The UK government, as well as others, is currently funding research into the ecology of the target areas and the impacts of mining (https://blogs.noc.ac.uk/blog

The UK government, as well as others, is currently funding research into the ecology of the target areas and the impacts of mining (https://blogs.noc.ac.uk/blogs/SMARTEX https://blogs.noc.ac.uk/blogs/SMARTEX) I'm not sure it will be 'hidden' (the research projects are not going away) so much as yet another case of competing interests within governments, where the environment gets sidelined for the sake of an hypothetical future magic money tree.