New data released by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) finds that, worldwide, South America has the most abuse allegations associated with large-scale mining for transition minerals over the past 15 years. Such minerals are essential for the shift away from fossil fuels and are critical for other industries, such as tech and defense. Many of the allegations were associated with environmental harm including water pollution and deforestation.
Roughly 36% of such abuse allegations recorded between 2010 and 2025 were in South America. Many of the abuses involved local community rights violations, labor rights violations and attacks against defenders.
Of the allegations reported worldwide in 2025, 17% were related to the abuse of Indigenous People’s rights, including their right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent before mining activities could take place in their territory.
The researchers analyzed the BHRRC’s Transition Minerals Tracker to identify allegations of abuse related to mining nine key transitional minerals, including bauxite, cobalt, copper and lithium. They identified 329 allegations of abuse in 2025, up from 156 in 2024.
Between 2010 and 2025, Peru had the most reported allegations (174), followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (151) and Chile (137).
“This year’s data really lays bare the cost of conflict: we’re seeing project delays and suspensions as a direct result of human rights concerns, which poses a real threat to the transition as a whole,” author of the report Blanca Racionero Gomez, natural resources and just energy transition senior researcher at the BHRRC, told Mongabay via email.
The tracker recorded 97 allegations of abuse in South America in 2025, nearly twice as many as were recorded in 2024. Globally, copper mining was associated with the most allegations of abuse in 2025. Some 33% of copper-associated allegations were recorded in South America; Africa had slightly more with 38%.
While South America has the highest number of allegations over the last 15 years, Africa had the most in 2025 at 100, a 122% increase compared to 2024, the report found.
Transition mineral mining is driving environmental degradation, human rights abuses and conflicts between industry and communities, the report found.
The BHRRC report identified “42 reported attacks against human rights and environmental defenders” globally in 2025, almost double the amount recorded in 2024.
Racionero said that mining companies, investors and governments should ensure that robust human rights protections and standards are embedded throughout mining processes.
She added that “rights-based mineral governance, including corporate duty of care for human rights, shared prosperity and meaningful engagement, is essential to build resilient, sustainable, economically viable and rights-respecting supply chains of minerals.”
Banner image: A demonstrator stands by police blocking access to Panama’s National Assembly as people protested against a new mining contract between Canada’s First Quantum Minerals and the Panamanian government for the Cobre Panama copper mine on Oct. 20, 2023. Photo by Arnulfo Franco via Associated Press.
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