Lynas Rare Earths - Militarised Extractivism in Action
A webinar tracing the imperial powers behind the West's "clean" rare earths champion and the communities who have refused to accept the toxic legacy left in their name.
Co-hosted by Aidwatch and Yes to Life, No to Mining
Lynas Rare Earths Ltd is marketed as the secure, “green” alternative to Chinese rare earth dominance. Behind that story sits something else entirely: a mine and an unreliable processing plant in Western Australia, an operational processing plant in Kuantan, Malaysia, and a supply chain bankrolled by the U.S. Department of War alongside the Japanese and Australian governments.
Rare earths don’t just power the energy transition, they power advanced weapons systems. Lynas sits exactly where militarism and extraction meet.
In Kuantan, Malaysia close to two million tonnes of radioactive waste and millions of tonnes of hazardous waste sit in a monsoon-prone peat swamp separated only with a thin plastic membrane, in a facility Lynas’s own consultants judged safe for just twenty years for waste that stays hazardous for tens of aeons.
Lynas has no social licence to operate. Safety standards below international norms. Oversight stripped away and tax exemptions handed over, while a foreign, military-linked project operates with impunity.
And yet, since 2011, community resistance has been continuous, challenging the greenwashing, the violations, and the absence of any right to poison a place in perpetuity.
This session brings speakers together to trace the imperialist interests driving Lynas, to name the pattern of militarised extractivism it represents, and to centre the frontline communities who have carried this fight for over a decade.
A presentation will be followed by a live Q&A.
Come learn. Come listen. Come stand in solidarity.
SPEAKERS + Q&A
Lee Tan
AID WATCH
Policy Co-ordinate, AidWatch Australia will provide a summary of Lynas’ modus operandi over the two decades of it playing the market and seizing geopolitical opportunities while piling up its toxic and radioactive wastes in Malaysia
Shigeru Tanaka
Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC)
Executive Director, Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) will present about Japanese financing of rare earth projects in Malaysia that have created two toxic radioactive legacies in the country.
Farwina Farogue
Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS)
From the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign in Malaysia will speak about their recent No Rare Earth for Genocide protest actions against Lynas
Liz Downes
AidWatch
Chair of AidWatch and regional contact person for YLNM, will talk about recent critical minerals policy developments and geopolitical power games being played between Australia and the United States, which are creating the conditions for companies like Lynas to expand with impunity.
