The urgency to fight the climate crisis is driving a global scramble to extract the transition minerals required to power vast solar operations, wind farms, and transport electrification at enormous scale.

The mining sector has a well-known history of human rights and environmental abuse: the Resource Centre has tracked 630 such allegations in transition mineral mining operations since 2010. At the same time, the extractive sector has long been the most dangerous for human rights defenders (HRDs).

This should raise alarm as the new mining boom comes with significant threat: cutting corners on social and environmental safeguards to accelerate mining licensing and permitting frameworks, predicated on the false logic that engaging communities and identifying environmental risks will slow down project development rather than ensure viability and sustainability.

Through case studies and analysis, this report demonstrates that failure to meaningfully engage rightsholders can lead to social unrest, conflicts, litigation and significant financial consequences for companies and investors – all threats to the swift energy transition on which fighting the climate crisis depends. On the other hand, corporate commitment to “meaningful engagement” can underpin an energy transition that is fast because it is fair: in other words, built on fair negotiations and true access to information; respect for human and environmental rights; and commitment to shared prosperity with mining-affected communities. 

What is meaningful engagement? With this report, the Resource Centre analysed three emblematic cases of community engagement to begin to answer this question and highlight risks that the rush to mine transition minerals can pose to community engagement where the right to public participation is not safeguarded: 

• In Odisha, India, the public consultation for the environmental clearance for the Sijimali Bauxite block, owned by Vedanta Limited, took place in a context in a context of strong rightsholder opposition, and state- backed repression.
• In Portugal, prosecutors sought annulment of Savannah Resources’ environmental permit for the proposed Covas do Barroso lithium mine based on violations of domestic law and international commitments, given risks to heritage and the environment. This case follows widespread resistance to the mine from the surrounding community in the face of a failure to respect public participation rights: state agencies consistently failed to provide project relevant information.
• In Brazil in 2023, quilombolas, Indigenous Peoples and other communities brought a public action calling for the licence of the Paragominas bauxite mine pipeline to be revoked on the basis that there are of irregularities in consultation around the licensing process. This follows decades of tensions and conflicts between Mineração Paragominas, the mine's operators and surrounding communities.

Pathways to meaningful engagement require, first and foremost, a clear and robust commitment by producing states to this process, including:

• State protection of fundamental human rights and civic freedoms, including the right of Indigenous Peoples to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), respect for public participation rights, as features of and in relation to, rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association. Human rights defenders must be protected and their voices not silenced. Critically, states must refrain from relaxing regulatory standards to expedite mining permitting and licensing processes.
• Early-stage engagement, led by the state, at a point where rightsholders can still influence decision-making outcomes and decision to mine in particular, and . Engagement should continue throughout the lifecycle of a mine when a decision to mine is reached. States must create space for safe and inclusive dialogue even where – and perhaps particularly where – widespread opposition to mining exists.
• The process must be underpinned by truly accessible information, clear legal and non-legal avenues to challenge irregularities, and an expanded definition of “project- relevant information”, including over ‘public interest’ clauses or exemptions, as well as the use of newly- extracted minerals in the energy transition.
• Meaningful engagement from the state should include related information on domestic energy transition policy, including demand reduction, as well as intended end-users for minerals. The energy transition should not be invoked as a justification by states or companies to rush to mining without evidenced substantiation.

Companies themselves, as part of their duty to respect human rights, must also effect meaningful engagement with affected rightsholders. This means adopting robust engagement and due diligence policies which go beyond regulatory compliance requirements - which too often tragically fail to represent the views of the population, Indigenous Peoples, and other communities – where needed.

Companies must take urgent note that even with the apparent backing of the state, they may still remain complicit in, and potentially liable for, human rights abuses.

Public participation rights are human rights that must be protected. They matter because while not every mining project will immediately run roughshod over the interests of rightsholders, many have – and the erosion of regulatory safeguards in the rush to accelerate mining permitting and licensing processes only makes this more likely. Meaningful engagement requires a good-faith effort and a willingness to truly listen to the voices of rightsholders and consider a wide range of outcomes in initial engagement – including their right to say no to mining projects.