The Heart of Our Earth

In the second of two articles, mining engineer Laurence Morris describes how the oligarchy of the 'Big Five' mining companies operates and the negative consequences of their monopoly of power, influence and resources.

Mining engineer Laurence Morris shows how the world's 5 largest mining companies constitute an oligarchy, with serious consequences for mine workers, communities, the environment and the countries which depend on their corporate 'largesse'

Communities of the Intag Valley are engaging in new tactics, using citizen science to resist mining through legal battles. A pioneering organisation, Ecoforensic, is training a growing movement of ‘paraecologists’ to gather the ecological data needed to win legal cases against mining companies – and it’s working.

Moira and Vilma had travelled from southern Patagonia to Europe to spread awareness of the urgent situation for Indigenous peoples in the south of Argentina, and to strengthen bonds of international solidarity. 

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.

Members of Ejido El Bajío, in the Gran Desierto de Altar, Sonora, have been fighting for almost 20 years against a gold mining company that is destroying the fauna and flora of their beautiful but delicate surroundings.

Black and Indigenous Brazilian protestors halted a joint panel at the COP28 climate conference, where the mining company Vale and government representatives were talking complacently about 'energy transition'.

In August this year, the owners of two fincas in the Gualivá province of Cundinamarca, just outside of Bogota, were sent expropriation orders by...

Indigenous communities in Azuay, Ecuador, are fighting Canadian gold mining company Dundee Precious Metals, whose Loma Larga mine threatens to pollute the Kimsakocha moorlands and its rivers.

Glencore, owner of the vast Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, is using the grotesque Investor State Dispute Settlement process to prevent the Colombian government from protecting its own citizens and environment. Jen Moore was part of an international delegation to study this problem.