Critical minerals and the transport corridors that move them are among the fastest-changing pressures on the Amazon. This hub orients the mining, infrastructure and geopolitics — who is driving them, where, and what is at stake — and maps to our reporting.
What are “critical minerals”?
“Critical minerals” is a policy category — minerals a government deems strategic for the energy transition and industry (lithium, copper, nickel, rare earths and others) — not a geological one. We distinguish the policy label from actual deposits and from real, financed projects.
The minerals in play across the Amazon
Gold remains the dominant driver of illegal mining (garimpo) and much of the associated deforestation and mercury contamination. Legal industrial mining includes iron ore (Carajás) and bauxite; copper, lithium and rare-earth ambitions are emerging. We separate existing extraction, licensed or proposed projects, and policy ambition or speculation.
Reporting: Tapajós gold permits · the flagship investigation Gold of Abandonment on the Nukak / Guainía frontier.
Policy and legislation
“Critical minerals” bills and mining-policy changes are advancing across the region, often faster than the environmental and consultation safeguards around them. We track where a policy actually stands, and attribute government and industry positions.
Reporting: the critical-minerals bill · negotiated behind closed doors.
Transport corridors and infrastructure
Railways, highways, waterways and ports open the forest and move commodities, so their routes and licensing are decisive. The region tracks a set of megaprojects — the Bioceanic Railway, Ferrogrão, BR-319, the Interoceanic Highway and Amazon hidrovías among them. We separate existing, under-construction, proposed, licensed, announced and cancelled works.
Live tracker: the Amazon Corridors Watch on the Geopolitics page follows these megaprojects by status — we link it here rather than duplicate it.
External finance and the “follow the company” rule
Chinese and other external investment shapes corridors and mineral supply chains. Our editorial rule is to follow the company and the project, not the nationality: we name owners, financiers and operators and attribute claims, rather than treating any one country as the story by itself.
Indigenous territorial implications
Mining and corridors repeatedly cross Indigenous lands, raising questions of demarcation, prior consultation, illegal incursion, mercury exposure and health. Where our reporting carries Indigenous evidence or statements we attribute them; where it does not, we mark the gap rather than speak for communities.
Reporting: legal mining on Indigenous lands · mining contamination on Waimiri-Atroari land.
Environmental consequences
The recurring impacts are deforestation and forest fragmentation along corridors, mercury and sediment contamination of rivers from gold mining, and heightened fire and settlement pressure where access opens. We report these with the same evidence standard we apply to development claims.
Governance and positions
Outcomes depend on mining and environmental authorities and their licensing and enforcement — ANM and ANLA in Colombia, ANM and IBAMA in Brazil, and their counterparts elsewhere — within each country’s land-tenure and consultation systems. We keep government, industry and community positions distinct and attributed.
Cross-border and geopolitical dimensions
Minerals and corridors are inherently cross-border: supply chains, shared rivers and multi-country megaprojects tie the Amazon’s nations together, and regional diplomacy increasingly treats the forest as a shared strategic space.
Reporting: Amazon-nations diplomacy · regional analysis on the Geopolitics page.
Projects we are watching
Extractive, corridor and related infrastructure projects we track, with current status.
Tracked mineral and corridor projects will appear here as our record grows.
Investigations and dossiers
Our deepest work lives in standing investigations and dossiers that accumulate evidence over time.
Standing minerals and corridor dossiers will appear here as evidence accumulates.
Latest reporting
Our most recent minerals and corridors coverage.
Recent minerals and corridors reporting will appear here.
Follow developments: Amazon News Watch · all coverage: News & Investigations.
How our work connects
ColombianAmazon.com is the public platform of the Embajada de la Amazonia Colombiana, reporting across the Amazon’s nine nations. The Embassy.
