In early 2025, Sian traveled deep into the mountains of Shan State, on Myanmar’s eastern border with China, in search of work. He had heard from a friend that Chinese companies were recruiting at new rare-earth mining sites in territory administered by the United Wa State Army, Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed group, and that workers could earn upwards of $1,400 a month.
It was an opportunity too good to pass up in a country where the formal economy has collapsed since the 2021 military coup, and nearly half of the population lives on less than $2 a day. So Sian set off by car for the town of Mong Pawk, then rode a motorbike for hours through the thick forest.
Hired for daily wages of approximately $21, he now digs boreholes and installs pipes. It is the first step in a process called in situ leaching, which involves injecting acidic solutions into mountainsides, then collecting the drained solution in plastic-lined pools where solids, like dysprosium and terbium, two of the world’s most sought-after heavy rare-earth metals, settle out. The resulting sediment sludge is then transported to furnaces and burned, producing dry rare earth oxides.
As geopolitics scrambles supply chains and global demand for rare earths has mushroomed, mining for these materials is on the rise in Myanmar, where thousands of laborers like Sian are flocking to mine sites on the country’s eastern border with China. But the extraction and processing of rare earths is taking an increasing toll on the mine workers, nearby communities, and the environment. “The toxic effects of rare-earth mining are devastating, with poisoned rivers, contaminated soil, sickness, and displacement,” said Jasnea Sarma, an ethnographer and political geographer at the University of Zurich.
China holds most of the world’s rare-earth processing facilities, but since the early 2010s it has tightened restrictions on domestic extraction as its impacts have become apparent. Rare-earth mining has since expanded just over China’s southwestern border in Myanmar, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are weak.