Newsletter 31: Autumn 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

At night, the lights at Rabbit Lake mine are visible in the west, looking across Wollaston Lake from Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation. “The mine opened up in the ’70s,” recalls Chief Bart Tsannie, “but it’s only recently that we’ve started to learn to live together. For a long time, there was nothing on the table for us.”

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

If a mining company was likely to have caused numerous family wells to go dry, changed the discharge of groundwater into local streams, caused sink holes in fields and yards, and horizontal and vertical shifts in the land surface – one would hope that the government responsible for regulating the industry would step up and support the citizens who were being affected.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Following an extensive environmental assessment by an independent review panel, the federal government rejected Taseko Mines Ltd.’s proposed Prosperity Mine Project. Just three months later the company re-filed another proposal dubbing it the “New Prosperity” project.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A proposed open pit gold mine that would straddle the city boundary of Kamloops, BC, is raising concern and requests for a joint review panel environmental assessment from a citizens group (the Kamloops Area Preservation Association), Kamloops City Council, and the Thompson Nicola Regional District Council.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

One of MiningWatch’s core areas of work is the promotion of Indigenous rights and recognition of title and the stewardship role that Indigenous people maintain across Canada and internationally. This article offers an overview of recent developments, including hopeful signs but also the considerable challenges in reconciling Indigenous rights and title with the mining industry and Canadian governments.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The streets are hardly paved with gold. Despite producing gold on an industrial scale since 1873 – over nine million ounces’ worth – the place is really not much better off than the rest of the country. Scattered chunks of tarmac are the only evidence that the main road from Tarkwa to Prestea had once been paved.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

This is a synopsis of a paper by Catherine Coumans published in: Governance Ecosystems CSR in the Latin American Mining Sector, edited by Julia Sagebien and Nicole Marie Lindsay, in the International Political Economy Series published by Palgrave Macmillan, November 2011.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Antonio Gustavo Gómez is the General Prosecutor in Argentina’s Federal Court of Appeal for the province of Tucumán. He specializes in the investigation of environmental crimes. In early 2011, Mr. Gómez visited Canada. MiningWatch Canada hosted him while he was in Ottawa. We have produced five videos from that visit, in Spanish with English subtitles.