00:16It's definitely not environmentally friendly.
00:19If we had these types of deposits in Europe, there would be no way that we could mine them.
00:25These photos show unregulated mines in Southeast Asia.
00:29The sector is booming.
00:30It's driven by a global demand for critical minerals and the rising price of gold,
00:34but the environment is paying a high price for the lucrative industry.
00:38Recent satellite imagery compiled by the Stimson Center shows 788 new unregulated mines
00:44beginning operations in the past few years.
00:46Of these mines, some of them focus on extracting gold and others are after things like rare earth
00:51elements. These are 17 critical minerals used to produce things like your cell phones and computers,
00:57advanced weaponry like laser weapons, and also clean energy essentials such as rechargeable
01:02batteries and electric vehicles.
01:04DW traveled to remote villages in Laos and Cambodia to investigate the environmental cost
01:10of this mining.
01:11The villagers in this province only agreed to torture us if we did not reveal their names
01:15or the name of their village.
01:19In mountainous northern Laos, life remains deeply shaped by tradition and a close relationship
01:25with the natural world.
01:36above the land of the village
01:43from the land of the village and the continent of the village.
01:49We ive to have a
01:55The
01:56is
01:59is
02:13is
02:19is
02:21is
02:21is
02:26The village has been cut off from the nearest water source due to pollution coming from upstream.
02:31They blame this mine run by the rather awkwardly named
02:34Laos China Rare Mineral Development Company North 2 Ltd.
02:38According to a local source, the mine is operating in a legal gray zone.
02:42Due to a lack of government oversight,
02:45mining operations are often carried out with just an exploration permit,
02:49and others obtain extraction permits at a local but not a national level.
02:54Meanwhile, the national government of Laos has gone clamping down on unregulated mining
02:58by issuing things like fines,
03:00but they kind of lack the resources to be able to do this in a large-scale way.
03:31The villagers formed a group and the Seysha Facebook campaign,
03:34this caught the eye of officials.
03:35They then travelled to the remote area to analyse the water.
03:38Tests showed up things like cyanide, zinc, copper and iron in the river water,
03:42and found it was also highly acidic.
03:55But Vong and the villagers no longer trust that the water is safe.
04:00At his vegetable plant on the riverbank,
04:02he explains that he no longer gets the water from the river.
04:05Instead, he waters his crops from an alternative water source several mountains over.
04:24For his neighbor Mai, the mining site has also disrupted life.
04:31For his neighbor, there is a lot of water from the riverbank to the riverbank.
04:45Um, so, we have the next one and this is the site that's pretty dramatic.
04:51It's also been unique, when there are 5 people here, that is the site.
04:56There's a site here.
04:58These are places in the house, and they come from the house.
05:06They came from the house, and they immediately came from the house.
05:07It was a way of saving.
05:10Thank you, morning!
05:12Well, it's time to get down.
05:15Of course, it's time to get down.
05:19I can't sleep a break from the night.
05:22I can't sleep.
05:27There was no distress need to come.
05:32My wife didn't even live in the ditch.
05:36I have been eating the food for the first time.
05:44I have 5 kinds of food for the food.
05:48I have been eating the food.
05:48I have been eating the food.
05:50I have been eating the food.
06:06DW wasn't able to reach the mine itself due to heavy security, but as we travelled
06:11along the road nearby, the scale of its operations were clear.
06:15To get a picture of what these mines really looked like, we headed to a similar mining
06:19site close to a nearby town.
06:21As we approached, we were spotted by a guard, a member of the Laos military, who ordered
06:26us to turn around, but not before we took these photos.
06:29The sign was written in both Laos and Mandarin.
06:32Now, typically, it's hard to track down the owners of the mines in the Mekong Basin.
06:36The Stimson Center report assumes mining companies originate from countries like neighboring Thailand,
06:42Vietnam and China, given Laos's porous borders.
06:45From a nearby vantage point, I took a video of the mining.
06:49Back in Germany, we asked an expert to discover more about the possible environmental impacts.
06:56This is the size of the mine.
06:58You can tell from the vegetation.
07:02It's not very big.
07:04It's about the size of this building here.
07:07And they are leaching.
07:10Leaching means you pump in some solution, and the solution will preferentially dissolve
07:16your elements, your rare earth elements.
07:21You leach.
07:23You collect the water that comes out, and you process the water for the rare earth elements
07:30dissolved.
07:31Okay, if you do this on this type of scale, there will be some damage.
07:36Because these solutions, they are ammonia-rich, ammonium sulfate, sulfate normally, quite often.
07:45But they also use other chemicals.
07:48The water they don't need, they probably put in some stream and let it carry it away.
07:53As far as I would assume, there's no effort to collect the water and treat it in some way that's
08:03not environmentally
08:05harmful anymore.
08:06So, it depends on the solution they use, but it's definitely not environmentally friendly.
08:15If we had these types of deposits in Europe, there would be no way that we could mine them.
08:21This is the village of Sienpang, just over the border from southern Laos.
08:25And it's where we meet Sury.
08:26She and her family, including two children, live in a home with no running water or electricity.
08:31They source their water directly from the river.
09:02The border with Laos is just the same.
09:04Just upstream from the village.
09:06In recent years, southern Laos has turned into a mining hotspot with newly constructed
09:10mines cropping up along tributaries feeding into their Sekong.
09:13They take us to their home, which is just a few meters from the river, and show us where
09:17they store their water.
09:19In the past years, they've noticed that its water quality has changed.
09:22They're used to live in Panama this world, and they're not there until they come to the
09:29north.
09:32If we have an environment it's damp and it's damp.
09:40The water quality is damp and it's damp.
09:43Therefore, we need to be damp than it.
09:45Even because it is damp, it's damp, it's damp.
09:48We still have a water quality.
09:48There are water quality is AMPS, and it's a lot of water quality.
10:02The province over from the town of Sien-Pang is Ratanakiri province.
10:06It's where the indigenous Brau people live.
10:09They live here on a tributary of the Sekong at the Otabok confluence.
10:15Today they're celebrating the return of a relative and his wife.
10:18The ritual carries spiritual significance, just like the river exiles.
10:32Their river has also been affected by recent mining activity.
10:35A gold mine has been operating upstream in the national park.
10:39According to regional media, they say that mining exploration licenses were granted to Global Green.
10:44It's a company, Rombayatai Coom, with close links to the Cambodian government.
10:47It's not clear if the company was granted the right to extract gold.
10:51Some activists from the community agreed to speak to us on condition we also hide their identity.
11:22They said that they all covered circulation in the traditionalogram itself.
11:29They Siri, I wasn't allowed to get to the till now, but they're given his sacred formatting and dedicated rational
11:45perception at the time.
12:06In January 2026, Mr. Nye, together with a group of indigenous activists and leaders, went to check up on assurances
12:13they had received from authorities that the mining had stopped.
12:16In January 2026, Mr. Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye
12:37Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye
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14:11Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye Nye N
14:22I bought it with water, but I wanted to put it in.
14:27I bought this with my own house.
14:29It was beautiful.
14:31I would like to buy food.
14:34It was amazing.
14:34I found it!
14:36I found it!
14:39I found it!
14:41I found it!
14:44I found it!
14:45Come on, come on, come on!
14:50Come on, come on, come on!
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