The extractive industries are strategic components of the economy of all Amazonian countries, but their importance varies greatly. Mineral extraction creates tangible economic benefits for a sovereign state. Converting a…
Environmental activists in Bolivia say they’ve become the targets of discrimination, death threats and even bombings after speaking out against harmful mining operations in the department of Oruro. The activists,…
INTAG VALLEY, Ecuador — In Ecuador's lush tropical Andes, Silvia Vetancourt multitasks, her hands maneuvering crochet needles with swift precision as she navigates the rocky path to the old town…
As dawn began to break in the Peruvian Amazon on March 5, an oil slick spread across the Puinahua River in the district of the same name, engulfing clumps of…
All three legacy-oil pipelines in the Andean Amazon system are old. The Oleoducto Transandino Colombiano (OTC) has been operating for 53 years, followed by the Sistema de Oleoducto Transecuatoriano (SOTE)…
The petroleum industry has a long history of operational calamities, large and small, that has created an equally long history of efforts to manage the environmental and social liabilities that…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
Bolivia is racing to attract foreign investment in its massive, untapped lithium reserves, with plans to expand operations and build new processing plants. But residents living near the lithium deposits…
Floodplains are extraordinarily productive because they are the interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are remarkably diverse because they integrate a mosaic of lakes, marshes, palm swamps and inundated…
Carlos Zorrilla is a leader in what locals say is the longest continuous resistance movement against mining in Latin America. Zorrilla’s family fled from Cuba to the U.S. in 1962…
Gold is universally recognized as a form of money that has retained value over decades, centuries and millennia. Since it is non-corrosive and precious, approximately 95% of the gold mined…
It’s been about a decade since Foday Fahnbulleh was arrested. Along with other students and workers from his home in Bong Mines about an hour’s drive north of Monrovia, he’d…
Environmental advocates routinely oppose mining and hydrocarbon-development projects because they believe that remote areas of the Amazon should remain pristine. Typically, they organize their opposition during the environmental review process…
Scientists from Madagascar, the U.S. and Europe have described a new orchid species found up in the forest canopies of central Madagascar. The orchid, named Solenangis impraedicta, boasts a nectar…
Mineral extraction is a major cause of contention among the inhabitants of the Pan Amazon. Thousands of families depend on economic activity that originates, directly or indirectly, from the mining…
JAKARTA — The Norwegian state pension fund has cut ties with U.K. conglomerate Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the group’s gold mining activity in Indonesia could damage the…
In late December 2023, when communities in the southeastern Peruvian province of Cotabambas received a copy of proposed modifications to the Las Bambas copper mine, they were at first surprised,…
JAKARTA — Activists and scientists have condemned a British conglomerate’s decision to resume gold exploration in Indonesia's Batang Toru forest, saying it threatens the world's most endangered great ape, the…
JAKARTA — A massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera has cleared thousands of hectares of forest, forcefully displaced local people, and polluted the rivers…
In January 2019, a dam holding back mining sludge at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil, collapsed. Around 10 million cubic meters (2.6 billion gallons)…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — As the Indonesian government embarks on a massive push to reforest the area around the country’s new capital city in Borneo, it is turning to the…
The government in Ecuador is looking for ways to keep open a controversial oil block in the Amazon Rainforest, defying the results of a referendum to close the operation due…
U.S. sanctions imposed in 2022 against Nicaragua’s mining industry were supposed to help combat a bloody wave of human rights abuses against local communities. But several years later, some aspects…
JAKARTA — A conservation task force trying to help an Indonesian mine operator minimize its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s most threatened great ape, says it was the…
Salvadorans will go to the polls next week to choose a president and 60 members of the Legislative Assembly. Most of this election cycle has focused on security issues and…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — “I would like to announce to the public and the journalists that on November 2, the Ministry of Mines and Energy requested [Prime Minister Hun Manet]…
Humanity’s footprint in Ecuador now covers more than 30% of the country’s total area, at the expense of coastal ecosystems, the Andes, and forests across the country. But it’s the…
In December, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced that it was set to spend $6.2 billion on mining the rich, high-grade iron ore deposits of eastern Guinea’s Simandou Mountains, with…
This story has been supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Carrying a shovel on her shoulder, Nely Flores walks quickly on the beach. “Before the guards from the mine…
Brazil confiscates biggest catch of shark fins to date In June, IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental protection agency, announced it had seized 28.7 metric tons of shark fins, the largest confiscation…