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the ECHR. Countries including Portugal, Slovenia, Iceland, Georgia, and France back the move. However, the UK has yet to make its position clear.
The Council of Europe remains the only regional human rights system in the world that has not yet recognised this right. Though 42 of the 46 member states acknowledge it nationally or regionally, legal protection remains inconsistent across borders. This is despite the unanimous support expressed by Council of Europe Member States for the UN General Assembly’s 2022 resolution recognising the right to a healthy environment as a human right – and the collective commitment to strengthen the Council’s work on the human rights dimensions of environmental protection, reaffirmed at the 2023 Reykjavík Summit.
‘Environmental damage and human suffering are two sides of the same coin’
Kierra Box, trade and environmental regulation campaigner at Friends of the Earth England, Wales & Northern Ireland, said:
One look at the state of our sewage-filled rivers and seas will tell you just how critical a healthy environment is, not to mention the level of public outrage it’s caused. Yet companies who pollute with impunity, coupled with rising global temperatures, are threatening nature, undermining our human rights and putting people at risk. This is a chance for UK ministers to take a stand. Clean air, safe water and thriving wildlife are not luxuries, they are a human right and deserve legal recognition as such.
Chief officer at the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) Shivali Fifield said:
We face the triple planetary crisis of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the widespread pollution of our air, land and water. Environmental damage and human suffering are two sides of the same coin and Europe should guarantee legal protections for communities exposed to environmental harm if we are to address the root causes and intersections of social, environmental and climate injustice. We urge the UK government to demonstrate their commitment to upholding our human and environmental rights by voting to recognise our universal human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Senior policy officer at Wildlife & Countryside Link Niall Watson said:
Environmental inequality remains a major issue in the UK with millions of people living shorter, unhealthier lives because they are breathing polluted air, or don’t have access to greenspace which supports physical and mental health. Putting the right to a healthy environment in law would give local communities that are suffering from polluted air and rivers or losing access to local nature a greater ability to hold our leaders to account.
The UK Government must raise the bar for nature and our communities. Now is the time for the Government to stop paying lip service to what is needed and give its backing to Europe-wide recognition of the peoples’ right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Early this year, as snow froze into sheets of solid ice, covering the ground for weeks, almost 20% of St. Louis Public School students were unhoused. Meanwhile, in warm town halls, former city Mayor Tishaura Jones praised a proposed new hazardous chemical facility, displaying the city’s economic priorities. St. Louis’s northside has long been subjected to the environmental effects of militarization, from the radiation secretly sprayed on residents of Pruitt Igoe and Northside communities in the 1950s, to the dumped cancer-causing Manhattan Project radioactive waste that poisoned ColdWater Creek. A proposed new Israeli Chemical Limited (ICL) facility in north St. Louis would not only be another colonial imposition, but it also poses disastrous environmental risks for the entire state.
Within a mile of the Carondelet ICL site, the EPA has identified unsafe levels of cancer-risking air toxins, hazardous waste, and wastewater discharge. The new facility would be built within 5 miles of intake towers and open-air sedimentation ponds that provide drinking water to St. Louis. An explosion or leak could destroy the city’s water supply and harm eastern Missouri towns along the Mississippi. ICL has committed multiple Environmental and Workplace Safety violations, including violating the Clean Air Act at its South City facility. In 2023, they were declared the worst environmental offenders by Israel’s own Environmental Protection Ministry after the 2017 Ashalim Creek disaster, and were fined $33 million.
ICL claims the new North City site is a safe and green facility for manufacturing lithium iron phosphate for electric vehicles; however, lithium manufacturing is hardly a green or safe process. Lithium and phosphorus mining require enormous amounts of freshwater – a protected resource – resulting in poisoned ecosystems and a limited water supply for residents and wildlife in the local communities where they are sourced.
In October 2024, a lithium battery plant in Fredericktown, Missouri, burst into flames, forcing residents to evacuate and killing thousands of fish in nearby rivers. The company had claimed to have one of the most sophisticated automated fire suppression systems in the world, yet it still caused a fire whose aftermath continues to affect residents today, with comparisons being drawn to East Palestine, Ohio. Meanwhile, in January, over 1,000 people in California had to evacuate due to a massive fire at a lithium facility, the fourth fire there since 2019. Despite ICL claiming that the new site will use a ‘safer’ form of lithium processing, it’s clear that lithium facilities are not as safe as profit-driven corporations claim them to be.
Officials cite ‘job creation’ as a major reason to expand ICL. Still, the new facility is only expected to create 150 jobs, and there is no evidence that these jobs will be given to people in the community where it is being built. Investing in black and minority businesses would lead to actual self-sustaining economic development.
Despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, local tax breaks, the backing of former Governor Mike Parsons, and approval from city committees, the facility’s opening is not a done deal. The St. Louis City Board of Alders could still intervene. Stopping a facility with this much federal and international backing would require massive pushback from Missourians. Residents deserve more information and input in this process, especially considering the city’s resistance to hearing public comments. Notably, when locals submitted a Sunshine request for the ICL permit in March, it was so heavily redacted that it was unreadable.
This facility would turn local black neighborhoods into environmental and military sacrifice zones, and our response to city, state, and federal leaders should be a definitive and resounding No!
Among the many lessons to be learnt by Australia’s defeated Liberal-National coalition parties from the election is that they should stop getting into bed with News Corporation.
Why would a political party outsource its policy platform and strategy to people with plenty of opinions, but no experience in actually running a government?
The result of the federal election suggests that unlike the coalition, many Australians are ignoring the opinions of News Corp Australia’s leading journalists such as Andrew Bolt and Sharri Markson.
Last Thursday, in her eponymous programme on Sky News Australia, Markson said:
For the first time in my journalistic career I’m going to also offer a pre-election editorial, endorsing one side of politics […] A Dutton prime ministership would give our great nation the fresh start we deserve.
Sharri Markson issues own Dutton endorsement as ACM says ‘Australia is Tanya Plibersek’https://t.co/UYh0xKeXPR
After a vote count that sees the Labor government returned with an increased majority, Bolt wrote a piece for the Herald Sunadmonishing voters:
No, the voters aren’t always right. This time they were wrong, and this gutless and incoherent Coalition should be ashamed. Australians just voted for three more years of a Labor government that’s left this country poorer, weaker, more divided and deeper in debt, and which won only by telling astonishing lies.
That’s staggering. If that’s what voters really like, then this country is going to get more of it, good and hard.
The Australian and most of News’ tabloid newspapers endorsed the coalition in their election eve editorials.
Repudiation of minor culture war
The election result was a repudiation of the minor culture war Peter Dutton reprised during the campaign when he advised voters to steer clear of the ABC and “other hate media”. It may have felt good alluding to “leftie-woke” tropes about the ABC, but it was a tactical error.
The message probably resonated only with rusted-on hardline coalition voters and supporters of right-wing minor parties.
But they were either voting for the coalition, or sending them their preferences, anyway. Instead, attacking the ABC sent a signal to the people the coalition desperately needed to keep onside — the moderates who already felt disappointed by the coalition’s drift to the right and who were considering voting Teal or for another independent.
Attacking just about the most trusted media outlet in the country simply gave those voters another reason to believe the coalition no longer represented their values.
Reporting from the campaign bus is often derided as shallow form of election coverage. Reporters tend to be captive to a party’s agenda and don’t get to look much beyond a leader’s message.
But there was real value in covering Dutton’s daily stunts and doorstops, often in the outer suburbs that his electoral strategy relied on winning over.
What was revealed by having journalists on the bus was the paucity of policy substance. Details about housing affordability and petrol pricing — which voters desperately wanted to hear — were little more than sound bites.
Steered clear of nuclear sites
This was obvious by Dutton’s second visit to a petrol station, and yet there were another 15 to come. The fact that the campaign bus steered clear of the sites for proposed nuclear plants was also telling.
— C h r i s @chrishehim.bsky.social (@ChrisHeHim1) May 4, 2025
The grind of daily coverage helped expose the lateness of policy releases, the paucity of detail and the lack of preparation for the campaign, let alone for government.
On ABC TV’s Insiders, the Nine Newspapers’ political editor, David Crowe, wondered whether the media has been too soft on Dutton, rather than too hard as some coalition supporters might assume.
He reckoned that if the media had asked more difficult questions months ago, Dutton might have been stress-tested and better prepared before the campaign began.
Instead, the coalition went into the election believing it would be enough to attack Labor without presenting a fully considered alternative vision. Similarly, it would suffice to appear on friendly media outlets such as News Corp, and avoid more searching questions from the Canberra press gallery or on the ABC.
Reporters and commentators across the media did a reasonable job of exposing this and holding the opposition to account. The scrutiny also exposed its increasingly desperate tactics late in the campaign, such as turning on Welcome to Country ceremonies.
If many Australians appear more interested in what their prospective political leaders have to say about housing policy or climate change than the endless culture wars being waged by the coalition, that message did not appear to have been heard by Peta Credlin.
The Sky News Australia presenter and former chief-of-staff to prime minister Tony Abbott said during Saturday night’s election coverage “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war”.
Nauru’s ambition to commercially mine the seabed is likely at risk following President Donald Trump’s executive order last month aimed at fast-tracking ocean mining, anti-deep sea mining advocates warn.
The order also increases instability in the Pacific region because it effectively circumvents long-standing international sea laws and processes by providing an alternative path to mine the seabed, advocates say.
Titled Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources, the order was signed by Trump on April 25. It directs the US science and environmental agency to expedite permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in US and international waters.
It has been condemned by legal and environmental experts around the world, particularly after Canadian mining group The Metals Company announced last Tuesday it had applied to commercially mine in international waters through the US process.
The Metals Company has so far been unsuccessful in gaining a commercial mining licence through the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Currently, the largest area in international waters being explored for commercial deep sea mining is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, located in the central Pacific Ocean. The vast area sits between Hawai’i, Kiribati and Mexico, and spans 4.5 million sq km.
The area is of high commercial interest because it has an abundance of polymetallic nodules that contain valuable metals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, which are used to make products such as smartphones and electric batteries. The minerals are also used in weapons manufacturing.
Benefits ‘for humankind as a whole’
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Clarion-Clipperton Zone falls under the jurisdiction of the ISA, which was established in 1994. That legislation states that any benefits from minerals extracted in its jurisdiction must be for “humankind as a whole”.
Nauru — alongside Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands — has interests in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone after being allocated blocks of the area through UNCLOS. They are known as sponsor states.
In total, there are 19 sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Nauru is leading the charge for deep sea mining in international waters. Image: RNZ Pacific/Caleb Fotheringham
Nauru and The Metals Company Since 2011, Nauru has partnered with The Metals Company to explore and assess its block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone for commercial mining activity.
It has done this through an ISA exploration licence.
At the same time, the ISA, which counts all Pacific nations among its 169-strong membership, has also been developing a commercial mining code. That process began in 2014 and is ongoing.
The process has been criticised by The Metals Company as effectively blocking it and Nauru’s commercial mining interests.
Both have sought to advance their respective interests in different ways.
In 2021, Nauru took the unprecedented step of utilising a “two-year” notification period to initiate an exploitation licencing process under the ISA, even though a commercial seabed mining code was still being developed.
An ISA commercial mining code, once finalised, is expected to provide the legal and technical regulations for exploitation of the seabed.
In the absence of a code
However, according to international law, in the absence of a code, should a plan for exploitation be submitted to the ISA, the body is required to provisionally accept it within two years of its submission.
While Nauru ultimately delayed enforcing the two-year rule, it remains the only state to ever invoke it under the ISA. It has also stated that it is “comfortable with being a leader on these issues”.
To date, the ISA has not issued a licence for exploitation of the seabed.
Meanwhile, The Metals Company has emphasised the economic potential of deep sea mining and its readiness to begin commercial activities. It has also highlighted the potential value of minerals sitting on the seabed in Nauru’s block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
“[The block represents] 22 percent of The Metals Company’s estimated resource in the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone and] . . . is ranked as having the largest underdeveloped nickel deposit in the world,” the company states on its website.
Its announcement on Tuesday revealed it had filed three applications for mining activity in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone under the US pathway. One application is for a commercial mining permit. Two are for exploration permits.
The announcement added further fuel to warnings from anti-deep sea mining advocates that The Metals Company is pivoting away from Nauru and arrangements under the ISA.
Last year, the company stated it intended to submit a plan for commercial mining to the ISA on June 27 so it could begin exploitation operations by 2026.
This date appears to have been usurped by developments under Trump, with the company saying on Tuesday that its US permit application “advances [the company’s] timeline ahead” of that date.
The Trump factor Trump’s recent executive order is critical to this because it specifically directs relevant US government agencies to reactivate the country’s own deep sea mining licence process that had largely been unused over the past 40 years.
President Donald Trump signs a proclamation in the Oval Office at the White House last month expanding fishing rights in the Pacific Islands to an area he described as three times the size of California. Image: RNZ screenshot APR
That legislation, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, states the US can grant mining permits in international waters. It was implemented in 1980 as a temporary framework while the US worked towards ratifying the UNCLOS Treaty. Since then, only four exploration licences have been issued under the legislation.
To date, the US is yet to ratify UNCLOS.
At face value, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act offers an alternative licensing route to commercial seabed activity in the high seas to the ISA. However, any cross-over between jurisdictions and authorities remains untested.
Now, The Metals Company appears to be operating under both in the same area of international waters — the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition’s Pacific regional coordinator Phil McCabe said it was unclear what would happen to Nauru.
“This announcement really appears to put Nauru as a partner of the company out in the cold,” McCabe said.
No Pacific benefit mechanism
“If The Metals Company moves through the US process, it appears that there is no mechanism or no need for any benefit to go to the Pacific Island sponsoring states because they sponsor through the ISA, not the US,” he said.
McCabe, who is based in Aotearoa New Zealand, highlighted extensive investment The Metals Company had poured into the Nauru block over more than 10 years.
He said it was in the company’s financial interests to begin commercial mining as soon as possible.
“If The Metals Company was going to submit an application through the US law, it would have to have a good measure of environmental data on the area that it wants to mine, and the only area that it has that data [for] is the Nauru block,” McCabe said.
He also pointed out that the size of the Nauru block The Metals Company had worked on in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone was the same as a block it wanted to commercially mine through US legislation.
Both are exactly 25,160 sq km, McCabe said.
RNZ Pacific asked The Metals Company to clarify whether its US application applied to Nauru and Tonga’s blocks. The company said it would “be able to confirm details of the blocks in the coming weeks”.
It also said it intended to retain its exploration contracts through the ISA that were sponsored by Nauru and Tonga, respectively.
Cook Islands nodule field – photo taken within Cook Islands EEZ. Image: Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority
Pacific Ocean a ‘new frontier’ Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) associate Maureen Penjueli had similar observations to McCabe regarding the potential impacts of Trump’s executive order.
Trump’s order, and The Metals Company ongoing insistence to commercially mine the ocean, was directly related to escalating geopolitical competition, she told RNZ Pacific.
“There are a handful of minerals that are quite critical for all kinds of weapons development, from tankers to armour like nuclear weapons, submarines, aircraft,” she said.
Currently, the supply and processing of minerals in that market, which includes iron, lithium, copper, cobalt and graphite, is dominated by China.
Between 40 and 90 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals are processed by China, Penjueli said. The variation is due to differences between individual minerals.
As a result, both Europe and the US are heavily dependent on China for these minerals, which according to Penjueli, has massive implications.
“On land, you will see the US Department of Defense really trying to seek alternative [mineral] sources,” Penjueli said.
“Now, it’s extended to minerals in the seabed, both within [a country’s exclusive economic zone], but also in areas beyond national jurisdictions, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which is here in the Pacific. That is around the geopolitical [competition] . . . and the US versus China positioning.”
Notably, Trump’s executive order on the US seabed mining licence process highlights the country’s reliance on overseas mineral supply, particularly regarding security and defence implications.
He said the US wanted to advance its leadership in seabed mineral development by “strengthening partnerships with allies and industry to counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources”.
The Metals Company and the US She believed The Metals Company had become increasingly focused on security and defence needs.
Initially, the company had framed commercial deep sea mining as essential for the world’s transition to green energies, she said. It had used that language when referring to its relationships with Pacific states like Nauru, Penjueli said.
However, the company had also begun pitching US policy makers under the Biden administration over the need to acquire critical minerals from the seabed to meet US security and defence needs, she said.
Since Trump’s re-election, it had also made a series of public announcements praising US government decisions that prioritised deep sea mining development for defence and security purposes.
In a press release on Trump’s executive order, The Metals Company chief executive Gerard Barron said the company had enough knowledge to manage the environmental risks of deep sea mining.
“Over the last decade, we’ve invested over half a billion dollars to understand and responsibly develop the nodule resource in our contract areas,” Barron said.
“We built the world’s largest environmental dataset on the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone], carefully designed and tested an off-shore collection system that minimises the environmental impacts and followed every step required by the International Seabed Authority.
“What we need is a regulator with a robust regulatory regime, and who is willing to give our application a fair hearing. That’s why we’ve formally initiated the process of applying for licenses and permits under the existing US seabed mining code,” Barron said.
ISA influenced by opposition faction
The Metals Company directed RNZ Pacific to a statement on its website in response to an interview request.
The statement, signed by Barron, said the ISA was being influenced by a faction of states aligned with environmental NGOs that opposed the deep sea mining industry.
Barron also disputed any contraventions of international law under the US regime, and said the country has had “a fully developed regulatory regime” for commercial seabed mining since 1989.
“The ISA has neither the mining code nor the willingness to engage with their commercial contractors,” Barron said. “In full compliance with international law, we are committed to delivering benefits to our developing state partners.”
President Trump’s executive order marks America’s return to “leadership in this exciting industry”, claims The Metals Company. Note the name “Gulf of America” on this map was introduced by President Trump in a controversial move, but the rest of the world regards it as the Gulf of Mexico, as recognised by officially recognised by the International Hydrographic Organisation. Image: Facebook/The Metals Company
‘It’s an America-first move’
Despite Barron’s observations, Penjueli and McCabe believed The Metals Company and the US were side-stepping international law, placing Pacific nations at risk.
McCabe said Pacific nations benefitted from UNCLOS, which gives rights over vast oceanic territories.
“It’s an America-first move,” said McCabe who believes the actions of The Minerals Company and the US are also a contravention of international law.
There are also significant concerns that Trump’s executive order has effectively triggered a race to mine the Pacific seabed for minerals that will be destined for military purposes like weapons systems manufacturing, Penjueli said.
Unlike UNCLOS, the US deep sea mining legislation does not stipulate that minerals from international waters must be used for peaceful purposes.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition’s Duncan Currie believes this is another tricky legal point for Nauru and other sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Potentially contravene international law
For example, should Nauru enter a commercial mining arrangement with The Metals Company and the US under US mining legislation, any royalties that may eventuate could potentially contravene international law, Currie said.
First, the process would be outside the ISA framework, he said.
Second, UNCLOS states that any benefits from seabed mining in international waters must benefit all of “humankind”.
Therefore, Currie said, royalties earned in a process that cannot be scrutinised by the ISA likely did not meet that stipulation.
Third, he said, if the extracted minerals were used for military purposes — which was a focus of Trump’s executive order — then it likely violates the principle that the seabed should only be exploited for peaceful purposes.
“There really are a host of very difficult legal issues that arise,” he added.
The Metals Company says ISA is being influenced by a faction of states aligned with environmental NGOs that oppose the deep sea mining industry. Image: Facebook/The Metals Company/RNZ
The road ahead Now more than ever, anti-deep sea mining advocates believe a moratorium on the practice is necessary.
Penjueli, echoing Currie’s concerns, said there was too much uncertainty with two potential avenues to commercial mining.
“The moratorium call is quite urgent at this point,” she said.
“We simply don’t know what [these developments] mean right now. What are the implications if The Metals Company decides to dump its Pacific state sponsored partners? What does it mean for the legal tenements that they hold in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone?”
In that instance, Nauru, which has spearheaded the push for commercial seabed mining alongside The Metals Company, may be particularly exposed.
Currently, more than 30 countries have declared support for a moratorium on deep sea mining. Among them are Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, New Caledonia, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Tuvalu.
On the other hand, Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga, and the Cook Islands all support deep sea mining.
Australia has not explicitly called for a moratorium on the practice, but it has also refrained from supporting it.
New Zealand supported a moratorium on deep sea mining under the previous Labour government. The current government is reportedly reconsidering this stance.
RNZ Pacific contacted the Nauru government for comment but did not receive a response.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
At 1am on Saturday 26 April, cops raided an Axe Drax supporter’s house. Police have now released them under investigation for burglary. This was all over an action where activists had written on some windows and a whiteboard with dry wipe pen in a private office.
Axe Drax: police raid activist’s house
Police seized their phone and laptop and denied them a phone call for 13 hours. While inside, police arrested and released arrestee supporter waiting at the station.
This follows Axe Drax and Reclaim the Power occupying the European headquarters of one of Drax’s biggest suppliers, Enviva, on Friday 25 April:
BREAKING: We stormed Enviva HQ today demanding an end to forest destruction & toxic pollution.
— Axe Drax @axedrax.bsky.social (@axe_drax) April 25, 2025
The arrest was over the action targeting Enviva, the world’s biggest wood pellet exporter. Despite this, the majority of the bail conditions are focused on Drax.
They include banning them from Drax’s AGM on 1 May and from Drax sites across the UK. Additionally, these also bar them and from Enviva’s European headquarters in York. Further to this, their bail conditions prohibit them from speaking about the arrest and raid over the internet.
Drax and Enviva: partners in deforestation
Drax Power Station, located near Selby in Yorkshire, is the world’s biggest woody biomass power station and the UK’s single largest carbon emitter.
The company sources from around the world, primarily the US, Canada, and the Baltic States. In many of these places, the company is responsible for razing high-risk forests, including old growth, ancient trees.
What’s more, Drax’s has situated its wood pellet production sites, predominantly in environmental justice communities. There, its operations emit large amounts of pollutants, such as PM10, PM2.5 and VOCs. Notably, these are linked to respiratory and pulmonary health impacts.
The UK government counts woody biomass as carbon neutral, allowing Drax to claim renewable energy subsidies.
Meanwhile, Enviva is the world’s largest producer of biomass wood pellets. Enviva is one of Drax’s main suppliers, providing about 15% of the wood pellets that Drax burns at is power station.
Its operations destroy 175,000 acres of Southern forests every year and it exports approximately 6.2 million metric tons of pellets per year.
Enviva’s plants are located in predominantly Black and brown, and low-income neighborhoods, where its facilities expose residents to tonnes of air pollution each year.
Whistleblowers have accused Enviva of sourcing almost exclusively whole trees and failing to replant forests. Scientific studies have concluded what on the ground research has been showing for years: that Enviva is contributing to deforestation in the US Southeast.
Police acting as Drax’s ‘private security’
Axe Drax spokesperson Rosie Gloster said:
What we are seeing here is yet another example of Drax treating the Police like their own private security. It’s beyond clear the raid and arrest were an attempt from Drax to crush dissent once again. Why else would the bail conditions focus on Drax – when it was an action targeting Enviva? Drax and Enviva are both companies who make their money from poisoning communities in the Southern US and destroying vital forests. We will not stop disrupting their destruction, this response alone shows we are having an impact.
A spokesperson from Reclaim the Power said:
Just like last summer, when Police spent over £3 million shutting down our peaceful climate camp, Drax have once again treated the Police like their own private security. It is clear that Drax and Enviva will do anything they can to avoid a light being shone on their poisonous pollution and destruction. Using Police as a tool to repress dissent is an age old technique by polluters like Drax – we will not let them intimate us.
Moves by the Trump administration to draw up a new regulatory framework for types of toxic chemicals has sparked suspicion among health advocates who fear the changes will protect polluters but not public health. The concerns come after U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday rolled out preliminary plans to tackle widespread environmental contamination by…
Greenpeace has condemned an announcement by The Metals Company to submit the first application to commercially mine the seabed.
“The first application to commercially mine the seabed will be remembered as an act of total disregard for international law and scientific consensus,” said Greenpeace International senior campaigner Louisa Casson.
“This unilateral US effort to carve up the Pacific Ocean already faces fierce international opposition. Governments around the world must now step up to defend international rules and cooperation against rogue deep sea mining.
“Leaders will be meeting at the UN Oceans Conference in Nice in June where they must speak with one voice in support of a moratorium on this reckless industry.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Juressa Lee said: “The disastrous effects of deep sea mining recognise no international borders in the ocean.
“This will be another case of short-term profits for a very few, from the Global North, with the Pacific bearing the destructive impacts for generations to come.”
Bypassed ISA rules
Trump’s action bypasses the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the regulatory body which protects the deep sea and decides whether deep sea mining can take place in international waters.
“The Metals Company and Donald Trump are wilfully ignoring the rules-based international order and the science that deep sea mining will wreak havoc on the oceans,”said Lee.
“Pacific Peoples have deep cultural ties to the ocean, and we regard ‘home’ as more ocean than land. Our ancestors were wayfarers and ocean custodians who have traversed the Pacific and protected our livelihoods for future generations.
“This is the Indigenous knowledge we should be led by, to safeguard our planet and our environment. Deep sea mining is not the answer to the green transition away from carbon-based fossil fuels — it’s another false solution.”
President Trump’s order follows negotiations in March at the ISA, at which governments refused to give wannabe miners The Metals Company a clear pathway to an approved mining application via the ISA.
Thirty two countries around the world publicly support a moratorium on deep sea mining.
Millions of people have spoken out against this dangerous emerging industry.
Promoted as “Just Paradise,” Lord Howe Island hundreds of kilometers east of Australia is a unique environment home to plants and fauna found nowhere else in the world.
This pristine and remote remnant of an ancient volcano is also the nesting site of a far-ranging species of seabird that has become a signature casualty of the vast amounts of plastic waste entering the oceans.
A recent study by Australian researchers has provided alarming new evidence of the plastics burden on wildlife. It points to profound changes in Sable Shearwater chicks unwittingly fed plastic by their parents – from signs of failing organs to brain damage that could impair the ability to mate.
Every year, dead birds wash up on the beaches of Lord Howe Island, sometimes in their hundreds, with what researchers say are severe symptoms of swallowing large amounts of plastic – emaciation, poorly developed feathers and deformities.
For their study, the researchers turned their attention to Shearwater chicks that appeared outwardly healthy to understand what deeper changes could be occurring.
“These apparently healthy chicks are already compromised,” said Jack Rivers-Auty, an immune system expert at University of Tasmania’s medical school. “We’re now seeing that reflected in poorer survival outcomes and weight trajectories over time,” he told Radio Free Asia.
“By studying birds that seem outwardly well, we can more clearly assess the hidden impact of plastic on their long-term survival and physiology,” he said.
More than 400 pieces of plastic removed from the stomach of a 90-day-old Sable Shearwater chick are shown on the right of this photo.(Justin Gilligan)
Lord Howe is close to the east Australian current that carries warm Coral Sea waters south. Relatively still ocean eddies that form off the current are places where floating debris including plastics can accumulate into rafts of debris. Shearwaters likely mistake the objects for prey, especially squid, a main part of their diet – ingesting it themselves and also feeding it to their offspring.
The birds’ migration takes them over most of the Pacific Ocean, which Jennifer Provencher, a conservation biologist not involved in the study, said means they “have an incredible exposure to plastics for their entire lifecycle.”
The stress of ingesting lots of plastic – which the species, unlike gulls, can’t regurgitate unassisted – likely also manifests itself in hormonal changes that impair the robustness of eggs and chicks, Provencher told RFA.
“It’s a combination of this bird’s inability to barf things back up and the fact that they live and migrate throughout the entire Pacific Ocean,” she said.
The study uses “very cool” techniques, Provencher said, but more research is needed to gauge the relevance to seabirds in general, which number in the hundreds of species.
“It’s hard to generalize,” she said. “More understanding is needed of how applicable this work is beyond this species and this place.”
Tugboats assist a damaged British destroyer at Lord Howe Island, Aug. 6, 2002.(Tim Wimborne/Reuters)
Convenient and cheap, plastics are produced in ever growing volumes and found in every nook and cranny of daily life – from the flimsy stools at street food stalls in Southeast Asia to the componentry of sophisticated smartphones and the hundreds of billions of water bottles and plastic bags discarded worldwide every year after just seconds of use.
Mostly unrecycled, plastic waste has a lifespan of centuries and is exacting an increasing toll on the environment including in the oceans where it injures and kills marine and bird life.
Oil producers including Russia and Saudi Arabia slowed negotiations on an international treaty to control plastic waste to a crawl.
In April and May of 2023, the Australian researchers captured healthy looking Shearwater chicks on Lord Howe Island and flushed their stomachs with water – a technique known as gastric lavage – to induce regurgitation.
If they vomited less than five pieces of plastic or 0.5 grams in total, they were categorized as being less plastic exposed and vice versa.
One chick vomited up 403 pieces of plastic.
Researchers perform gastric lavage on a Sable Shearwater to safely flush and remove ingested plastics in this undated photo from Lord Howe Island, Australia.(Jack Rivers-Auty)
Using a relatively novel technique, the blood of the chicks was analyzed for an array of proteins and other signatures, which provided telltale signs of greater health effects for chicks that had larger quantities of plastic in their stomachs.
Cell contents that should not be found in the blood were frequently detected, which the researchers said was indicative of cell breakdown.
Proteins secreted by organs were less abundant, indicating that the stomach, liver and kidneys were not functioning normally, according to the study.
The signatures included evidence of neurodegeneration in chicks less than three months old that has the potential to affect the birds’ “song-control system” – crucial for identifying the opposite sex and courtship.
The researchers’ theory is that the swallowed plastic is shedding very small fragments known as microplastics that are transported into the organs.
Leaching of chemicals from the plastic is another possibility.
“It’s a bit like smoking: from the outside, a smoker might look fine, but internally, significant health issues are often developing,” said Auty.
“We’ve documented plastic items originating from all over the Pacific, including debris with non-English writing, which shows how far these plastics are traveling,” Auty said.
“It’s not just local pollution. It’s a global issue washing up and circulating in the region.”
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Stephen Wright for RFA.
The Port of Oakland’s surrounding Black communities have fought for decades for their right to cleaner air. Now that dream is within reach. In October 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the port a $322 million grant to transition its cargo handling operations to zero emissions. Matched by the port and local partners, the total investment will be close to half a billion dollars, all flowing into green, sustainable energy. This effort will reduce the more than 69,000 tons of yearly greenhouse gas — the equivalent of burning more than 160 Statues of Liberty’s weight in coal — emitted by drayage trucks, cranes, forklifts, and tractors.
We speak with two brothers who are fighting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, used to run its chatbot Grok. The facility is next to historically Black neighborhoods and is powered by 35 pollution-spewing methane gas turbines the company is using without legal permits. Musk says he wants to continue expanding the project. “What’…
An ocean conservation non-profit has condemned the United States President’s latest executive order aimed at boosting the deep sea mining industry.
President Donald Trump issued the “Unleashing America’s offshore critical minerals and resources” order on Thursday, directing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to allow deep sea mining.
The order states: “It is the policy of the US to advance United States leadership in seabed mineral development.”
NOAA has been directed to, within 60 days, “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.”
Ocean Conservancy said the executive order is a result of deep sea mining frontrunner, The Metals Company, requesting US approval for mining in international waters, bypassing the authority of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
US not ISA member
The ISA is the United Nations agency responsible for coming up with a set of regulations for deep sea mining across the world. The US is not a member of the ISA because it has not ratified UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
“This executive order flies in the face of NOAA’s mission,” Ocean Conservancy’s vice-president for external affairs Jeff Watters said.
“NOAA is charged with protecting, not imperiling, the ocean and its economic benefits, including fishing and tourism; and scientists agree that deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavor for our ocean and all of us who depend on it,” he said.
He said areas of the US seafloor where test mining took place more than 50 years ago still had not fully recovered.
“The harm caused by deep sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Bosses of oil and gas companies, and a privatised water utility company, have been targeted with attempted citizen’s arrests by a new direct action group hoping to achieve environmental justice.
Actions by the Citizen’s Arrest Network (CAN) started appearing on social media feeds in March and April 2025, showing smartly dressed members of the group approaching senior executives of companies and attempting to perform citizen’s arrests.
The Citizen’s Arrest Network: a new direct action group fighting the CEOs of big polluters
The activists said they had dossiers which they say provide evidence of crimes ranging from public nuisance to mismanagement of customer funds.
CAN claims it has been successful in placing the company representatives under citizen’s arrest, but it appears that it has not physically held the individuals, and no police action appears to have taken place.
The companies did not provide comment when approached by the Canary.
CAN: a response to crackdown on mainstream protests
The Canary spoke with Citizen’s Arrest Network spokesperson Gail Lynch, who said CAN started because there was no response to the climate crisis “by anyone with any true power” and “things were only getting worse” despite petitions, letters, marches, and protests.
Lynch said:
This is mirrored in other industries where profit comes first and the impacts are ignored.
She continued:
It feels like this relentless, almost desperate drive to maximise financial return at all costs is well and truly out of control.
Lynch said protests against environmentally damaging activities:
get panned in the media and activists are increasingly penalised for their attempts to raise awareness.
More than a dozen activists from Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have been jailed for their parts in direct action protests in recent years. The custodial sentences were handed out following a crackdown on environmental activism by the Conservative government. The Labour government appears content to carry on with the authoritarian treatment of protesters.
Therefore, Lynch said that:
It was time for something different, and so almost two years ago, the idea was borne and a huge amount of research began. How could we approach the individuals behind the logos and request that they cease and desist The executives at the helm of these organisations are the ones taking the decisions, and therefore need to be held to account.
Killing of health insurance exec threw focus on corporate leaders
In December 2024, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed in New York City, in an attack apparently motivated by a hatred of the conduct of private health insurance companies and their denial of care to Americans.
The killing of Thompson sent jitters around corporate executives that they might personally be targeted because of public perceptions of the conduct of their companies.
In the aftermath of the attack, mainstream media outlets expressed shock at the lack of sympathy expressed by the public towards the CEO’s family, and the admiration some showed towards suspect Luigi Mangione.
In a March 2025 statement on its website, CAN said it handed “draft indictment papers” against executives at BP and Shell to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) because the group:
believes that all executive staff at both oil majors have been instructed to stay away from head offices.
The statement said CAN believed the “stay away” notice has been issued “in response to citizen’s arrests” carried out by the group.
How legitimate are citizen’s arrests?
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 says that:
A person other than a constable may arrest without a warrant … anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence
And it states that:
anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an indictable offence.
Lynch said:
Whilst we might imagine a stand up citizen tearing after and rugby tackling a bank robber to the ground, that’s not how it reads in law.
University of Reading’s Reading Centre for Climate and Justice director professor Chris Hilson told the Canary there are “technical risks” to performing citizen’s arrests.
The risks include the possibility of the citizen’s arrest itself being a criminal offence or being sued in a civil court for assault or false imprisonment, he said.
Why is CAN using citizen’s arrests in particular?
Lynch said CAN is:
simply motivated by the need for these individuals to stop, think twice about the harm their work causes and recognise that they have the power to make the change that is needed.
She continued that executives who don’t stop and change their ways:
need to be arrested, charged and prosecuted on grounds of Public Nuisance for the serious harm they inflict by virtue of their employment.
She also said CAN:
is not a protest, it’s a legal campaign operating within the bounds of the law.
Lynch told the Canary that CAN wants the companies the group is targeting to:
realise they can not hide anymore, we see them, and we know the individuals leading the charge towards irreparable damage to our planet’s health.
Moreover, she expressed that:
If people think twice about taking up such jobs in the future, that’s a win, but the best thing would be that they accept that their days are done and start in earnest a true shift to cheaper, cleaner energy for all.
She also said she wants the campaign to pass “the pub test” and get the public talking about why CAN is carrying out its actions:
We want local communities everywhere talking about why we did what we did, do what we do and agree that it’s an important way to shine a light on people behind the scenes taking harmful decisions and doing damaging business.
CAN needs support for its legal endeavours
She also made a plea for funding to support the legal side of CAN’s work:
We need funds to support our legal endeavours and to bring justice to bear on people who are breaking the law.
Lynch said that:
Lawyers are committed and generous with their time but they need to be paid and the research takes time to uncover and be carefully checked. In short we need resource and money to help us hold the biggest culprits to account.
In the end these arrests are more performative than real.
However, the performativity of the act does not necessarily mean it is not effective. He explained:
Throwing paint at works of art and stopping traffic no longer really work for the climate and environmental movement.
Those types of protests have been criminalised, making them harder; but they are in any event viewed by many members of the public as ‘irresponsible’, which has put them off the message.
Hilson added that he thought:
climate and environmental messages need to be landing now more than ever.
This new tactic of citizens’ arrests, in contrast, looks much more like ‘responsible’ citizenly behaviour.
And the arrests squarely target those who are, in a very different sense, responsible for climate and environmental harm, and not members of the public.
Those being arrested now become seen as the irresponsible ones.
Despite the self-imposed chaos disrupting the federal government, public health watchdogs say the Trump administration’s strategy for axing pollution protections on behalf of its allies in wealthy industries is more sophisticated than what was seen during the president’s first term. Advocates for communities overburdened by industrial pollution and the impacts of climate change say years of…
According to the 40th annual America’s Most Endangered Rivers report by American Rivers, half the rivers in the United States contain unsafe pollution levels, with freshwater species becoming extinct faster than land or ocean species.
The Mississippi River topped the list, with federal flood management changes putting the health of the river at risk, jeopardizing the safety and clean water of those who depend upon it.
Flooding is the most common and costly natural disaster within the Mississippi River Basin, according to the report. More severe and frequent floods have damaged homes, agriculture and businesses.
The disaster of water privatisation is never ending. It turns out, water companies have overseen a large increase in serious sewage pollution incidents. They’re at a ten year high, according to data that Surfers Against Sewage obtained. There were 2,487 incidents in 2024, which is over twice the limit that the Environment Agency (EA) set.
This is separate to the total number of sewage spills, which stood at 3.614 million hours of spillages into our lakes, rivers and seas in 2024.
The EA set a target that water companies must collectively deliver a 40% reduction in pollution incidents compared with 2016. But instead there was a 31% increase.
“Staggering” sewage pollution shows Surfers Against Sewage
Giles Bristow, the chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, said:
The numbers are staggering: record hours of sewage discharges, huge bill increases, thousands of people becoming ill and yet still the industry has the gall to still pay out billions of bill-payer money to shareholders. Things could not be clearer: this broken system needs urgent and radical reform.
Since privatisation, water companies have paid out £78bn in dividends. That’s money that could’ve been invested in infrastructure to improve the sewage system through increasing capacity and dealing with sewage and rainwater separately. Meanwhile, every year we are charged £5bn more because of the private ownership model, according to research from the University of Greenwich.
Bristow continued:
We can change things if we change the way our system is run. Across the globe, the norm is to manage water at a local level, rather than the 100% private ownership model in place in England that has proved catastrophic for the environment and public health.
England and Wales are the only countries to have privatised the actual water infrastructure, rather than some other countries that only contract private companies to manage it. That said, it’s unclear why you can’t pay people to do that in-house.
Privatised water delivers unclean environment
There is a correlation between public ownership of water systems and a cleaner environment. Countries with water in 100% public ownership like Cyprus, Austria, and Malta have above 95% excellent water in bathing sites. By contrast, the UK’s privatised system harbours an average of 66.3% excellent water, putting us near the bottom of our European counterparts.
And over in Scotland, publicly owned water has overseen proportionately five times more rivers in good condition compared to England with its huge sewage problem.
Under public ownership, it’s cheaper to invest in infrastructure because the government has the entire nation’s tax bill as its security. It can also invest through quantitative easing. Public ownership also prioritises social good over private profit. So the water utilities are less likely to cut corners in order to protect short-term shareholder gains.
Referring to the best performing publicly owned water companies, water expert and winner of the Stockholm Water Prize Professor Asit Biswas said:
Not a single privatised water utility comes even close to their performance
The Glasgow University academic also said:
Water supply is not rocket science. We have known what to do for decades. Sadly, all the British water utilities fall well short of good practices
Biswas does point out that public ownership is not a silver bullet. There are still publicly owned water companies that mismanage sewage and perform badly. But the bottom line that it’s cheaper to own water, something we literally need to survive, than it is to rent it from rich people, is clear.
Undertones singer-turned-anti-sewage campaigner Feargal Sharkey has been fighting shit on multiple fronts. The latest turd of a tall-tale is from the very government body – the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) – responsible for mopping up the almighty mess of a regulatory system on sewage.
This is because, Defra now has the audacity to claim it’s “taking rapid action” on polluters – when it couldn’t be clearer the Labour Party government is doing nothing of the sort.
And notably, Defra’s latest exercise in pumping out PR bullshit has made one thing patently apparent. That is, the government’s key environment arm should really be renamed Department for doing diddly squat on sewage pollution.
Don’t look now, Defra is going to do bugger all to bring big sewage polluters to heel
On Sunday 13 April, Defra was out blowing its own trumpet full of bullshit all over X:
As Feargal Sharkey highlighted however, the little PR stunt is not really all as it seems.
For one, the plans it hyped up are not really news, because they’re not actually anything new.
The government had previously announced £104bn of private sector investment. But, when you put this in the context of the dividends and bonuses companies have paid out, it looks a lot less ‘new’ investment, than playing catching up. As the Canary’s James Wright recently underscored:
Water and sewage companies have paid out £73 billion in dividends since Margaret Thatcher initiated privatisation. Additionally, the average pay for water and sewage company CEOs in England is around £1.7m. And they have received £25m in bonuses and incentives since 2019.
Thanks to all that rank profiteering, consumer bills are over a third what they should be.
And, there’s another huge problem there too. Notably, there’s nothing stopping these profit-skimming racketeers from passing the costs of this investment to consumers:
Over the next 12 months, UK households will be charged an estimated £17bn for water.
Even if costs were frozen for 10 years, that’s £170bn in a decade.
Just nationalise the whole damn thing. It would cost less, the service couldn’t be worse, & we’ll never get control without it. https://t.co/NRYZkL7xOE
We already know spineless industry regulator Ofwat sure as hell isn’t going to stop them. It is, after all beholden to a ‘growth duty’, which goes some way to explaining its pitiful record protecting the public from private water’s de facto persistent price-gouging. That is, after all, privatised public services and human rights in a nutshell.
Ofwat just laying cover for the industry like usual
Then, there’s the bosses’ bonus ban. It’s part of the government’s new law, that parliament passed in September 2024. The Water (Special Measures) Act came into force in February.
Is the ban painfully close, but no cigar on the concerted change that needs to happen? Not even that.
Here’s what Defra’s bluster-fuck has actually meant so far. Yes, the new Act does mean regulators can ban bosses’ bonuses. No, that doesn’t mean it will actually do it on anything like the scale the slimy water company CEOs deserve. Water regulator Ofwat told the Guardian in March that it was:
near-certain to ban some water CEO bonuses this year.
That ‘near’ and ‘some’ is obviously doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that statement. In other words, what the regulator was saying, was that it’s going to take action on a handful, if that, of company CEOs to make it look like it’s taking this “rapid action”. As ever with this half-assed Labour government, it’s all about the strongman optics.
All that’s only after a consultation anyway, because if there’s one thing this Labour Party shitshow love, it’s a kicking-the-can-down-the-road consultation.
And, it doesn’t really get better when you look at what Ofwat is actually proposing. For instance, it suggests that the government could prohibit bonuses if:
the company has received a 1-star (“poor performing”) rating in the Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) for the calendar year preceding the end of the PRP [performance related executive pay] payment year.
Might that be the abysmally pointless and failing star-rating system that’s let sewage companies score “industry leader” level ratings while pumping UK waterways full of crap?
Labour previously indicated it is mooting tinkers to this which will deny companies “the highest score” if they mark down poorly in the sewage discharge metric. See the problem here yet?
Water companies might not get a full sweep if they maintain their sewage-polluting ways, but they could still wrack up two, or even three stars thanks to other metrics. Meaning, in other words, they won’t fall foul of Ofwat’s “1-star (“poor performing”) rating”.
As Feargal Sharkey spelled out at the time, CEOs from the likes of big polluters Severn Trent, and United Utilities basically used the ranking system to their advantage:
Conceived as a name and shame them exercise the Environmental Assessment was supposed to ‘nudge’ WCs into good behaviour turns out it had exactly the opposite effect. CEOs just used it to blag bigger bonuses. Ho hum.https://t.co/m5ry3Kt7dt
Apparently though, toothless Ofwat’s new plan to lay cover for the industry will mean that they hardly even need the top ranking. Anything more than one star – bonuses all round (for the execs that is).
Water pollution criminals get their comeuppance? Don’t be ridiculous
Moreover, as Sharkey has previously pointed out, why should it stop at the water company CEOs? The privatisation buck sure as hell doesn’t stop at them, so the ban shouldn’t either.
That is, the government should be going after the scummy private investors that ultimately profiteer a pretty penny out of pumping our waterways full of poo. Name and shame, and ban the bonuses of the banks, the hedge funds, the big shareholders. Like, for instance, the former Thames Water owner and “vampire kangaroo” Macquarie that left London’s sewage infrastructure a leaking, dripping state of disrepair and made off with all the profits.
And if you thought literal criminal records could put a stop to CEOs paying themselves handsome payouts, think again. Ofwat thinks that there should be “exceptions”. Supposedly, this would apply where courts determine there is “low/no harm or culpability”.
Paging another on-point dress-down from Feargal Sharkey, who’s previously articulated just how useless will be in practice too. Look at all the criminal prosecutions UK governments have taken out on water company bosses:
“Water company bosses could face prison time in new Labour crackdown on sewage infested rivers, lakes and seas.”
That idea is already part of the Companies Act and has been for almost 20 years. Wanna know how many company bosses have ever been prosecuted never mind gone to jail…
The only potential saving grace might be the bonus ban plan for companies wracking up financial penalties.
Here’s Thames Water in all its financial penalty glory. Pathetic slaps on the wrist to be sure, but if in future these prohibit bosses’ bonuses, that’s one small boon. However, there’s a catch again. It would ONLY apply to fines from Ofwat over “consumer matters”. So it wouldn’t be for fines from other regulatory bodies like the Environment Agency.
This ties in with new regulatory powers the Labour Party introduced in February 2024. The new rules would enable Ofwat to impose fines of up to 10% of the company’s turnover.
Again though, let’s be real – Ofwat is still only on the consultation stage of this – meaning that no companies to date have received such penalties.
Reeking of reputation management over sewage chaos
Call it whatever else you like, but a bunch of pending consultations does not for “rapid action” make. If it even makes for ‘action’ at all.
We might be gracious and give the gov the benefit of the doubt, if, a big IF, it weren’t for the small fact that, it has done basically bugger all to date.
So when all is said and done, Defra has shit spewing out its PR-mongering orifice too, as one unconvinced X user aptly put:
The Defra post reeking of government reputation and crisis management? Say no more.
It’s more masterclass in Orwellian double-think than doubling down on big polluters at the end of the day:
This needs a rewrite:
For years and years (decades), Defra and its agencies have systematically failed in their regulatory duty to stop destructive water companies from killing our home rivers. https://t.co/DSzBxuMpnl
In fact, it’s astonishing the department could drum up any achievements amid the stinking pile of failures it has to its name. Instead, one person on X was ready and raring to rattle off an example of water company sewage crimes the government has done nothing to redress:
Cranfleet lock, sawley Derbyshire Saturday 6am, seventrent water ,no rain for 2 weeks ,still dumping crap everyday for the last 5 years !!!! Keep up the great work you’re not doing !!!!! pic.twitter.com/8WKTYcjxj3
So, like Defra says: #TheBoatRace2025, am I right?
Here, here, Feargal Sharkey
Yet, even the middle class and upper elite echelons of the Oxford Vs Cambridge University annual boat race haven’t been buying it. On 9 April, Oxford rowers lambasted the appalling levels of sewage in the Thames. Notably, three members of last year’s race came down with stomach bugs before the race.
President Donald Trump and his administration have called it the “Great American Comeback.” But environmental advocates say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reversing course on enforcing air and water pollution laws is more of a throwback — one that will exacerbate health risks for children who live and study in the shadows of petrochemical facilities. The American Lung Association…
On January 15, a group of utility companies wrote a letter to Lee Zeldin, then president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. “We provide the electricity for millions of homes, businesses, and institutions across the U.S., create thousands of good-paying jobs, and drive economic progress and American prosperity,” the letter stated.
One of the largest studies ever conducted on biodiversity loss worldwide has revealed that humans are having a severely detrimental impact on global wildlife.
The number of species is declining, as well as the composition of populations.
“Biological diversity is under threat. More and more plant and animal species are disappearing worldwide, and humans are responsible. Until now, however, there has been no synthesis of the extent of human intervention in nature and whether the effects can be found everywhere in the world and in all groups of organisms,” a press release from University of Zurich (UZH) said.
Missy’s Grill sits off a tree-lined stretch near where Interstate 40 and I-85 merge, an unassuming diner advertised by no billboard, no lit sign — just “Missy’s Grill” in white plastic lettering. Del Ward stands in the parking lot, gesturing emphatically across the road at a cattle farm that was nearly turned into a gas station the size of a small mall.
It would have been the first Buc-ee’s travel stop in North Carolina.
Five years ago, Ward was on his way to Missy’s for a sandwich when he noticed a little sign about a zoning meeting. That’s how he learned about the proposed mega gas station in his tiny hometown.
An international group of scientists have taken action across the world to challenge a major extractivist project that’s set to endanger the health and livelihoods of local communities in southwest Peru. To mark World Water Day 2025 on 22 March, activists from Scientist Rebellion mobilised a range of global actions in solidarity with communities fighting the impending river pollution-disaster, the Tia María copper mine in the agricultural Tambo Valley.
Communities have been fighting the controversial Tia María copper mine for over 15 years. Crucially, local Indigenous residents have voiced overwhelming opposition to the project that will pollute rivers and endanger their agricultural subsistence and livelihoods.
An international group of scientists have taken action across the world to challenge a major extractivist project that’s set to endanger the health and livelihoods of local communities in southwest Peru. To mark World Water Day 2025 on 22 March, activists from Scientist Rebellion mobilised a range of global actions in solidarity with communities fighting the impending river pollution-disaster, the Tia María copper mine in the agricultural Tambo Valley.
Tia María mine: a river pollution disaster waiting to happen
Communities have been fighting the controversial Tia María copper mine for over 15 years. Crucially, local Indigenous residents have voiced overwhelming opposition to the project that will pollute rivers and endanger their agricultural subsistence and livelihoods.
Southern Copper, a subsidiary of US-registered corporation Grupo Mexico is the company pushing forward the project.
Over 96% of residents in the districts of Cocachacra, Punta de Bombón and Deán Valdivia voted against the mine in a September 2009 popular consultation. They feel that they’ve taken a clear stance on the project each time it’s been attempted, but officials aren’t listening.
In 2011, the project was suspended after a U.N. agency reviewed the plans for the mine and issued 138 recommendations to address environmental and social concerns. Communities organized marches in response to the U.N. findings, resulting in the death of three people during clashes with law enforcement.
When officials tried reviving the project again in 2015, residents declared an indefinite strike with support from several local mining unions. It led to more clashes with law enforcement that saw seven people killed and over a hundred injured.
However, despite this drawn-out battle against it, in July 2024, Peru’s government greenlit the project once more.
Now, despite popular opposition, the Minister of Energy and Mines of Perú Jorge Montero has announced that Grupo Mexico could start construction of the Tia María mine as early as August or September 2025.
World Water Day 2025: NO to polluting mining projects
Given all this, scientists around the world carried out a global day of action against the development on World Water Day 2025:
Tia Maria is a copper mining project that Southern Copper and Grupo Mexico Peru, Inc want to start in Peru this year. The mine site is on the Coast of the Pacific Ocean of South America, in the Islay province of Peru. pic.twitter.com/1i8AHFuvUQ
Activists in Peru, Mexico, Germany, and the US have initiated a wide range of actions, such as banner drops and street protests. They also launched a digital campaign – sending letter to political representatives and to the companies itself.
The international community participating in the actions, support the demand from the local protest against the Tia Maria mine: YES TO AGRO, NO TO MINE. They are calling for the definitive closure of Tia María mine.
The group intends to continue taking action against the mine in the coming months. They aim to hold Grupo Mexico, stakeholders, governments, and the United Nations to account for the high risks the project poses on local communities and the environment, including:
Endangering original local people that have been opposing the mine for years. Their struggle has already caused too many casualties of defenders of water and the territory.
Storing 208,000 m3 of toxic liquid wastes with acids and cobalt in leaching ponds located above the towns, valley and river.
Intense infrastructure restructuring in a region dependent on currently flourishing agriculture (e.g. water pipeline, railway, tension electric lines, water pumps)
Grupo Mexico: US company soon to wreak havoc in Peru
Of course, Scientists Rebellion have also highlighted the Grupo Mexico’s abysmal record wrecking the environment and harming local communities elsewhere.
History has proven that disaster is right around the corner. In 2014, the Buenavista del Cobre copper mine in Mexico – also owned by Grupo Mexico – was responsible for a gargantuan spill of acid toxic residues. It was branded “the worst ecocide in the history of Mexico”.
In Tia María Peru, a spill would be much worse than the one in Mexico, because human settlements are situated between the toxic ponds and the river. Every ton of copper – 100,000 per year is planned – the Tia María mine would produce, means putting the population and ecosystem at significant risk. Moreover, the group has underscored its climate costs, articulating that high consumption level of energy for the operation would generate significant emissions to boot.
Dr Isaac Santoyo, a professor doing research on the health effects of living close to mines, said:
The mine is dependent on official subsidies, which also feeds the image of sustainability they like to portray publicly. However, to even look into the report about the mine, you have to pay $2,250. We are funding our own collapse and are not even able to look into the reports that track it. We have seen similar occurrences time and time again and we will not accept another ecological and social disaster to unravel further.
Echoing this, Dr Ornela De Gasperin Quintero from Scientist Rebellion called for immediate action against the polluting project:
In times of ecological and social crises, we do not need more production. We need redistribution. There are many well-researched alternative economic models, such as the degrowth model, that we can implement. However, politicians remain focused on growing profit instead of on life. We need to stand up against further extractivism and prioritise life! Everyone can join actions to put as much political pressure as possible before the planned opening of the mine in August or September. You can help by writing to officials, contacting local newspapers, organising and joining demonstrations, spreading stickers and banners and sharing the call to action in any shape that fits you best.
Experts and former employees say the Trump administration’s moves to fire key scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and dismantle clean air and water protections will make the United States a “sicker and poorer” place to live while demoralizing the next generation of environmental investigators and public health researchers. The rollbacks could lead to a significant increase…
American families will face increasing rates of environmental-related illnesses and premature deaths, including lung and cardiovascular diseases, due to the Trump administration’s sweeping rollbacks of air quality regulations, health professionals warn. The moves to slash roughly two dozen environmental and public health protections weaken rules dealing with a range of health threats…
On 14 March in London, climate crisis group Mothers Rise Up led a striking demonstration at 11am, calling on the UK government to take urgent action on air pollution. The event saw parents, grandparents, and children, along with colourful oversized props – including a giant inhaler and an NHS prescription for clean air – symbolising the critical need for government intervention:
Baroness Jenny Jones of the Green Party also joined the protest at Horseferry Playground, Victoria Tower Gardens to show her support:
From 14 to 17 March 2025, parents and families across the world united in a series of powerful #OurKidsAir actions to demand clean air for all children.
Mothers Rise Up: the government must act on air pollution
Playgrounds should be safe spaces for children to play and grow.
Yet in Britain, only 1% of the country’s 43,000 playgrounds meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended air pollution limits. Across the globe, more than 93% of children breathe dangerously polluted air, putting their health and development at risk.
Young children are especially vulnerable, as they breathe twice as fast as adults and spend more time outdoors. The primary driver of this toxic air is the burning of fossil fuels for transport, heating, cooking, and industry. This underscores the urgent need for a just and rapid transition away from fossil fuels to safe, clean renewable energy:
These events precede the WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health in Cartagena, Colombia (25-27 March), where mothers from Ecuador, India, South Africa, the USA/Puerto Rico, and the UK will demand urgent policy action to secure clean air for all children.
Mothers Rise Up is urging the UK government to fast-track a fair transition away from fossil fuels and invest in clean energy solutions to protect children’s health and the environment. The mothers are calling for an end to new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea and the permanent cancellation of the Rosebank oil field project:
They are also calling for the rejection of Heathrow’s planned third runway, which would increase air and noise pollution, undermining the progress achieved through London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ):
Move faster, stop ransacking the North Sea
A recent study revealed that London’s air quality has significantly improved since the ULEZ expansion, with sharp drops in harmful pollutants, particularly benefiting the city’s most deprived areas.
Baroness Jenny Jones from the Green Party, who supported the clean air action, said:
We’re all well aware that the emissions from burning oil and gas are highly polluting, and although demand for fossil fuels is decreasing, it’s happening too slowly for the millions of us who live in towns and cities with dirty air.
Adults with lung or heart problems are badly affected, but it’s even worse for children. They are even more vulnerable and will carry the impact for the rest of their lives.
Mothers Rise Up are doing valuable work in putting pressure on our government to move faster to clean energy and stop ransacking the North Sea for oil and gas.
Dr Lorna Powell from Mothers Rise Up said:
As an urgent care doctor, I see the health effects of breathing dirty air daily. From lung disease to strokes, heart attacks and dementia – every system in our body is exposed.
Children are particularly affected, as air pollution significantly harms their physical development and even leads to behaviour problems.
We know that the vast majority of this pollution comes from burning fossil fuels like oil and gas – it’s so important to move to renewable energy sources for our health, not just our planet.
The #OurKidsAir street actions and parent delegations are being coordinated by Our Kids’ Climate, an anchor organisation for the global movement of parents, grandparents, and carers taking action on climate change to protect the children they love.
Featured image and additional images via Anna Gordon 2025
SPECIAL REPORT: By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent in Majuro
The late Member of Parliament Jeton Anjain and the people of the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll changed the course of the history of the Marshall Islands by using Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship to evacuate their radioactive home islands 40 years ago.
They did this by taking control of their own destiny after decades of being at the mercy of the United States nuclear testing programme and its aftermath.
In 1954, the US tested the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, spewing high-level radioactive fallout on unsuspecting Rongelap Islanders nearby.
For years after the Bravo test, decisions by US government doctors and scientists caused Rongelap Islanders to be continuously exposed to additional radiation.
Marshall Islands traditional and government leaders joined Greenpeace representatives in showing off tapa banners with the words “Justice for Marshall Islands” during the dockside welcome ceremony earlier this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific
The 40th anniversary of the dramatic evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior — a few weeks before French secret agents bombed the ship in Auckland harbour — was spotlighted this week in Majuro with the arrival of Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior III to a warm welcome combining top national government leaders, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government and the Rongelap community.
“We were displaced, our lives were disrupted, and our voices ignored,” said MP Hilton Kendall, who represents Rongelap in the Marshall Islands Parliament, at the welcome ceremony in Majuro earlier in the week.
“In our darkest time, Greenpeace stood with us.”
‘Evacuated people to safety’
He said the Rainbow Warrior “evacuated the people to safety” in 1985.
Greenpeace would “forever be remembered by the people of Rongelap,” he added.
In 1984, Jeton Anjain — like most Rongelap people who were living on the nuclear test-affected atoll — knew that Rongelap was unsafe for continued habitation.
The Able US nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 1 July 1946. Image: US National Archives
There was not a single scientist or medical doctor among their community although Jeton was a trained dentist, and they mainly depended on US Department of Energy-provided doctors and scientists for health care and environmental advice.
They were always told not to worry and that everything was fine.
But it wasn’t, as the countless thyroid tumors, cancers, miscarriages and surgeries confirmed.
Crew of the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace officials — including two crew members from the original Rainbow Warrior, Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Hazen, from Aotearoa New Zealand – were welcomed to the Marshall Islands during a dockside ceremony in Majuro to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific
As the desire of Rongelap people to evacuate their homeland intensified in 1984, unbeknown to them Greenpeace was hatching a plan to dispatch the Rainbow Warrior on a Pacific voyage the following year to turn a spotlight on the nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands and the ongoing French nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia.
A Rainbow Warrior question
As I had friends in the Greenpeace organisation, I was contacted early on in its planning process with the question: How could a visit by the Rainbow Warrior be of use to the Marshall Islands?
Jeton and I were good friends by 1984, and had worked together on advocacy for Rongelap since the late 1970s. I informed him that Greenpeace was planning a visit and without hesitation he asked me if the ship could facilitate the evacuation of Rongelap.
At this time, Jeton had already initiated discussions with Kwajalein traditional leaders to locate an island that they could settle in that atoll.
I conveyed Jeton’s interest in the visit to Greenpeace, and a Greenpeace International board member, the late Steve Sawyer, who coordinated the Pacific voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, arranged a meeting for the three of us in Seattle to discuss ideas.
Jeton and I flew to Seattle and met Steve. After the usual preliminaries, Jeton asked Steve if the Rainbow Warrior could assist Rongelap to evacuate their community to Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, a distance of about 250 km.
Steve responded in classic Greenpeace campaign thinking, which is what Greenpeace has proved effective in doing over many decades. He said words to the effect that the Rainbow Warrior could aid a “symbolic evacuation” by taking a small group of islanders from Rongelap to Majuro or Ebeye and holding a media conference publicising their plight with ongoing radiation exposure.
“No,” said Jeton firmly. He wasn’t talking about a “symbolic” evacuation. He told Steve: “We want to evacuate Rongelap, the entire community and the housing, too.”
Steve Sawyer taken aback
Steve was taken aback by what Jeton wanted. Steve simply hadn’t considered the idea of evacuating the entire community.
But we could see him mulling over this new idea and within minutes, as his mind clicked through the significant logistics hurdles for evacuation of the community — including that it would take three-to-four trips by the Rainbow Warrior between Rongelap and Mejatto to accomplish it — Steve said it was possible.
And from that meeting, planning for the 1985 Marshall Islands visit began in earnest.
I offer this background because when the evacuation began in early May 1985, various officials from the United States government sharply criticised Rongelap people for evacuating their atoll, saying there was no radiological hazard to justify the move and that they were being manipulated by Greenpeace for its own anti-nuclear agenda.
Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances this week as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific
This condescending American government response suggested Rongelap people did not have the brain power to make important decisions for themselves.
But it also showed the US government’s lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation in which Rongelap Islanders lived day in and day out in a highly radioactive environment.
The Bravo hydrogen bomb test blasted Rongelap and nearby islands with snow-like radioactive fallout on 1 March 1954. The 82 Rongelap people were first evacuated to the US Navy base at Kwajalein for emergency medical treatment and the start of long-term studies by US government doctors.
No radiological cleanup
A few months later, they were resettled on Ejit Island in Majuro, the capital atoll, until 1957 when, with no radiological cleanup conducted, the US government said it was safe to return to Rongelap and moved the people back.
“Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world,” said a Brookhaven National Laboratory report commenting on the return of Rongelap Islanders to their contaminated islands in 1957.
It then stated plainly why the people were moved back: “The habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.”
And for 28 years, Rongelap people lived in one of the world’s most radioactive environments, consuming radioactivity through the food chain and by living an island life.
Proving the US narrative of safety to be false, the 1985 evacuation forced the US Congress to respond by funding new radiological studies of Rongelap.
Thanks to the determination of the soft-spoken but persistent leadership of Jeton, he ensured that a scientist chosen by Rongelap would be included in the study. And the new study did indeed identify health hazards, particularly for children, of living on Rongelap.
The US Congress responded by appropriating US$45 million to a Rongelap Resettlement Trust Fund.
Subsistence atoll life
All of this was important — it both showed that islanders with a PhD in subsistence atoll life understood more about their situation than the US government’s university educated PhDs and medical doctors who showed up from time-to-time to study them, provide medical treatment, and tell them everything was fine on their atoll, and it produced a $45 million fund from the US government.
However, this is only a fraction of the story about why the Rongelap evacuation in 1985 forever changed the US narrative and control of its nuclear test legacy in this country.
The crew of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior III vessel were serenaded by the Rongelap community to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Islanders from their nuclear test-affected islands this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific
Rongelap is the most affected population from the US hydrogen bomb testing programme in the 1950s.
By living on Rongelap, the community confirmed the US government’s narrative that all was good and the nuclear test legacy was largely a relic of the past.
The 1985 evacuation was a demonstration of the Rongelap community exerting control over their life after 31 years of dictates by US government doctors, scientists and officials.
It was difficult building a new community on Mejatto Island, which was uninhabited and barren in 1985. Make no mistake, Rongelap people living on Mejatto suffered hardship and privation, especially in the first years after the 1985 resettlement.
Nuclear legacy history
Their perseverance, however, defined the larger ramification of the move to Mejatto: It changed the course of nuclear legacy history by people taking control of their future that forced a response from the US government to the benefit of the Rongelap community.
Forty years later, the displacement of Rongelap Islanders on Mejatto and in other locations, unable to return to nuclear test contaminated Rongelap Atoll demonstrates clearly that the US nuclear testing legacy remains unresolved — unfinished business that is in need of a long-term, fair and just response from the US government.
The Rainbow Warrior will be in Majuro until next week when it will depart for Mejatto Island to mark the 40th anniversary of the resettlement, and then voyage to other nuclear test-affected atolls around the Marshall Islands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has arrived back in the Marshall Islands yesterday for a six-week mission around the Pacific nation to support independent scientific research into the impact of decades-long nuclear weapons testing by the US government.
Forty years ago in May 1985, its namesake, the original Rainbow Warrior, took part in a humanitarian mission to evacuate Rongelap islanders from their atoll after toxic nuclear fallout in the 1950s.
The Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 before it was able to continue its planned protest voyage to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.
Escorted by traditional canoes, and welcomed by Marshallese singing and dancing, the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior 3 marked a significant moment in the shared history of Greenpeace and the Marshall Islands.
The ship was given a blessing by the Council of Iroij, the traditional chiefs of the islands with speeches from Senator Hilton Kendall (Rongelap atoll); Boaz Lamdik on behalf of the Mayor of Majuro; Farrend Zackious, vice-chairman Council of Iroij; and a keynote address from Minister Bremity Lakjohn, Minister Assistant to the President.
Also on board for the ceremony was New Zealander Bunny McDiarmid and partner Henk Haazen, who were both crew members on the Rainbow Warrior during the 1985 voyage to the Marshall Islands.
Bearing witness “We’re extremely grateful and humbled to be welcomed back by the Marshallese government and community with such kindness and generosity of spirit,” said Greenpeace Pacific spokesperson Shiva Gounden.
“Over the coming weeks, we’ll travel around this beautiful country, bearing witness to the impacts of nuclear weapons testing and the climate crisis, and listening to the lived experiences of Marshallese communities fighting for justice.”
Gounden said that for decades Marshallese communities had been sacrificing their lands, health, and cultures for “the greed of those seeking profits and power”.
However, the Marshallese people had been some of the loudest voices calling for justice, accountability, and ambitious solutions to some of the major issues facing the world.
“Greenpeace is proud to stand alongside the Marshallese people in their demands for nuclear justice and reparations, and the fight against colonial exploitation which continues to this day. Justice – Jimwe im Maron.“
During the six-week mission, the Rainbow Warrior will travel to Mejatto, Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap, and Wotje atolls, undertaking much-needed independent radiation research for the Marshallese people now also facing further harm and displacement from the climate crisis, and the emerging threat of deep sea mining in the Pacific.
“Marshallese culture has endured many hardships over the generations,” said Jobod Silk, a climate activist from Jo-Jikum, a youth organisation responding to climate change.
‘Colonial powers left mark’
“Colonial powers have each left their mark on our livelihoods — introducing foreign diseases, influencing our language with unfamiliar syllables, and inducing mass displacement ‘for the good of mankind’.
“Yet, our people continue to show resilience. Liok tut bok: as the roots of the Pandanus bury deep into the soil, so must we be firm in our love for our culture.
“Today’s generation now battles a new threat. Once our provider, the ocean now knocks at our doors, and once again, displacement is imminent.
“Our crusade for nuclear justice intertwines with our fight against the tides. We were forced to be refugees, and we refuse to be labeled as such again.
“As the sea rises, so do the youth. The return of the Rainbow Warrior instills hope for the youth in their quest to secure a safe future.”
Supporting legal proceedings
Dr Rianne Teule, senior radiation protection adviser at Greenpeace International, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be able to support the Marshallese government and people in conducting independent scientific research to investigate, measure, and document the long term effects of US nuclear testing across the country.
“As a result of the US government’s actions, the Marshallese people have suffered the direct and ongoing effects of nuclear fallout, including on their health, cultures, and lands. We hope that our research will support legal proceedings currently underway and the Marshall Islands government’s ongoing calls for reparations.”
The Rainbow Warrior’s arrival in the Marshall Islands also marks the 14th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
While some residents have returned to the disaster area, there are many places that remain too contaminated for people to safely live.
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THIS WEEKEND on 21 and 22 March 2025 we start the global Tia Maria campaign. Why? 
Tia Maria is a copper mining project that Southern Copper and Grupo Mexico Peru, Inc want to start in Peru this year. The mine site is on the Coast of the Pacific Ocean of South America, in the Islay province of Peru. 
![The Able U.S. nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, pictured July 1, 1946. [U.S. National Archives]](https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--qg602gCG--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1728597147/4KIHF8M_marshalls_un_1_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD)
