Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte aluminum refining facility in Barcarena municipality, Pará state, has been accused by Brazilian authorities of contaminating the local waters of several communities with toxic waste that overflowed earlier this month from a holding basin.
The firm denied the allegation, but has agreed to provide water to local residents, and is investigating.
The government also accused...
Local leaders in Barcarena, Pará are in fear for their lives, following the murder on Monday 12 March of one of their leaders, 47 year-old Paulo Sérgio Almeida Nascimento. This was the second murder of a community leader in three months. Fernando Pereira was murdered on 22 December 2017.
“It’s as though we are the prey and they are the...
This article was re-published from Ricochet by UpsideDownWorld. You can see the original here.
Header image:(L-R): Amalia Cac Tiul, Elena Choc Quib, Carmelina Caal Ical, and Angelica Choc outside TD Tower, Toronto, Nov. 8, 2017. Source: Heather Gies
Elena Choc Quib, a unilingual Q’eqchi’ speaker from a remote village in rural Guatemala, never imagined travelling outside her country, let alone boarding...
20 December 2017
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
The ghosts of elections past, present and future
Across the world, polls this year have been confounded as elections yielded surprising results (not least, for those of us in the UK, in the 2016 referendum on EU membership and the general election in 2017). These results have led many analysts to identify strands...
Argentina has filed indictments against Ricardo Villalba, former Director of the Argentinean Institute of Snow, Ice, and Environmental Research (IANIGLA), and three former Environment Secretaries (Omar Judis, Sergio Lorusso, and Juan José Mussi), for their roles in overseeing the National Glacier Inventory (NGI).
Villalba, a renowned glacial researcher, is charged with negligence and failure to properly inventory the...
LAB's Tom Gatehouse talks to Rodrigo Péret from the Churches and Mining Network and Thiago Alves da Silva from the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB)
Main image: The historic Estrada Real (the Royal Road built by the Portuguese crown in
the early 18th century) passes through Bento Rodrigues. One of the marks of the Estrada Real is surrounded by...
23 September 2017
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
Apologies for the long hiatus since our last newsletter. We'll try to make them more regular in future.
Brazil
We’ve published a spate of articles on Brazil in recent months. In case you missed them, there were 15 articles in the extraordinary series by LAB Editor Sue Branford and Mauricio Torres, written for Mongabay and...
This is the final post in a series of four written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto
4. Company policy: Divide and Rule
MRN, or Mineração Rio do Norte, the bauxite mining company which dominates the extractive industry in Pará, improved the process of 'stakeholder mapping' in 2015, according to the company's financial report....
The Fórum Bem Viver (Good Life Forum) met earlier this month to bring together indigenous leaders, military police, a federal judge, television actors, musicians, journalists, scientists and activists from eight countries and 14 Brazilian states.
The event, organized by the eco-cultural education nonprofit Rios de Encontro, utilized arts performances and workshops to seek common ground between participants regarding...
This is the third in a series of four blog-posts, written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto
3. David vs Goliath
one public document states that since 1995, the aluminium mining company MRN (Mineração Rio do Norte) has been transferring R$495,000 per year for the maintenance of the local unit of the Chico Mendes...