*Name changed for the security of sources who feared retributions from authorities KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — “The company operates as they please. We’ve asked the authorities for help, but they…
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.
Gold, whose value has spiked by more than 55% since the 2008 financial crisis, is notoriously difficult to trace. Once mined, it can follow a maze-like path to market, passing…
When it comes to dirty money, countries like Switzerland, Panama and Spain’s Canary Islands have earned a reputation as good hiding spots. They’re rife with shell companies and laundered profits.…
Last month, the U.S. agreed to lift some sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for a roadmap to presidential elections, tentatively scheduled for the second half of next year. The deal…
MEXICO CITY — Canada has become a major force in Latin America. It’s spent the last 30 years beefing up its portfolio with investments in mining, oil and natural gas.…
More than half of Indigenous environmental defenders and leaders killed for safeguarding their ecosystems, their homes, and their family on the planet are Amazonians. This violence stems from a new…
Rapidly transitioning the world’s vehicle fleet to fully electric could significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, but also dramatically increase demand for critical battery metals like lithium, nickel and…
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produces around 70% of the global supply of cobalt and it is also Africa’s leading producer of copper. Despite the billions of dollars in…
The Amazon Rainforest is the largest in the world and a key player in regulating global water and carbon cycles. It also happens to be home to sophisticated criminal networks…
The alerts of illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have zeroed for the first time since 2020, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian Federal Police.
This investigation is a collaboration between the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), NBC News, Mongabay and El Espectador, with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Conservation…
The environmental issues facing Venezuela are serious and wide-ranging: illegal mining in the Amazon, national water shortages, mudslides and flooding exacerbated by climate change, the degradation of protected areas, oil…
In April, South Korean conglomerate Hyundai announced that it would prevent its excavators from being used in illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon. This followed a recent Greenpeace report that…
The past decade has seen a wave of academic and activist writings criticizing the use of militarized conservation to protect nature. In this commentary piece, we argue that the use…
A recent chemical spill in a protected reserve in northern Nicaragua is raising concerns about the contamination of several river ecosystems and the public health fallout for thousands of Indigenous…
Within just five years, the Amazon Rainforest could lose half the total forest cover that it lost in the first 20 years of this century, a recent study has shown,…
YANOMAMI INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil – Four officers from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, throw themselves from a helicopter into the murky waters of the Uraricoera River below and swim toward…
Activists from Papua New Guinea, where a controversial gold mine is inching toward reopening, have joined a campaign of global protests ahead of the annual general meeting of Canada-based Barrick…
The Congo Basin contains the world’s second-largest rainforest at a staggering 178 million hectares (just under 440 million acres). It is also one of the biggest carbon sinks on the…
JAKARTA — The rampant deforestation for monoculture plantation and logging in western Indonesian Borneo has exacerbated the extinction risks of three plant species endemic to the island’s riparian lowland rainforests,…
Mining is one of the top drivers of deforestation globally, with huge swaths of forest being cleared for excavation pits, access roads and workers’ settlements. Yet details about mining’s environmental…
Emmanuel Peni’s first response to a list of questions about his role in a campaign against a proposed copper and gold mine is to send back an idyllic photo of…
JAKARTA — When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With…
Around 15 million people across the globe are working at artisanal and small-scale gold mining sites, nearly a third of them women and children. Instead of operating advanced equipment supplied…
SANTA ELENA DE UAIRÉN, Venezuela — Standing at the brink of a man-made canyon, Jhonny Pereira, a Brazilian-born mining boss, looks down at a dozen gold miners as they plough…
PORTO VELHO, Brazil — Cruising north in a speedboat along the Madeira River, the signs of Brazil’s illegal gold mining boom are everywhere: mounds of sand extracted from the riverbed…
Canadian mining company Aura Minerals plans to establish a major gold extraction project in Brazil’s Tocantins state without hearing the Quilombola (slave descendant) community that will be affected by the operations, thus violating their right to free, prior and informed consultation.
In 2015, researchers in Brazil started a project to address a tricky challenge: Reducing exposure to mercury contamination in the region of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the…
