Photo: The F-35 fighter jet is the first military aircraft with a lithium-ion backup battery for mission-critical roles. Photo by Kaszynzki, Lockheed Martin.
Last week, Pubaffairsbruxelles.eu reported: “The European Commission has adopted [on December 3, 2025] the RESourceEU Action Plan to accelerate and amplify its efforts to secure the EU’s supply of critical raw materials, such as rare earth elements, cobalt or lithium. Building on the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), the initiative provides financing and concrete tools to protect industry from geopolitical and price shocks, promote projects on critical raw materials in Europe and beyond, and partner with like-minded countries to diversify supply chains.”
Similarly, the Canadian government led the Critical Minerals Production Alliance initiative at the G7 summit in June 2025 to “enhance critical mineral supply chains for collective defence and advanced technology.”
Lithium is a critical mineral
The Guardian has reported: “By 2040, the world is expected to need four times as many critical minerals as it does today… While the importance of such minerals to the green transition is often touted, with many crucial to the manufacture of turbines, solar panels and other low carbon energy sources, campaigners point out that much of the demand comes from the arms and consumer tech industries.”
Critical minerals are essential to weapons production and can be seen to be interrelated with The Hague Summit Declaration to increase military spending and Canada’s participation in Security Action for Europe (SAFE).
Proposed lithium mine in Spain
Extremadura New Energies – owned by Australian company Infinity Metals (previously Infinity Lithium) – is applying for a licence to operate the San José Lithium de Valdeflores Project near the city of Cáceres in the autonomous region of Extremadura in southwest Spain.
The mine would be situated in the valley of Valdeflores that sits on top of the European Union’s second largest hard rock lithium deposit.
In November 2022, PBI-Spanish State brought environmental defenders from Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to the site of this proposed mine because “transiting the territories affected by capitalist extractivism in the Spanish State is also defending human rights and the commons.”
Photo by Asociación ICID.
Three years later on November 19, 2025, El Periódico reported: “Now, the multinational is now waiting for the regional administration to give the green light to the Application for the Exploitation Concession of the San José de Valdeflores Lithium Project.”
Proposed lithium mine in Nevada
This week, PBI-Canada reported on the Indigenous-led opposition to the proposed Vancouver-based Lithium Americas Corp. Thacker Pass open-pit lithium mine in Nevada in the southwestern area of the United States.
Photo from People of Red Mountain website.
In August 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense (since rebranded the Department of War) awarded $11.8 million to Lithium Nevada Corporation, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp., for the Thacker Pass mine.
This past summer, ProPublica reported: “Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have for years worked alongside private mine security to surveil the largely peaceful protesters who oppose the mine.”
Critical minerals in Guatemala
Montreal-based Central America Nickel says that it “controls directly or indirectly, various world-class resource properties including nickel, lithium, and rare earth deposits integral to the transition towards a clean energy and green economy, in Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other regions.”
This past May, the PBI-Guatemala accompanied journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc posted on social media: “A member of the anti-mining resistance is murdered, from the 54 communities in Sierra Santa Cruz, jurisdiction of Livingston, Izabal, where the company Rio Nickel S. intends to operate.”
Rio Nickel is a subsidiary of Central America Nickel.
Photo: Misael Mata Asencio, a land defender from the Maya Q’eqchi’ village of Las Flores in Livingston, Guatemala, was killed on May 14, 2025.
Another critical mineral – tungsten
Spain
Last week, elEconomista.es reported that Abenójar Tungsten, a company belonging to Mining Hill’s S.L. – which is owned by the Spanish group PMC (Promotora de Minas de Carbón) and Alcudia Mining S.L. – wants to develop the El Moto tungsten and gold mine project in Abenójar in the southwest of the province of Ciudad Real.
Their hope is to start extraction in 2027.
And elDiario.es has noted: “The company has explained that tungsten has uses related to the military and aerospace industry, for the manufacture of armour, ammunition, turbines and high-strength components, but also for products related to electronics and telecommunications, wind turbines and energy storage technologies or high-precision tools, such as those related to industrial machining.”
ElDiario.es also reports: “The European Commission has included the ‘El Moto’ mining project in the list of strategic projects that it will finance to extract critical minerals and guarantee Europe’s autonomy from third countries. …Ecologists in Action will appeal to the European Commission its inclusion [of the El Moto mine] as a strategic project and it will be the previous step to take the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union together with other groups.”
Canada
PBI-Canada has also highlighted the opposition of Indigenous Wolastoqey land defenders to the proposed Northcliff Resources Sisson open-pit tungsten mine on their lands in the province of New Brunswick in eastern Canada.
On May 1, 2025, Northcliff itself had announced that it had been awarded US $15 million from the United States Department of Defense (rebranded as the Department of War in September 2025) to develop the mine.
This past summer, the NB Media Co-op reported: “[Given the U.S. Department of War has invested in the mine, Wolastoq Grand Chief Ron] Tremblay said the Wolastoq Grand Council rejects activities contributing to war and what he called the ‘continuum of genocide’ in places such as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
Video still: To listen to the NB Media Co-op’s interview with Wolastoq Elder Alma Brooks and Wolastoq Grand Chief Ron Tremblay who is also known as Spasaqit Possesom, please click here.
The risks
Global Justice Now has also highlighted: “Over a third of such transition mineral projects are on or near Indigenous or peasant land facing water risk, conflict and food insecurity. More than half of nickel, copper and zinc and 80% of lithium projects are found in Indigenous peoples’ territories.”
Peace Brigades International accompanies environmental defenders who experience aggressions and attacks for their work to protect the lands and waters of their communities from resource extraction megaprojects.
We continue to follow this.
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