Experts from the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) say First Quantum’s Cobre Panama tailings dam is at very serious and imminent risk of failure due to internal erosion and a lack of proper monitoring. ELAW's report analyzes the Ninth Monitoring Report, presented by Minera Panama, a subsidiary of First Quantum Minerals that operates the Cobre Panama mine, in September 2024, together with other documents that were provided by the Ministry of Environment to ELAW experts who visited Panama in November 2024. 

Canada’s failure to regulate gold mining companies is having a devastating impact in Colombia

Lital Khaikin, The Breach

In the last weeks of October, the Colombian city of Cali looked like a temporary war zone. Heavily militarized with tanks and artillery stationed around its core, the streets were patrolled and cordoned off by the state military, police officers, and private security.

Quebec’s appeal challenges Indigenous rights and environmental justice

MONTREAL/ TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF THE KANIWN’KEHÁ:KA AND HAUDENOSAUNEE PEOPLES – Mitchikanibikok Inik First Nation (Algonquins of Barriere Lake) represented by Ecojustice, the Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement (CQDE), are heading back to court. Quebec has decided to appeal a ruling that upheld Indigenous rights in the province and that heralded an end to Quebec’s free entry mining regime.

The decision to grant a retrial presents further evidence of the deterioration of independence within El Salvador’s judicial system, and its politicization to punish and weaken the struggle to uphold the Law of Prohibition of Metals Mining of 2017.

Critic says scientific and technical support also needed to create inventory of potential sites

The Daily Press

Ontario’s Ministry of Mines announced Thursday it is introducing a new regulation under the Mining Act that would make it easier to recover residual metals and minerals from mine waste that could be found at operating, closed or abandoned mine sites.

...

“We felt displaced in our own homes,” says Rosa Masapanta, the President of the small farmers’ cooperative Associación Flor de Caña in northern Ecuador.

The following statement was originally issued in Spanish by the Xinka Parliament and is available here. English translation by Ellen Moore at Earthworks. 

The State Must Guarantee that Consultation Processes with Indigenous Peoples are Free and in Good Faith

We are posting this SOMO longread by Bart-Jaap Verbeek and Abdurrahman Erol as a guest blog.

On October 27, 2024, the Ecuadorian military entered the small parish of Palo Quemado in northern Ecuador, temporarily militarizing the community for the third time in less than two years.

Uphold October 18 Ruling of Innocence in Trial of Five Prominent Water Defenders

San Salvador – On October 28, the Salvadoran Attorney General opted to appeal the historic verdict in the trial of the five prominent Salvador water defenders, who were arrested on trumped-up charges back in January 2023.