(Ottawa) On February 18th, the Ecuadorian network “Ecuador Decide - #mejorsinTLC” (Ecuador Decides #betterwithoutFTAs) wrote a letter to the Ecuadorian State Attorney General, Iñigo Salvador, expressing their concerns about recent statements made by INV Metals Ecuador’s Manager, Jorge Barreno.

Today, MiningWatch Canada, along with sixteen Brazilian and international organizations, submitted a demand (attached to this post) to eliminate Vale from the UN Global Compact, following the deadly Brumadinho mine collapse. 

The joint press release reads as follows: 

​An international group of civil society organizations submitted today a request for the exclusion of the Brazilian mining company Vale from the United Nations Global Compact, the largest network for corporate social responsibility in the world.

(Quito, Ottawa) The presidents of the six associations of the Indigenous Shuar Peoples of Arutam (PSHA) and the president of the Shuar Arutam government, who represent 46 communities in Ecuador made a strong statement against Canadian company Solaris Copper’s jointly organized panel at this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference.

Do you know where the gold in your ring is coming from, or Canada’s role in the global market of gold? And did you know that more than 1 in 4 metal mines in Canada and the world is a gold mine? If not, you must see The Shadow of Gold, a new international production by award-winning filmmakers that pulls back the curtain on one of the world’s most precious metals.

Do you know where the gold in your ring comes from, or Canada’s role in the global market of gold? Here are some Gold Facts and solutions we pulled together to help you make informed decisions about how to reduce the impacts of the gold industry in Canada and the world (also on Facebook here or here)

Following the tragic breach of the upstream tailings dam, “Dam 1” at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão Mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil, MiningWatch Canada is concerned about the state of Canadian-operated tailings dams in Brazil.

MiningWatch Canada joins international organizations to stand in solidarity with the communities of the Peaceful Resistance "la Puya" following Kappes Cassiday & Associates filing of their lawsuit against the Guatemalan government under the ISDS mechanism of the CAFTA-DR. The following letter was signed on by 11 organizations to send a message of solidarity for the communities of San Pedro Ayampuc and San José del Golfo, who MiningWatch visited in December 2018, as part of an internationally organized panel about ISDS arbitration. 

“Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia (SuNNS) members, the 900 signatories to our petition opposing gold mining exploration or development in the French River Watershed and the population of Tatamagouche are shocked by the news that the Ministry of Energy and Mines has withheld information about a leaking exploration drill hole contaminating the French River Watershed area with arsenic and iron,” says SuNNS spokesperson John Perkins.

Nutrien - until now the biggest importer of phosphate rock from Western Sahara - has ended its trade. But what about the stock-exchange registered Sinofert Holdings in which they are the second biggest owner?

From what Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) understands, the Chinese stock-exchange registered company Sinofert Holdings is now, for the first time, involved in the trade of phosphate rock from Western Sahara.

Sinofert is 22% owned by Nutrien Ltd, and 52,7 percent controlled by the Chinese government-owned Sinochem group.

(Brazil) We have received the news of another tragedy instigated by Vale mining company with profound indignation. This afternoon (January 25, 2019) two tailings dams located in the Corrego de Feijao community, in Brumadinho, metropolitan region of Belo Horizone [state capital of Minas Gerais) have breached. We do not yet have information about the number of victims, but, according to reports, there were about 1000 people in the company dining room, now covered with tailings, at the time of the disaster.