Lynas Rare Earth: Militarised Extractivism in Action

We invite you to join AidWatch in a co-hosted live webinar on Wednesday 19 August at 8PM AEST with BDS Malaysia and the Yes to Life No to Mining global solidarity network.

Join us to discuss and trace the imperial powers behind Australian-owned Lynas Rare Earth and the communities who have refused to accept the toxic legacy left in their name.

Behind the marketing sits a mine and an unreliable processing plant in Western Australia, an operational 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, close to two million tonnes of radioactive waste and millions of tonnes of hazardous waste sit in a monsoon-prone peat swamp, separated from the surrounding land by a thin plastic membrane.

Lynas’s own consultants judged the site safe for just twenty years. The waste stays hazardous for tens of thousands of years.

Lynas has no social licence to operate.

Safety standards sit below international norms. Oversight has been stripped away and tax exemptions handed out, 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 idea that any company has the right to poison a place in perpetuity.

Lynas Rare Earth: Militarised Extractivism in Action
Wednesday 19 August AEST at 8:00PM via Zoom

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SPEAKERS with Q&A
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Shigeru Tanaka, 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.
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Farwina Farogue, Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign in Malaysia will speak about their recent No Rare Earth for Genocide protest actions against Lynas
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Liz Downes, 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.
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Lee Tan, Policy Co-ordinator, 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
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