Land rights and extractives News

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
Deforestation in the Amazon.

The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon

Fernanda Wenzel 14 Feb 2023
The dilapidated home of Ambroise Ondoa, local leader from Nkol-Bifouan, damaged by vibrations from the Febe village quarry. Image © Yannick Kenné.

Tense neighbors: Chinese quarry in Cameroon takes a toll on locals

Yannick Kenné 24 Jan 2023

FOIA lawsuit suggests Indonesian nickel miners lack environmental licenses

Eko Rusdianto 24 Jan 2023
Humberto Sánchez.

Shadows of oil in Peru: Shipibo people denounce damage, contamination left by company

Enrique Vera 26 Dec 2022

In Liberia, a gold boom leads to unregulated mining and ailing rivers

Varney Kamara 22 Dec 2022
A Gbaya farmer in Mbanti-Mbang, on land left unscathed by the agro-industrial project / Image © Yannick Kenné.

To replace Western food imports, Cameroon gives community lands to ‘no-name’ agro-industry

Yannick Kenné 1 Dec 2022
Waikas, Raraima, Brazil September 1st 2022 Robervaldo a young Yek'wana that used to work in a Garimpo. Photographed in his community Waikas near the venezuelian border. Photo © Victor Raison 2022, all rights reserved.

Indigenous youths lured by the illegal mines destroying their Amazon homeland

Victor Raison; Jean-Mathieu Albertini 30 Nov 2022
Saliou Hassana, a 17-year-old gold miner, extracting and collecting gold nuggets using mercury at Kambélé III. Image © Yannick Kenné.

About 72% of gold miners poisoned with mercury at artisanal mining sites in Cameroon

Yannick Kenné 29 Nov 2022
Pablo Sibas Sibas delivering a testimony at the HRD Memorial Vigil in Dublin, during the Front Line Defenders Dublin Platform 2022. Image by Kamil Krawczak

‘We go in and take Indigenous lands back from cattle ranchers’: Q&A with activist Pablo Sibar

Kimberley Brown 21 Nov 2022
A photo taken of the Indigenous Tanaru man by a Funai official in 2018.

Delayed Indigenous ‘Man of the Hole’ burial reveals dispute over his land

Sarah Brown 9 Nov 2022
A member of an indigenous community in Putumayo watches over his community’s territory. Photo courtesy of Michelle Carrere.

As gangs battle over Peru’s drug trafficking routes, communities and forest are at risk

Michelle Carrere 8 Nov 2022
A group of Guarani-Kaiowá residents dance and chant.

In Brazil’s soy belt, Indigenous people face attacks over land rights

Ana Ionova 8 Nov 2022
Laborers at a cobalt mine.

Element Africa: Keeping platinum in the ground, and minors out of mines

Mongabay.com 4 Nov 2022
Alice Gama looks at cracks that have developed on the wall of her house in Arda Transau, an area near Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa diamond fields. Image courtesy Linda Mujuru, GPJ Zimbabwe. Image courtesy of Evidence Chenjerai.

Broken houses and promises: residents still in poverty near massive diamond project

Anna Majavu 24 Oct 2022
Activists and Indigenous peoples holding a protest.

Southern Philippine coal project moves ahead despite community opposition

Bong S. Sarmiento 18 Oct 2022
Tewe Dayuma Michela Conta, one of the girls kidnapped from the Tagaeri and Taromenane territory, speak during the trial. Image courtesy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

First-ever regional court case involving rights of uncontacted peoples awaits verdict

Kimberley Brown 13 Oct 2022
Fishmongers in the Ndji village market get by with very little. Image by Yannick Kenné.

“Largest of its kind” dam in Cameroon faces backlash from unimpressed fishmongers

Yannick Kenné 13 Oct 2022
A rice farmer harvesting in rice fields.

Thailand bets on coal despite long losing streak for communities

Kannikar Petchkaew 13 Oct 2022
The main road built by PT Gema Kreasi Perdana

Sulawesi islanders grieve land lost to nickel mine

Eko Rusdianto 6 Oct 2022

Forests & Finance: Sit-ins, seeds over seedlings, and fuel-saving cookstoves

Mongabay.com 5 Oct 2022
A man in a boat in Bodo

Element Africa: Diamonds, oil, coltan, and more diamonds

Mongabay.com 4 Oct 2022
A recently contacted Machiguenga girlon the outskirts of Manu National Park in Cusco. Image by Ronald Reategui.

Amazon reserve for uncontacted people moving forward amid battle over oil fields

Dimitri Selibas 30 Sep 2022
Tampakan government employees close a facility belonging to Sagittarius Mines, Inc.

Activists welcome decision to revoke permit for controversial Philippine gold mine

Bong S. Sarmiento 21 Sep 2022
gold mine

Can Two New Bills Reshape Indigenous Rights and Illegal Gold Mining in Suriname?

Charles Lyons, Charlie Espinosa 14 Sep 2022
A turquoise tanager

Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports

Jeanfreddy Gutiérrez Torres 31 Aug 2022
Tamandua and Pakyî

Brazil miner sees Indigenous land as ripe for exploration if protections expire

Sydney Bauer 30 Aug 2022
A truck carrying acacia logs in Indonesia

Biomass cofiring loopholes put coal on open-ended life support in Asia

Annelise Giseburt 29 Aug 2022
Yanomami Indigenous

Raids reveal how illegal gold from Indigenous lands gets laundered in Brazil

André Schröder 29 Aug 2022
Indigenous Guards from the mountains of Miraflores, Quinchía, department of Risaralda, Colombia. Photo courtesy of Sandra Bejarano Aguirre.

A 13-year fight against gold mining in Colombian community marches on

Maritza Palma Lozano / La Cola de Rata 24 Aug 2022
Hafidh Wanje stands near a creek.

As their land and water turns saline, Kenyan communities take on salt firms

Anthony Langat 18 Aug 2022

‘The water is brown’: Community in Guyana rings the alarm over unsustainable mining near river

David Papannah, Laurel Sutherland 11 Aug 2022
Timber is sorted for transport in Uruará in the state of Pará.

Organized crime drives violence and deforestation in the Amazon, study shows

Sarah Brown 1 Aug 2022

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Why are the British flooding parts of their coast? Once farmland protected by flood defenses, Steart Marshes in southwest England now thrives as a restored salt marsh. As the defences weakened, the land became increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Instead of rebuilding defenses, conservationists, the government and local communities made a bold choice to let the sea reclaim the landscape. Just over 10 years ago the sea wall was breached, allowing the sea to take over the land, transforming the area into a vital wetland habitat. Salt marshes, which have declined by 85% in the U.K. since the 19th century, play a crucial role in coastal ecosystems. They provide shelter for wetland wildlife, act as natural flood defenses by absorbing storm surges, stabilize coastlines against erosion, and store carbon to help combat climate change. Managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Steart Marshes now provides a model for future restoration projects, proving that working with nature can protect communities while rebuilding lost habitats.
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