Mena Habib announced this week that Power Minerals has completed its acquisition of the Morro do Ferro project in Brazil. While the managing director spoke of a "high-grade rare earth asset," the local indigenous peoples see only the destruction of their heritage. The state of Pará has authorized the clearing of nearly 1,500 acres of rainforest for an open-pit gold mine. The Juruna, Xikrin, and Arara peoples have spent more than a month in protest, warning that the project will irreversibly harm their way of life.

We are stewards of the Earth, not its masters. To clear-cut a forest and poison the water for the sake of mineral extraction is a failure of our duty to future generations. Prosecutors told Mongabay that the full environmental impact remains unclear, as plans for waste storage have not been finalized. Yet, the work of the machines continues. A federal appeals court has already reinstated the licenses needed to begin leveling the land.

This is the price of our modern hunger for rare earth elements and lithium. We trade the sacred silence of the Amazon for the materials needed to power our digital devices. While mining companies like Vale bet on "green iron" megaprojects in Maranhão, the reality for the people on the ground is one of displacement and loss. They were not properly consulted, and their voices are being drowned out by the roar of the excavators.

According to Gold Mountain, $5.5 million has been raised to accelerate exploration across Brazil. The capital flows in, but the beauty of the creation flows out. We must ask if a battery is worth the soul of a forest. True conservation begins with the recognition that some things are more valuable than gold. We must stand with the families who seek only to live as their fathers did, in harmony with the land God gave them.