A man with a straw hat holds out a stick covered in pollution

Extractive Industries

Extractive industries – which are responsible for the exploration and exploitation of minerals, from fuel minerals to the minerals deemed strategic for the energy transition – are at the heart of multiple crucial challenges that will define the 21st century.

The sector and its associated supply chains provide the essential raw materials that many societies have relied on to build themselves off the ground. Extractive industries are also at the intersection of some of the most urgent and dire socio-environmental problems the world is currently facing, including climate crisis, human and particularly Indigenous rights violations, inequitable benefits sharing, grand corruption and opacity, and entrenched neo-colonialism. Air, forests, land and waters have been heavily contaminated, sometimes for decades if not centuries, as national laws and regulations have been poorly implemented or have grown deficient by-design.

Frontline communities have shown unparalleled levels of commitment through personal sacrifice, community organization, and strategic action against the negative impacts of extractive industries. As EIA’s newest campaign, our extractives work primarily focuses on four main programmatic pillars:

Building Local Capacity and People Led Monitoring
Undertaking Strategic Investigations and Ground-Truthing
Campaigning and Amplifying Existing Initiatives
Participating in Systemic Policy Changes

Extractive Industry Campaign Goals

Reduce mining impacts and injustices around the world by fighting power imbalance through hard hitting investigation-led campaigns
Amplify local voices and frontline communities’ fights for their rights
Advocate for ambitious and grounded policy shifts, particularly in terms of energy transition, which position transparency and equity at the heart of any supply chain

Campaign Impacts

EIA’s investigation, Crude Lies, exposed the environmental and human rights impacts of Colombia’s state oil company, Ecopetrol. The report was built on a whistleblower leak and the files provided—known as the Iguana Papers—contain more than 300,000 internal records documenting leaks, illegal venting, spills, and other environmental non-compliance incidents. The story reached a global audience through a major BBC World documentary, Life at 50°C: Colombia — Petroleum, Pollution and Paramilitaries, which followed the whistleblower, community organizers, and EIA’s two-year investigation.
EIA’s investigation into mercury smuggling uncovered a major trafficking route linking mercury mines in Mexico to illegal gold mining across the Amazon. Acting on EIA’s intelligence, Peruvian authorities seized four tons of mercury — the largest single seizure ever reported in an Amazon country. The investigation, published in Traffickers Leave No Stone Unturned, exposed how more than 200 tons of mercury have been trafficked into illegal mining economies in Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia and has since contributed to ongoing criminal prosecutions targeting the trafficking network.
EIA’s investigation Death Behind Closed Doors exposed the role of cost-cutting and poor safety practices by the Anglo-French oil company Perenco in the deadliest offshore accident ever reported in Africa. The investigation examined a fatal explosion on Gabon’s Becuna platform and revealed a broader pattern of environmental harm and labor abuses linked to the company’s operations across multiple countries. Based on whistleblower testimony, undercover interviews, and extensive research, the investigation has helped trigger three ongoing lawsuits seeking accountability for environmental damage and human rights violations.