Land rights and extractives News

Female Indigenous guardians. Image by Brandi Morin.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests

Brandi Morin 22 Oct 2025

Communities in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc Basin have activities such as livestock farming, agriculture, crafts and tourism. Image courtesy of Clemente Flores.

Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)

Clemente Flores 27 Oct 2025

Female Indigenous guardians. Image by Brandi Morin.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests

Brandi Morin 22 Oct 2025

Miners pan for gold at a gold mine in El Callao, Bolivar state, Venezuela, Friday, April 28, 2023. Miners pan for hours in ponds where standing water fosters mosquitos that transmit diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever. Photo by: AP Photo/Matias Delacroix.

Amid Venezuela’s illegal gold heist are armed groups, gangs & elites, report says

Aimee Gabay 2 Oct 2025

Monitors from the Ticuna community of San Francisco de Yahuma, in Loreto, Peru. They use drones to monitor and protect their forests. Image courtesy of Joseph Zegarra/Rainforest Foundation US.

Indigenous women in Peru use technology to protect Amazon forests

Astrid Arellano 24 Sep 2025

Vilma de Callata, 45, draws water for her animals in Tusaquillas, Jujuy Province, Argentina, Sunday, April 23, 2023. Her native Kolla people have spent centuries climbing deep into the mountains of northern Argentina in search of a simple substance: Fresh drinking water. Image by Photo/Rodrigo Abd.

In Argentina, lithium exploration proceeds amid community disputes

Aimee Gabay 10 Sep 2025

Illegal dredger in the Caquetá River. Image courtesy of Juan Carlos Contreras.

Indigenous Amazonians win landmark ruling against mercury pollution in Colombia

Iván Paredes Tamayo 9 Jul 2025

Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push

Riza Salman 24 May 2025

An Inga leader from the Yunguillo reserve, José Homero Mutumbajoy is the human rights and peace coordinator for OPIAC. Image courtesy of José Homero Mutumbajoy.

‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy

Latoya Abulu 1 May 2025

An uncontacted Indigenous community in Acre, Brazil.

Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)

Danielle Martin 16 Jan 2025

Illegal mining in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in 2020. Image by Marizilda Cruppe/Amazônia Real/Amazon Watch.

Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await

Jenny Gonzales 6 Nov 2024

Isolated Indigenous Mashco Piro men and boys on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon. Image courtesy of Survival International.

Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro

Dan Collyns 4 Sep 2024

Illegal mining is spreading in the Amazonian rivers that enter the Madidi National Park in Bolivia.

A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining

Iván Paredes Tamayo 16 Aug 2024

Small-scale miner using mercury while gold panning at an informal mine operation in Paracale, Camarines Norte, Philippines.

Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right?

Aimee Gabay 13 Aug 2024

Dozens of isolated Indigenous Mashco Piro men and boys on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon. Image courtesy of Survival International.

After isolated tribes’ rare appearance in Peruvian Amazon, big questions remain for their future

Dan Collyns 29 Jul 2024

Forest clearing for nickel mining on Wawonii Island.

Critics see payback in Indonesia’s plan to grant mining permits to religious groups

Irfan Maulana 21 May 2024

Silvia Vetancourt holds out a coin purse she is crocheting from cabuya fiber on the path to Plaza Gutierrez, Ecuador. Photo by Liz Kimbrough.

Women weave a culture of resistance and agroecology in Ecuador’s Intag Valley

Liz Kimbrough 25 Apr 2024

Consent and costs are key questions on extraction of ‘energy transition’ minerals

Mike DiGirolamo 23 Apr 2024

Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest

Hans Nicholas Jong 17 Apr 2024

Mercury being used to agglomerate gold.

Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground

Fernanda Wenzel 16 Apr 2024

Farid Samalehu, while monitoring the coastline which continues to be eroded due to abrasion.

Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion

Christ Belseran, Edison Waas 9 Apr 2024

Ofelia Samboni an Indigenous Yanacona member and landowner in Monclart, holds a stone containing copper. The stone was found in the river close to the mining area. Image by Antonio Cascio for Mongabay.

New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 8 Apr 2024

A thin elderly man, the open neck of hard-worn brown t-shirt exposing bones in his chest, looks at the camera, the trunk of a palm tree, dried fronds, and simple houses with rusting corrugated iron roofs in the background. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay.

World Bank’s IFC under fire over alleged abuses at Liberian plantation it funded

Victoria Schneider 4 Apr 2024

Locals slam Zimbabwe for turning a blind eye to Chinese miner’s violations

Tatenda Chitagu 1 Apr 2024

A camp in Banamwesi forest for the community monitoring team. Image courtesy of a local source.

Under the shadow of war in the DRC, a mining company acts with impunity

Didier Makal, Latoya Abulu 25 Mar 2024

The access road to the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam cuts through forest in the Central Cardamoms National Park, Koh Kong province, Cambodia in April 2022

New report details rights abuses in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ project

Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha 13 Mar 2024

Many residents of Gelam Island moved to the neighboring Cempedak Island for education and health facilities.

Phantom deeds see Borneo islanders lose their land to quartz miners

Aseanty Pahlevi 7 Mar 2024

Indonesians uprooted by mining industry call for a fairer future amid presidential vote

Petrus Riski, Taufik Wijaya 4 Mar 2024

Indonesian nickel project harms environment and human rights, report says

Hans Nicholas Jong 26 Feb 2024

Activists urge Australia to end lucrative links to Myanmar junta’s mines

Alex Shaw 22 Feb 2024

A rescue team rescuing pets after the aftermath of the landslide.

Landslide in Philippines mining town kills nearly 100, prompts calls for action

Keith Anthony Fabro 21 Feb 2024

One of Global Green's new mining sites in Preah Vihear province that sits inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected forest. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Sanctioned timber baron wins new mining concessions in Cambodia’s Prey Lang

Gerald Flynn & Phoung Vantha 23 Jan 2024

At a mining site in Uis, Namibia.

Report: Rush for ‘clean energy’ minerals in Africa risks repeating harmful extractivist model

Malavika Vyawahare 29 Dec 2023

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