Mike Gatehouse
El Salvador: ‘No to Life, Yes to Mining’
President Nayib Bukele has overturned El Salvador's seven-year-old ban on metal mining (the first such ban in the world) and renewed the assault on communities which campaign against mining. The five water defenders from Santa Marta, Cabañas, now face a new trial because of their opposition to gold mining.
‘Open Fire’ exhibition in UK
In September 2022, LAB described a new photo exhibition, created by the Brazilian photographer and film-maker Marilene Cardoso Ribeiro.
Now that exhibition has come to...
Appeal for leading Brazilian environmental defender
Antonia Melo, a Brazilian environmental defender widely known for her work, especially in opposing the Belo Monte hydro-electric dam on the Xingu River, faces a grave health crisis. An appeal has been launched to help with her health care.
Brazil: Kawahiva at mercy of loggers and gangs
The Kawahiva, an unctacted Indigenous people, live in an area still plagued by illegal logging. Despite promises from Lula's government, their land is still not fully protected and their existence is acutely endangered.
El Salvador: state of deception
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, warns that governemnt attacks on water defenders and others likely herald a return to metal mining, banned in the country since 2017. The IPS report also examines the increasing authoritarianism of the Bukele government and the new cllimate of fear it is inducing.
The Amazon: rivers of life, circles of learning 2
In the second of three articles, Dan Baron continues his review of the eco-cultural project he has been coordinating in the Brazilian Amazon with young people from Marabá, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon since 2009.
He revisits the history of the Backyard Drums group as it becomes the collective pulse of the the over-arching Rios de Encontro project.
Chileans of the North
Chileans of the North is an exceptional documentary which charts the experiences of Chilean refugees who arrived in Sheffield in the 1970s, their reception by and impact on the local labour movement and the importance of solidarity for refugee resettlement.
Fighting illegal mining in Yanomami territory
Agência Pública chronicles the work of Brazil's environmental protection agency, IBAMA, to root illegal miners out of the territory of the Yanomami people -- in an effort to fulfil Lula's pledge of action
El Salvador: a cure more harmful than the disease?
A state of emergency and ruthless action by the authorities has dramatically curtailed the activity of gangs which previously ruled vast swathes of El Salvador. But there are many innocent victims and the underlying poverty, inequality and injustice remain untouched.
El Salvador: water defenders arrested
Five water defenders from Santa Marta, Cabañas, El Salvador have been arrested in connection with the 1989 murder of a woman in their community. However, their active membership of an organisation opposed to mining and strong signs that the government wants to subvert the country's mining ban suggest another motive for their persecution