In an interview with LJR, Observatório da Mineração founder Maurício Ângelo explains how deep expertise, long-term reporting and persistence have shaped the outlet’s approach to covering one of Brazil’s most complex industries.
In recent years, rare earth elements and critical minerals have become increasingly important around the world. In Brazil, one niche news outlet was already well positioned to help cover the issue: Observatório da Mineração (“Mining Observatory” in Portuguese).
The investigative journalism and research center, which focuses on mining and other extractive industries, was founded in 2015 by journalist Maurício Ângelo after the Mariana dam collapse killed more than a dozen people, left hundreds homeless and caused an environmental disaster along the Doce River.
Specializing in covering mining's role in climate crises, its economy and impacts, Ângelo and his team also conduct research and lead advocacy efforts to inform and provide context about the energy transition from carbon to low-carbon or renewable energy sources — one that guarantees social and environmental safeguards and respects human rights.
LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) spoke with Ângelo about mining coverage in Brazil, the industry's impact on the environment, the audience his outlet has reached, and why he believes consistency is key for any journalism organization’s survival.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Although the issue has certainly grown in importance, relevance and political and regulatory attention over the past decade, I'd say it has really been over the last five years that critical minerals have gained real momentum in Brazil and around the world.
Observatório da Mineração began its coverage in November 2015. At first, our goal was to investigate what had led to the Mariana dam collapse, the sequence of events, the aftermath of the disaster and efforts to hold those responsible accountable.
Over the years, that coverage expanded to other topics. Because we were already specialists in mining and the extractive sector more broadly, we naturally identified these developments through our day-to-day reporting. Gradually, we made critical minerals a recurring and in-depth focus of our coverage.
I always say that our goal is not to compete with mainstream media or to produce breaking news. Instead, we aim to provide a deeper, more detailed, contextualized, critical and analytical perspective, drawing on the experience, expertise, sources and accumulated knowledge we've built over the years to unpack issues that are highly complex, highly technical and rooted in an industry that is itself extremely technical.
Ultimately, we're trying to explain these issues to the public through the different areas in which we operate: journalism, research, advocacy and training. Those are our four main pillars.
Rare earth elements, in particular, have become especially prominent over the past year, largely because of political developments involving President Trump and other geopolitical factors. That puts us in an interesting position because, in many ways, we were among the first news organizations to cover these topics in depth.
I come from a region that was affected by the Mariana dam collapse. I'm from northern Espírito Santo, which was directly impacted. The Doce River flows into the Atlantic Ocean in the city of Linhares.
Linhares neighbors São Mateus, a city where I have family and where I once lived. The coastal area around São Mateus is home to many quilombola communities, as well as other traditional riverine, fishing and shellfish-gathering communities.
The beaches I have visited since I was born were among the areas hardest hit by the Mariana dam collapse.
In fact, it took a long time for that region to be officially recognized as affected in the compensation and remediation process. To some extent, many of those areas — and especially the people who live there — still have not.
That personal connection — as someone who was ultimately affected by the disaster — was what motivated me to found the organization.
It's complicated. I won't pretend otherwise, especially for the journalists reading this. It's obviously extremely difficult, extremely complicated and very delicate. Over these 10 years, we've gone through a lot and faced many challenges.
Our financial model isn't very different from that of most independent, alternative news outlets. But because we are truly a niche publication — we're 100% dedicated to mining — we're in a rather unusual position.
That has created enormous challenges in the short, medium and long term — challenges we continue to face today. We sustain ourselves through grants from Brazilian and international funders, with a variety of projects involving investigative journalism, technical reports and, occasionally, consulting work.
We also run crowdfunding campaigns. They don't bring in a great deal, but we periodically ask readers to recognize the value of our work and contribute to the site, given the enormous challenges of producing journalism, research, advocacy and training in such a complex and sensitive field — one where we face threats, sabotage and harassment in countless ways. I won't go into detail here, but there have been many.
Mining intersects with every sphere of power in ways the public can imagine — and in many ways they probably can't. That makes this work extremely difficult. Over the past 11 years, we've seen many journalism projects devoted to different beats emerge and then disappear. It's not easy.
And we're still here, despite the tremendous difficulties. I won't pretend otherwise. I don't have a magic formula. This isn't just a problem for Observatório da Mineração. It's a challenge facing the entire journalism ecosystem, the media sector, the nonprofit world, the environmental movement — everyone involved in this broader chain of work.
Mining is a field with a steeper, more demanding learning curve. It takes time for someone to learn, understand and become capable of reporting, writing, investigating and fact-checking these issues.
Naturally, building sources and acquiring knowledge about the industry is more difficult than it is in many other beats.
At the same time, because [mining] touches on so many related issues — and because coverage of mining and environmental issues has expanded, improved and gained prominence in recent years — its importance has grown. The Mariana and Brumadinho dam collapses, the Braskem disaster, and broader geopolitical, climate and energy issues have all contributed to making these topics much more relevant.
That requires thorough research and extensive reading. There are no shortcuts. Even though AI can now help people research more quickly, efficiently and deeply than simply relying on Google or other search tools, depending on the niche you're covering, you still have to sit down and read. You have to connect the dots. You need to do the intellectual work beforehand — carefully, methodically and thoughtfully. Too often, freelance journalists — and journalists more broadly — don't do that.
Because I've gradually become a specialist — first through my work at Observatório da Mineração and later through academia, which is itself another niche — I regularly speak with journalists, give interviews and help reporters with story ideas, sources and recommendations.
What I often see is that many people come in completely unprepared. They want sources, recommendations or other assistance, or they show up for an interview without having done enough research, without spending time thinking through the subject beforehand. And that applies to every beat in journalism. Whatever topic you're covering, you have to go back to the basics and do the basics well. Only then can you become a specialist, whether in mining, environmental issues, literature, culture, film, music, central banking, health or education.
We don't measure our impact by pageviews, follower counts, reach or other raw metrics. An obsession with audience size, likes and views definitely does not drive Observatório da Mineração or determine our editorial coverage.
I think the greatest impact we have — and that any serious news organization dedicated to important issues can have — goes back to what I mentioned earlier: consistently doing quality work every single day. That's not easy.
Can you consistently produce work of a high standard, whether you're a niche news outlet, a restaurant, a film director or a band? Album after album, film after film, meal after meal, assignment after assignment. Can you consistently produce quality work with strong processes behind it? In journalism, can you produce coverage that no one else is doing — or that no one else is doing in quite the same way? That's the hardest part. And that's an enormous impact.
Of course, beyond that day-to-day work, we also occasionally produce exclusive investigations, in-depth reporting and special projects. Some of our reporting has prompted investigations by prosecutors, the courts and public defenders' offices, leading to tangible changes in the real world.
That's wonderful. It's gratifying. It excites journalists, funders and readers alike because it gives you a clear story to tell about the value of your work. But that's not everyday journalism. It doesn't happen every day, every week or every month.
What's much more important is maintaining that consistency — having clarity of purpose and dedication, and even accepting that your audience numbers may be modest. Journalists, funders and everyone involved in the ecosystems we cover — and in journalism more broadly — can't judge success only by pageviews. That's an intellectually, practically and even spiritually impoverished way of looking at things.
Of course it's important to reach as many people as possible. Everyone wants their work to have a broad audience. But I think the conversation has to be deeper, more mature and more nuanced than that.
Whether Observatório da Mineração lasts another 10 years or closes tomorrow, I'll be immensely proud of what we've accomplished over the past 11 years: consistently producing high-quality work in an extraordinarily difficult field, despite countless hours of dedication and repeated episodes of harassment, sabotage and threats. Without a doubt, we've contributed to a more mature public discussion during what has been a pivotal and historic decade for mining, extractivism, political economy, geopolitics and the climate debate in Brazil — issues whose consequences will continue to shape the decade we're now living through and the years ahead.
