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Collage Maxwell Radwin and Gold mine

This riverside border town is fueling an illegal gold rush

Julia Lima, Maxwell Radwin 7 Nov 2026
In March, IBAMA dismantled an illegal mining operation in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory in Roraima. This image from Operation Xapiri shows rocks resulting from bedrock blasting. After being crushed, the ore is processed using cyanide to separate the gold from other minerals.

Cyanide ponds from illegal mining threaten Amazon Indigenous territory

Elizabeth Oliveira 2 Nov 2026

In Suriname’s Amazon, the Wayana community struggling to keep gold miners at bay

Maxwell Radwin 29 Oct 2026
Copper mine in Chile. Image by Tom Hegen

Photographer Tom Hegen’s aerial eye reveals the true scale of the critical mineral age

Carolyn Cowan 28 Oct 2026
Illegal gold mining activity in the Pamong Besar River, Sangir, South Solok. Photo: Vinolia/Mongabay Indonesia.

Deadly gold rush continues as latest landslide kills four in Sumatra

Vinolia 22 Oct 2026
The Kila gold mine, on the northern edge of Nigeria’s Gashaka-Gumti National Park, before its closure in July 2026 by Nigeria’s National Park Service and the Africa Nature Investors (ANI) Foundation, with support from the Nigerian military. Image courtesy of the Africa Nature Investors Foundation.

Nigeria drove thousands of gold miners from a national park. But can it keep them out?

David Akana 17 Oct 2026

Lawmakers in Suriname call for investigation, stricter oversight amid new mining activity

Maxwell Radwin 9 Oct 2026
Mineral traders watch on as antimony ore is transferred from Myanmar trucks to Thai trucks at the Pheung Khleung border crossing. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Myanmar’s polluting mines selling to China through Thai companies

Gerald Flynn 1 Oct 2026
Environmental agents use satellite imagery analyses and on-site inspections to identify the flow of illegal wood, such as this seizure from the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Territory, using timber credits. Image by IBAMA via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

To tackle environmental crime, track profits through the whole supply chain (commentary)

Robert Muggah, Ilona Szabó de Carvalho 25 Sep 2026
Illegal miners at work in the Atewa Forest Reserve, Ghana. Image courtesy of A Rocha Ghana.

Illegal mines threaten biodiversity and drinking water in Ghana’s Atewa Forest

Mabel Adorkor Annang 21 Sep 2026
A Tapanuli orangutan. Image © Bert Harris via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Tapanuli orangutans face mining, landslides, and fire threats — with no recovery plan

Hans Nicholas Jong 18 Sep 2026

Bolivia’s mining law overhaul raises environmental and community concerns

Maxwell Radwin 16 Sep 2026

Since US intervention, Venezuela’s illegal mining crisis has only worsened, critics say

Maxwell Radwin 15 Sep 2026
Gold nugget

The push for a sustainable artisanal mining in the Peruvian Amazon

Felipe Esparza 12 Sep 2026
Gold mining

Can mining gold be sustainable?

Felipe Esparza 11 Sep 2026

Riverside families in the Amazon change meals as mercury poisons staple fish

Karla Mendes 8 Sep 2026

In Peru, mercury leaves a toxic footprint on those who depend on a river

Elizabeth Salazar Vega 8 Sep 2026

Mercury threatens over 160 communities in Bolivia’s Beni River basin

Iván Paredes Tamayo 8 Sep 2026

New analysis maps mercury threat to 951 Amazon communities in three countries

Alexa Vélez, Vanessa Romo, Daniela Quintero Díaz 8 Sep 2026
An illegal gold mine in Nagan Raya, Aceh.

Illegal gold mining continues in Indonesia’s Aceh despite government crackdown pledge

Junaidi Hanafiah 4 Sep 2026
A Yanomami Indigenous child plays among the wreckage of a Brazilian Air Force aircraft at the Surucucu airport. Image courtesy of Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil.

Scientists use mining data to build malaria alert system in the Amazon

Fernanda Wenzel 1 Sep 2026
A Sumatran orangutan.

Gold miners breach a crucial refuge for rescued Sumatran orangutans

Junaidi Hanafiah 31 Aug 2026
Gold extraction site

Brazil’s mining agency under fire over corruption and omission probes

Fernanda Wenzel 4 Aug 2026

Nicaragua’s gold boom is now encroaching on protected areas and Indigenous land

Maxwell Radwin 3 Aug 2026
Río Huaypetue gold mine in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

The global gold rush consuming the Amazon (commentary)

Robert Muggah 30 Jul 2026
A mine site at Samreboi, Western Region, Ghana in 2022. Image courtesy of Erastus Asare Donkor

Ghana’s High Court sentences politician to 20 years in illegal mining case

Mabel Adorkor Annang 24 Jul 2026

Illegal miners adapt their strategies in Yanomami Amazon territory

Rubens Valente 17 Jun 2026
Oxysternon festivum, the most common dung beetle found in the study. Image by Tom Murray via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Gold mining damages dung beetle communities in the Amazon, study finds

David Brown 4 Jun 2026
Health workers accompany a child suspected of having Ebola at the disease treatment center in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on September 9, 2018. For representation only. Image by Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, Associated Press.

‘People kept dying’: Interview with Dr. Macky Mbavugha on DRC’s latest Ebola outbreak

Elodie Toto 29 May 2026
Illegal sand and gold mining

Indonesia seizes mercury shipment bound for illegal mines in the Philippines

Anggita Raissa 26 May 2026
The site of an illegal gold mine in Sijunjung Regency where a landslide occurred, killing nine people.

Nine killed at illegal mine in latest Sumatra landslide tragedy as gold surge continues

Novia Harlina 21 May 2026
Fisherman from the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory with his catch from the Tapajós River. Image courtesy of Luis Ushirobira/InfoAmazonia.

Artisanal mines in Brazil a front for gold laundering, investigation shows

Mongabay.com 21 May 2026

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