Gold Mining News

It’s a long way from Kyiv to Itaituba, but Brazil’s busy wildcat gold prospectors don’t need a map. The war on Ukraine has sent international gold prices soaring and word…

Officials in Honduras say they are cracking down on open-pit mining, an activity that has plagued the country with deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, among other environmental hazards. The…

TAMPAKAN, Philippines — For nearly a decade, Nora Sukal was the public face of Indigenous opposition to the Tampakan project, a planned gold and copper mine on Blaan tribal land…

Years of artisanal mining along the Madre de Dios River and its tributaries have left their marks, both seen and unseen. Miners, swarming to the region in a modern-day goldrush,…

Perched in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the borders of Uganda and South Sudan, Okapi Wildlife Reserve quietly encompasses some 14,000 square kilometers (5,405 square miles) of rainforest…

LINGE, Indonesia — Indonesian coffee farmers on the island of Sumatra have spoken out against a plan to mine for gold in an area that overlaps with one of the…

On February 11, 2022, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro published a decree establishing the Program for Supporting the Development of Artisanal Mining (Pró-Mape), which aims to “stimulate” this type of mining…

A ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court this month canceled two controversial mining concessions in Indigenous communities, which have been fighting to stop the projects for nearly two decades. The Nahua…

Illegal mining in protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon saw as much as a fivefold increase since 2010, a gold rush driven largely by surging prices in international markets. Over…

Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and…

MINDANAO, Philippines — For environmental groups in the Philippines, 2021 went out with a big blow: on Dec. 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reversed a 4-year-old…

SOUTH RUPUNUNI, Guyana — In a Facebook post this past November, Guyana’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced that it had issued a special mining permit to a group of small-scale…

BALI, Indonesia — Satellite imagery has detected deforestation in a gold mining concession in Indonesia that overlaps with the habitat of the most threatened great ape in the world. U.S.-based…

MINDANAO, Philippines — Mount Apo, a protected area on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, is threatened by small-scale illegal mining, which remains a lingering problem elsewhere in the resource-rich…

NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philippines – Community leader Eduardo Ananayo says he wept when heard the Philippine government had renewed its mining agreement with Australian-Canadian company OceanaGold Corporation this past July. “We…

Brazil’s Senate has opted not to call for a genocide charge against President Jair Bolsonaro, a week after the death of two Indigenous children in an Amazonian reserve being invaded…

Gana Gold generated R$ 1.1 billion (US$ 200 million) in revenue using illegally-obtained environmental licenses in Brazil, equivalent to 3 tons of gold extracted.

On July 19, Australian mining firm Predictive Discovery posted a breathless press release on its website. “Bonanza”-grade gold had been discovered at its Bankan exploration site in a remote part…

Mining areas are dangerous for many reasons: they’re linked to a heightened risk of cancer, poisoning, heart and respiratory diseases. Now, researchers have identified a hitherto overlooked hazard: roads. Miners…

Before the clearing and excavators and bulldozers, before plans to build a gold mine and oil palm plantations, the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves in Johor, Malaysia, were wildlife-rich jungles…

There is a sacred hill in Nicaragua known as Kiwakumbaih, where the ancestors of the Indigenous Mayangna people would go to hold important annual events. To this day, it continues…

BOGOTÁ — In Colombia’s Chocó department, renowned by environmentalists for its abundant biodiversity, Afro-Colombian communities collect gold from rivers as part of an ancestral way of life. “When we talk…

Brazil is likely feeding international demand for gold with bullion tainted by violence, deforestation and pollution, given that almost a third of the country’s registered gold production is classified as…

This story is the result of a reporting collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto. In 2000, in the midst of Colombia’s vast Amazon rainforest, two elder members from…

A breakthrough report has mapped out all the raids carried out to rescue people working in slave-labor conditions in mines across Brazil since 2008.

Gold mining activities in a region of the Brazilian Amazon ravaged by illegal operations could be suspended after prosecutors filed a lawsuit this week. In its lawsuit, the Federal Public…

Demand for manganese in China is having a huge impact on the other side of the world: for the Indigenous Kayapó people in the Brazilian Amazon. The metal is essential…

JAKARTA — Activists in Indonesia have filed a legal challenge to controversial mining legislation passed last year and widely seen as undermining environmental protections to the advantage of mining companies.…

A recent investigation has found dangerously high levels of mercury among women from different Indigenous communities in four Latin American countries. This chemical element is a neurotoxic substance that presents…

The renowned photographer endured the Nazi occupation. Settling in Brazil, she fought for the founding of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, long under attack by illegal miners. A new photo exhibition celebrates her life and the Yanomami people.