Brazil: deforestation financed from US & Argentina
Communities awaiting compensation from the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history say they’re being stymied by a convoluted legal process that favors those responsible.
Brazil: the Munduruku vs illegal gold mining
Munduruku people on the Tapajós tributary of the Amazon are engaged in a struggle for survival against the long-term effects of mercury poisoning from gold mining, a new influx of illegal miners and the Covid infection they bring with them.
Ecuador: we’ve decided – no more mining here!
Josefina Tunki and Tania Laurini, two leaders of the Shuar Arutam people in Ecuador have received explicit death threats from Federico Velasquez, senior official at Lowell-Solaris, a Canadian owned mining company. The Shuar are opposing a gold and copper project at Warintza in the Ecuadorean Amazon.
Glencore and Anglo-American blamed for pollution
At Espinar in Peru and on Chile's Colina river, major international mining companies are once more in the spotlight, suspected of causing pollution, denying responsibility and failing to consult local communities
Brumadinho: another mining dam disaster in Brazil
At least 65 people have been killed and 305 are missing after a tailings dam was breached at Córrego do Feijão, one of Vale’s...
Mining: Vale pays out but Antofagasta stalls workforce
Vale mining is finally forced to pay compensation to Minas Gerais state, but the victims of the Brumadinho disaster are not consulted. In Chile, Antofagasta mining faces strike action. From LAB's London Mining Network blog.
Brumadinho: a gallery of destruction
On 25 January 2019 a huge tailings dam at the Feijão iron ore mine, near Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais, Brazil, collapsed suddenly and catastrophically....
Mining: democracy comes from the street
Protests at Chubut in Argentina highlight the importance of pressure from the streets to force local officials to hold the line against destructive mine development. In Brazil, meanwhile, it is the trans-Brazil FIOL railway project that is mobilising communities to defend their land and livelihoods.
The plunder of Bolivian gold
Chinese companies are behind rapid expansion of gold mining in the Mayaya region of Bolivia, and are invading the Madidi National Park. Bolivian journalist and LAB correspondent Sergio Mendoza travelled by canoe down the Beni and Quendeque rivers, witnessing how the illegal mining activity is hidden by Bolivian mining cooperatives and supported or permitted by the government.
Mining: the struggle for what’s essential
Former MiningWatch Canada researcher Jen Moore reports on Global mining companies which have used the pandemic to push unwanted projects on vulnerable communities, who are fighting back — and sometimes winning.