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Mining woes in the Congo echo colonial blues

The Katanga region is a major deposit for rare-earth minerals that can supply Global North’s needs to manufacture EV batteries. However, there’s a raging conflict in the region that sees human depravity reaching an extreme. And the Global North’s partly to blame for it.

Yasuharu Ohno

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Credit: Christopher Burns / Unsplash

Did you know that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) houses more than half of the world’s cobalt reserves? It’s one of the major supplier of cobalt to the global market. The cobalt production there comprises 70% of the worldwide cobalt production in 2021. These facts were according to the 2022 report by the National Minerals Information Centre of the US’ Geological Survey.

The DRC is also one of the main global providers of raw materials to the electric vehicle industry. These include battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which are mainly produced by China, Europe, and the United States. This is an industry that a McKinsey report indicated the demand for lithium-ion batteries (also ubiquitous in smartphones), would go up to 32% annually between 2015 and 2030.

However, the political stability in the DRC can’t be any dire than ever before. Internal strife in North Kivu is violent, as various militant factions and the DRC military themselves terrorize local mine workers into accepting the most unacceptable terms. They occupy streets and force people into working at mines if they can’t bribe their way out.

Piasecki Poulsen’s 2010 film “Blood in The Mobile” documented the life of mine workers at the Bise tin mining site under DRC military control.

In the film, Poulsen describes the mining site had “improvised mine shafts” that could cause “the mountain to collapse at any moment”. The low safety standards quite often led to fatal accidents in these artisanal mines. Amdist these appalling circumstances, some 15,000 to 20,000 people, including children, worked in Bisie. However, they’re effectively trapped there providing slave labour, as they can’t afford to pay the military for their own escape.

Children working hard at a mining site in Congo. Credit: Jclaboh / Wikimedia

The film documented the DRC military generating as much as $300,000 to $600,000 per month back then.

As this tragedy plays out, the DRC government and the military operate with impunity.

Amnesty International’s 2016 reported on these appalling labour conditions, inexcusable child labour, health hazards and physical abuse people were subjected to.

However, there are ways to stop this systemic abuse, if other stakeholders evolved in these battery manufacturing do their bit.

Colonial blues

The foreign mining companies are all from the Global North – namely the US, UK, Germany, South Korea, China and Japan. They were all in need of some serious self-reflection.

At least for the West, this holds true now as much as it did back then when they colonized the Congo region in the late 19th century.

Then, King Msiri of the Yeke Kingdom, had access to vast natural resources over the Katanga region he ruled. And this attracted European merchants who arrived there.

Belgium’s King Leopold II initiated plans to consolidate territory in central Africa soon after, through funding European ‘expeditions’ into Africa.

In 1884, Leopold II unilaterally established the Congo Free State (CFS). What happened next though, was harrowing. Leopold II had King Msiri and his son assassinated. Resistance fighters had their hands cut off. Indigenous people were to engage in slave labour until their deaths. As the colonial era was now underway, local chieftains then had to send for manpower from villages, to build infrastructure to mine the natural resources.  

The Belgians dominated human and natural resources in Congo, and its legacy has remained until recently. 

The colonial exploitation in CFS was supported by the economic interests of private companies as well. King Leopold II gave concessions to private companies in which he was involved as a stakeholder. When the innovation of pneumatic tyres triggered the rubber boom in Europe around 1900, Dunlop Rubber supported King Leopold II and successfully attained the vast amount of rubber supply from him.

Neo-colonialism

The natural resources in Congo were still amid the global and local interests after its independence as the DRC. The assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1960, the first prime minister of the DRC and independence leader, exposes US’, Belgium’s and Britain’s interests to secure natural resources even post-independence. The West never quite left the Katanga region for what it’s worth.

Patrice Lumumba in Brussels (1960). Credit: Herbert Behrens (ANEFO)

Belgium attempted the secession of Katanga, a region with an enormous amount of copper, cobalt and radium reserves. Union Miniere, a Belgian mining enterprise, provided for acid then used by Belgian agents to dispose of Lumumba’s corpse.  

In the aftermath, the Belgians and the US’ propped up Joseph-Desire Mobutu as leader in a coup d’etat.

Thereafter, the local chieftains and plantation owners oversaw forced labour in plantations under the Mobutu regime.

The colonial era, never really quite subsided in the Congo region. It’s neo-colonialism in a way – for the ordinary people there, the subjugation merely changed powers. The rot in the system stems from far deep, not within the DRC so much as the Western powers which shaped the political situation and geography there. Crisis could be manufactured, if they wanted.

Although today, they won’t have to pay for the colonial baggage, they surely are held responsible if even accusations of slave labour were made. The conflict in North Kivu wouldn’t end anytime soon. But foreign mining companies have a responsibility to ensure that their supply of raw materials aren’t dependent on slave labour at the least.  

Taking responsibility

In 2021, the German automobile manufacturing giant, Volkswagen released a report on their internal investigation to ensure their supply chains weren’t in any way dependent on child labour or acts of human slavery. 

Credit: Simon Cadula / Unsplash

Volkswagen works in sustainable initiatives such as Responsible Source Initiatives, and the Global Battery Alliance. The 2021 detailed report informs an overview of Volkswagen’s efforts towards mitigating specific risks of raw materials.

Volkswagen conducted audits of 25 suppliers in 2021 and took a lot of measures: safety training and signs, updates on vehicle and machinery maintenance, improvements on waste assessment and management, among others.

As well-meaning as they maybe, none of this can protect mine workers, who’s at the base of a power hierarchy where the foreign manufacturers are at the top. And the trapping’s in the hierarchy.

The mining companies can have these workers precariously removed from the supply chain if they want to.

One example is when mining companies to replace artisanal miners with flexible workforces in the DRC, which made artisanal miners more vulnerable to the volatility of cobalt price and reputational damage.

Since cobalt was discovered in the copper slags centuries ago, Congo soon became the major cobalt supplier to the US and the UK during World War II supported by the sharp increase in demand for weaponry. After WWII, Congo (later the DRC and Zaire) was to be involved in Cold War, having their leadership toppled by the Western Bloc, as they and then the Eastern Bloc interfered with the domestic affairs, just like during the colonial era.

Amidst all these geopolitics playing out, it’s the common people who’re paying a price with their well-being. And it’s time the world pays more attention to this.  

Yasuharu is a management consultant with a keen interest in the relationship between technologies and society. He has pursued how we can make stakeholders held responsible for their technologies throughout business and academic career. He received MSc in Science and Technology Studies with Distinction from University College London. His thesis focused on the power relationship surrounding genome-edited aquaculture in Japan.

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Glaciers Are Dying: Global Conference in Tajikistan Sounds Alarm on Looming Water Crisis

Glaciers currently store about 70% of the world’s freshwater. Their meltwater sustains hundreds of millions downstream during the dry season

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The accelerating disappearance of the world’s glaciers—often called the “water towers” of our planet—is now a full-blown global emergency, warned experts and leaders gathered in Tajikistan for the International Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation. Underway in Dushanbe from 29 May to 1 June in Dushanbe, the event has brought together heads of state, UN officials, scientists, and development partners in a clarion call to put glacier protection at the top of the global climate agenda.

“Glaciers preservation is not just a problem of countries with glaciers but rather a global crisis that deserves the immediate attention of the international community,” said Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon in his opening address.

The urgency is clear. According to a statement issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), five of the past six years have seen the most rapid glacier retreat on record. Glaciers are now the second largest contributor to sea-level rise after ocean warming.

“Our glaciers are dying,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The death of a glacier means much more than the loss of ice. It is a mortal blow to our ecosystems, economies, and social fabric.”

Recent disasters highlight the stakes. Just this week, a glacier collapse in the Swiss Alps unleashed a torrent of ice and debris that buried parts of the village of Blatten. Early warnings prevented fatalities—but many developing nations lack such systems. “We need to bridge science and services, and forecasts and action,” Saulo urged.

Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, and Emomali Rahmon, President of Tajikistan. Image credit: WMO

The conference will culminate in the release of the Dushanbe Glaciers Declaration, a strategic document outlining commitments and partnerships to be presented at COP30 in Brazil later this year. It is a key milestone in the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed cited devastating findings from the WMO’s latest climate report. “2021 to 2024 represents the most negative three-year glacier mass balance period on record,” she said, pointing out that glaciers have lost over 9,000 billion tons of ice since 1975—equivalent to an ice block the size of Germany, 25 meters thick.

Glaciers currently store about 70% of the world’s freshwater. Their meltwater sustains hundreds of millions downstream during the dry season. But that lifeline is fading. In the Himalayas, a 2023 report from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) warned that the region could lose up to two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100. Tajikistan alone has lost nearly 30% of its glaciers over the last century.

The Vanj Yakh Glacier (formerly Fedchenko), the largest continental glacier, has retreated by over 1 km and shrunk by 44 km²—enough to fill 6.4 million Olympic swimming pools.

“Melting glaciers threaten lives on an unprecedented scale – including the livelihoods of more than 2 billion people in Asia alone,” said Asian Development Bank Vice-President Yingming Yang. “ADB is committed to helping the region adapt and transition to clean energy without compromising development.”

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay highlighted the cultural and ecological loss as well. “In 2022, a UNESCO study found that glaciers in one third of world heritage sites are projected to disappear by 2050,” she said. “It is a stark reminder of the need for bold and immediate climate action.”

Key conference themes include scientific monitoring, water cooperation, and adaptation investment. The message is clear: the world cannot afford to lose its glaciers—or the freshwater, stability, and security they provide.

As Celeste Saulo put it: “Observing, predicting, and effectively communicating glacier changes are vital to mitigating their impacts on people, economies, and ecosystems.”

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Researchers Unveil SeaSplat: A New Imaging Tool That Reveals True Colours of Underwater Worlds

The new tool, called SeaSplat, corrects for optical distortions like light scattering and colour fading, offering marine biologists a powerful new way to explore and monitor ocean ecosystems

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A new color-correcting tool, SeaSplat, reconstructs true colors of an underwater image, taken in Curacao. The original photo is in the left, and the color-corrected version made with SeaSplat is on the right. Credits:Image: Courtesy of the researchers

Scientists at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have developed a novel imaging technique that effectively “removes” water from underwater scenes, revealing the true colours of marine environments. The new tool, called SeaSplat, corrects for optical distortions like light scattering and colour fading, offering marine biologists a powerful new way to explore and monitor ocean ecosystems.

“One dream of underwater robotic vision that we have is: Imagine if you could remove all the water in the ocean. What would you see?” said John Leonard, MIT professor of mechanical engineering, in a media statement.

Traditionally, capturing the real appearance of underwater scenes has been difficult due to two main challenges: backscatter, which creates a cloudy haze by reflecting light off tiny ocean particles, and attenuation, which causes certain colors to fade with distance. SeaSplat overcomes both by analyzing how each pixel in an image is affected and correcting for those effects.

“With SeaSplat, it can model explicitly what the water is doing, and as a result it can in some ways remove the water, and produces better 3D models of an underwater scene,” said Daniel Yang, an MIT graduate student and co-developer of the tool.

SeaSplat combines a colour-correcting algorithm with a 3D imaging technique known as 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) to generate immersive, high-fidelity, virtual environments from underwater photographs. The results are detailed three-dimensional models that retain accurate color no matter the viewing angle or distance.

The researchers tested SeaSplat using imagery from a variety of ocean locations, including the Caribbean, the Red Sea, the Pacific near Panama, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In each case, SeaSplat produced vivid, true-color 3D environments that could be virtually navigated.

“Once it generates a 3D model, a scientist can just ‘swim’ through the model as though they are scuba-diving, and look at things in high detail, with real color,” Yang said in the statement.

Marine scientists could soon use this technology to monitor sensitive environments such as coral reefs. Traditional cameras often misrepresent signs of distress like coral bleaching, but SeaSplat’s color-accurate imaging could change that.

“Bleaching looks white from close up, but could appear blue and hazy from far away, and you might not be able to detect it,” noted Yogesh Girdhar, a WHOI associate scientist. “Coral bleaching, and different coral species, could be easier to detect with SeaSplat imagery, to get the true colors in the ocean.”

Although the current version of SeaSplat requires significant computing power and is too bulky to run onboard an autonomous underwater vehicle, it is well-suited for tethered operations where data can be transmitted to a ship-based computer in real time.

“This is the first approach that can very quickly build high-quality 3D models with accurate colors, underwater, and it can create them and render them fast,” Girdhar said. “That will help to quantify biodiversity, and assess the health of coral reef and other marine communities.”

Yang, Girdhar, and Leonard will present their work at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

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122 Forests, 3.2 Million Trees: How One Man Built the World’s Largest Miyawaki Forest

Meet the man who has created 122 forests—including the world’s largest Miyawaki ecosystem. His 3.2 million trees are cooling Indian cities, reviving water tables, and restoring biodiversity.

Dipin Damodharan

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RK Nair. Image credit: By special arrangement

In an era when deforestation and climate change threaten ecosystems worldwide, one man from Gujarat—a state on the west coast of India—is rewriting the narrative of environmental restoration.

Dr. Radhakrishnan Nair, fondly known as Nairji, has created 122 forests across India, transforming barren landscapes into thriving ecosystems. His most remarkable achievement, Smritivan (a memorial forest) in Gujarat—recognized as the world’s largest Miyawaki forest—stands as a testament to his vision. Spanning 470 acres and home to over 500,000 trees, this forest is not just a memorial but a beacon of ecological hope. Nair’s work demonstrates how one individual’s determination can combat global warming, restore biodiversity, and inspire communities to embrace a greener future.

Image credit: smritivanearthquakemuseum

From entrepreneur to green crusader

Born in Kasaragod, Kerala, R.K. Nair’s path to becoming India’s “Green Hero” was anything but conventional. After failing his 12th-grade exams, he took on a series of odd jobs, eventually rising to become a successful entrepreneur in the garment industry. But a pivotal moment came in 2011, in Umargam, Gujarat, when he witnessed the felling of 179 ancient trees for road construction. The cries of displaced birds and the destruction of their habitat struck a deep chord.

“I felt the birds were speaking to me,” Nair recalls. “That day, I vowed to create forests where no one would harm them.”

This epiphany led to the founding of Forest Creators with his friend Deepan Jain in 2014. Using corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, Nair began planting trees—starting with 1,500 saplings on a single acre. Today, he has planted over 3.2 million trees across 12 Indian states—from Gujarat to Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan to Uttar Pradesh. His approach blends the Japanese Miyawaki method, known for rapid and dense forest growth, with a localized adaptation he calls Bharatavanam, tailored to India’s diverse ecosystems.

Smritivan: A green miracle in the Desert

Nair’s crowning achievement is Smritivan, a sprawling forest in Bhuj, Gujarat, established in memory of the 13,805 victims of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. Originally conceived in 2004 but long stalled, the project gained new life when Nair took charge. Despite the 470-acre terrain being arid and hilly, he began planting in July 2021. “By August 2022, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the memorial, the forest had reached an astonishing 16 feet in height, with 223,555 saplings planted in the first phase alone. Today, Smritivan houses over 525,000 trees, with plans to add 40,000 more,” Nair says, in an interview with EdPublica.

A report from the Gujarat Ecology Commission, accessed by EdPublica, highlights Smritivan’s ecological transformation. Now home to 117 tree species, the forest supports 79 bird species, 28 types of butterflies, 21 reptiles, nine mammals, and two species of fish. The dense canopy and mulched soil prevent erosion, retain moisture, and enrich the land with organic matter. “With an 86% tree survival rate, species like neem and casuarina are flourishing,” according to the report published in 2023.

Image credit: By special arrangement

The forest has also led to localized temperature reductions, while its 50 check dams help replenish groundwater. A one-megawatt solar plant further bolsters its sustainability, making Smriti Van a global model of eco-restoration.

A report from the Gujarat Ecology Commission, accessed by EdPublica, highlights Smritivan’s ecological transformation. Now home to 117 tree species, the forest supports 79 bird species, 28 types of butterflies, 21 reptiles, nine mammals, and two species of fish

Industrialist Anand Mahindra recently shared a viral post on X, praising Nair for building the world’s largest Miyawaki forest.

Ecological impact: Restoring balance

Nair’s forests are more than green patches—they are ecological engines. “In Chhattisgarh, the coastal forest of 103,000 trees raised groundwater levels dramatically—from 160 feet to just 12 feet—reviving wells and sustaining communities,” Nair claims. Across India, his forests have restored biodiversity, attracted wildlife, and helped rebuild natural food chains.

The Gujarat Ecology Commission underscores Smriti Van’s role in carbon sequestration, a vital tool against climate change. Experts recommend ongoing assessments to quantify its carbon storage potential, which could significantly offset emissions.

Nair’s method ensures long-term ecological success. He doesn’t merely plant trees—he nurtures ecosystems. By selecting native species suited to local conditions, his forests are resilient and sustainable. They grow 10 times faster than natural forests, mimicking 150-year-old ecosystems in just 10–15 years. Dense planting (3–4 saplings per square meter) encourages vertical growth, mimicking natural competition for sunlight.

A Vision for the future

Nair’s ambition is bold: planting one billion trees by 2030. Backed by governments, corporations, and citizens, Forest Creators is scaling up to meet this audacious goal. His work has earned international acclaim, including an invitation to represent India at a NASA conference and a UNESCO Prix Versailles award for Smritivan.

Yet, Nair remains grounded—dressed in his signature white mundu, shirt, and cap—a nod to his Malayali roots and the spirit of India’s farmers.

Beyond ecology, Nair’s forests are also community spaces. Smriti Van has become a popular destination for its tranquil trails and vibrant festivals, with 94% of surveyed visitors citing its fresh air and peacefulness. Future plans include guided tours and educational programs to engage youth in environmental stewardship.

A Global inspiration

R.K. Nair’s story is a clarion call for individual action in the face of global crises. His 122 forests—especially the monumental Smritivan—showcase what one person’s vision and persistence can achieve. By restoring biodiversity, cooling urban climates, and sequestering carbon, Nair’s work supports global efforts to fight climate change. As he marches toward his billion-tree goal, he reminds us that a single seed, planted with purpose, can grow into a forest of change.

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