- Large volumes of critical minerals are being imported from Myanmar into Thailand and then mostly resold to China.
- At least six Thai rivers have been found to be contaminated with heavy metals linked to mining operations in Myanmar.
- Data suggests companies in Myanmar, Thailand and China are profiting from an industry that has created a public health crisis, impacting food and water security for hundreds of thousands across eastern Myanmar and northern Thailand.
- Civil society and Thai political groups are calling for an end to imports of minerals mined in Myanmar in response to the ongoing river pollution crisis.
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The rapid growth of unregulated mining operations across Myanmar in recent years has also led to a pollution that knows no borders, with heavy metal toxins floating through rivers from mining sites in Myanmar to Thailand. To date, Thai authorities have identified arsenic, cadmium, lead and other contaminants in the Kok, Sai and Ruak rivers, which feed into the Mekong River, as well as in the Mekong itself, the Salween River along the Thai-Myanmar border and the Kraburi River in Ranong province.
Despite widespread public outrage at the unmitigated spread of toxins through Thai rivers, Mongabay has found more than 50 Thai-registered companies importing critical minerals from Myanmar.
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A trilingual trader, who spoke […] on condition of anonymity owing to their ongoing work in the trade, explained that mines in Myanmar are rarely run by companies. Instead, they said, mines are known by the names of the landowners who lease their land to Chinese investors that bring in the mining equipment and facilitate the sale of minerals from Myanmar to Thailand.
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As the trade has rapidly increased, so has water pollution in the region.
For more than 18 months, a waterborne polycrisis has left tens of thousands of people in Thailand without access to clean water, depriving them of livelihoods and food traditionally derived from rivers, as well as poisoning both farmers and farmland. Public discontent has risen with the Thai government’s interventions widely seen as inadequate and the Myanmar government yet to take meaningful action. At the same time, anger has more recently been directed at the Chinese government because of the role played by Chinese investors and companies in fueling the mining boom in Myanmar that has poisoned Thailand’s rivers.
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