From extraction to extinction: mapping the biodiversity loss of global mining expansion

The escalating demand for minerals and metals due to digitalization, infrastructure growth, and the renewable energy transition is driving an ever-increasing expansion of mining activities. To support the effective consideration of biodiversity commitments of governments and to ensure that the implications for biodiversity are included in any planning, there is an urgent need for decision-relevant, comprehensive spatial information. Here, we present a framework that integrates global mining land-use data with a spatially explicit biodiversity assessment. The assessment approach addresses both local and global biodiversity consequences of mining-driven land use and pinpoints specific species and locations most strongly affected. Using multiregional input-output analysis, we trace these mining-related biodiversity footprints along global supply chains. Our results show that biodiversity loss impacts associated with global mining land use are nearly twice as high as previously estimated. Hotspots in Indonesia, New Caledonia, Australia, Brazil, and Peru account for 57% of global mining-related biodiversity impacts. Coal, precious metals, nickel, iron, and copper extraction together contribute 82% of the total impacts. Due to international trade, 77% of mining-related biodiversity footprints occur outside the countries of final consumption. Demands from China, Europe, Japan, and the USA, primarily in construction, services, machinery, and electronics, account for 58% of mining-related biodiversity footprints. Together, these findings provide a global baseline of current mining-related biodiversity pressures, against which future mining development and biodiversity outcomes can be evaluated.

Building on our current baseline assessment, we link future mining land-use trajectories with species-level biodiversity outcomes under alternative pathways representing different exploration intensities. We combine exploration activity maps with historical land-use data to infer future spatial patterns of mineral extraction. For over 80,000 terrestrial vertebrates and tree species, we quantify changes in habitat-suitable ranges and attribute pixel-level habitat gains or losses to projected mining land conversion. The resulting regionalized biodiversity response will enable spatially explicit projections of species extinction risk under alternative mining land-use scenarios. In combination, these findings can provide a continuous picture of how mining, from current operations to future expansion, affects biodiversity, offering key insights for reconciling mineral supply planning with global conservation and sustainability goals.