CIRAN D6.2 Critical Raw Materials extraction in environmentally protected areas. Towards Efficient Policy Making (Factsheet)

This Factsheet outlines key findings described in Deliverable 6.2 (Hilton et al., 2025). The report is written with the EU Policy-makers and Regulators in mind at both central and local-government level facing three major challenges: 1.  a CRM Act now in law but with very limited knowledge or experience to date of the outcomes of the exercise of the law in the judicial process; 2. permitting the mining of Strategic/Critical raw materials (S/CRMs) in protected areas with a combined S/CRM list now totalling 53 minerals; 3. a very heterogenous, complex, and seemingly expanding set of applicable Directives and Policies suffering from fragmentation, sometime conflicted regulations and inconsistent operating procedures. These regulations mask an undertow of a combination of hostility in some communities to any mining in protected areas, especially new mines, and resistance in some other areas to mining anywhere at all for anything.