Kaki Comer, Manager, Standards & Systems, at US-based nonprofit Equitable Origin observes that “as critical mineral mining is ramping up, mining companies are approaching communities we work with in the Global South to sign agreements. Examples of these agreements are taken from an open-access dataset we collected that contains 27 publicly available critical mineral mining IBAs from regions across the Global North and South. The use of IBAs in critical mineral mining is growing and now extends to at least five continents (Figure 2). Publicly available critical mineral mining IBAs by country, from Carr-Wilson et al. 2026What Critical Mineral Mining IBAs Offer to CommunitiesWhile an increase in critical minerals mining has broad global implications for a just energy transition, the scope and purpose of individual IBAs is largely local and regional.