Gold Mining News

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A ruined mining site rests at the heart of the village of Akak I, nestled on the outskirts of Cameroon's capital Yaoundé. This quarry site is no…

With its blood-red eyes and red, black and yellow scales, the Marley’s Snail-eating snake looks like it could end your life with a bite. But this delicate snake, Sibon marleyae,…

The election victory in 2022 of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president in decades, has fanned winds of change in the country. The new government has vowed to tackle many…

Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We have to be very skeptical,” says Carlos Latorre, artisanal gold miner and…

ALTAMIRA, Brazil — The warehouse donated to house the Castelo dos Sonhos farmers’ market for local growers has stood empty for nearly 15 years. Opened in 2008 and spanning 480…

“I come here to find gold. First we cut down the trees, then we burn them. Then we start digging the soil to open the pit,” says a young man…

MEXICO CITY — It was considered a major environmental victory, back in 2017, when El Salvador’s government announced it would be the first country in the world to issue a…

Throughout 2022, Colombian authorities identified the presence of 40 dredgers on the Colombian side of the Puré River, with another 200 operating on the Brazilian side, where it is known…

Zambians launch lead poisoning lawsuit against mining giant Anglo American A group of 140,000 women and children from Zambia’s Kabwe district  is seeking to bring a class action lawsuit against…

It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening to the environment in Nicaragua. Data on everything from mining to deforestation to biodiversity loss is nearly impossible to get from the government.…

On Dec. 5, a flight over the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s northern Amazon showed the Greenpeace and Brazilian NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) members on board an illegal road, already…

At least 570 Indigenous Yanomami infants have died over the past four years from treatable diseases such as diarrhea and malaria, an average of three every week, highlighting the ongoing…

Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu region, in Pará; project foresees the extraction of 74 tons of gold in 20 years of operation.

TRIUNFO DO XINGU, Brazil — Lenice Divina Ramos weaves through knee-high weeds and scorched shrubs before halting abruptly near the slice of jungle where, not long ago, she found the…

Illegal gold mining is accelerating deforestation in one of Venezuela’s most threatened national parks, a new report from Amazon Conservation revealed. Satellite imagery analyzed by the NGO shows that thousands…

Residents of a landless worker’s settlement in Anapu, Pará state in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the Federal Government of favoring large landowners, land grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.

Nigeria's new oil frontier puts communities at risk, campaigners warn Nigeria’s state-owned oil company started drilling for oil and gas at a field in the Kolmani River in the country’s northeast in November.…

APYTEREWA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — Deep in the Apyterewa reserve, Tye Parakanã waves a hand toward the lush rainforest flanking his village. In the distance, a faint cloud of smoke…

This year ended with a big bang for many Indigenous leaders, communities and activists around the world. During the U.N. biodiversity conference, known as COP15, Indigenous traditional lands and rights…

The city of Lago Agrio, which lies in the province of Sucumbíos in northern Ecuador’s Amazonian region, is considered the country’s oil capital. It also sits in the midst of…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s parliament has passed into law a sweeping set of amendments to the country’s Criminal Code, which experts have warned will weaken environmental protections. The House of Representatives…

This story was produced with the funding support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center. WAIKAS, Brazil — From up above, long, massive, yellowish stains tear apart…

BATOURI, Cameroon – At Kambélé III, an artisanal mining site in the commune of Batouri, located 415 kilometers (268 miles) east of Yaoundé, Cameroon's capital, male, female, teenage, and child…

Artisanal gold mining is driving the global demand for mercury, with 2,058 metric tons of the toxic metal contaminating water, land and air every year, according to a recent report…

The new Brazilian president pledges to protect the Amazon, Indigenous peoples and their lands, ending illegal mining, logging and land grabbing. But he must deal with a largely hostile congress and “not enough” international forest funding.

Myanmar harbors some of the most extensive tracts of old-growth forest in mainland Southeast Asia. These forested landscapes represent many of the region’s last refuges of rare and threatened species,…

LA PAZ — Gold is Bolivia’s second-biggest export, valued at more than $1 billion annually and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the country. But much of that gold…

ASUNCIÓN MITA, Guatemala – Cecilia López and Luz Elena González were in good spirits as they left, walking beneath blue and white plastic streamers strung across the school property in…

TAMPAKAN, Philippines — In a move celebrated by anti-mining activists, local officials in the southern Philippine municipality of Tampakan have canceled the business permit for a controversial copper and gold…

GORONTALO, Indonesia — In a Chanel-print dress and wielding a machete, Ermi Mauke means business as she hikes past cashew and coffee seedlings she planted on the approach to Indonesia’s…