This month the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) proposed amendments to the Mining Act of 1992 to give the state a legal basis to “apply for a tenement and develop a mine,” stating that the 1992 Mining Act is “not very clear on State participation.” In particular, the amendment addresses the fact that the 1992 Mining Act “was intended to allow only foreign investors to do mineral exploration and mining in PNG.” The amendments are proposed in the context of Prime Minister Marape’s vision to “Take Back PNG.”

On June 8, International World Oceans Day, the Civil Society Forum of Tonga, a south Pacific island nation, published a strong statement in protection of their marine environment and calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining.

A group of legal experts has written to Ontario Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, Greg Rickford, calling for an immediate halt to mineral staking and permitting processes in the province on account of difficulties remote Indigenous communities face in responding to consultation and permitting processes when they are already under extreme pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mining projects present a cluster of risks, with many sources of potential disputes between miners, their partners and host nations. What are some of the leading drivers of international arbitration proceedings in the mining industry?

By Chris Lo

Every company keeps a sharp eye on the risks to which their operations are exposed, and in the mining industry, there’s no shortage of potential pitfalls for the unwary explorer or producer. With blockbuster deposits dwindling in many key metals, miners are being forced to look further afield for new international opportunities.

(Ottawa) The elected President and Vice President of a rural municipality in northwestern Ecuador have been threatened with criminal, administrative, and constitutional charges if they approve any measures to prohibit mining. The threat came in response to concerns expressed by the Decentralized Autonomous Government (GAD in Spanish) of “6 de Julio de Cuellaje” parish, in the diverse agricultural and cloud forest region of Intag, that the government of Ecuador was taking advantage of the COVID-19 emergency to impose the Llurimagua copper-gold project against local opposition.

The report says companies in Canada and abroad continued to operate after a worker tested positive leading to an outbreak, community transmission and in some cases deaths

Gabriel Friedman

Published on: June 2, 2020 | Last Updated: June 2, 2020 7:26 AM EDT

A new report by an international coalition of non-profit groups have sharply criticized the mining industry for spreading the coronavirus into remote communities, both in Canada and abroad.

This report provides in-depth cases to exemplify the four trends highlighted in the international open letter “Global Solidarity with Communities, Indigenous Peoples and Workers at risk from Mining Pandemic Profiteers”. These trends pose an immediate threat to the health and safety of communities and organizations that have been struggling to defend public health and their environments against the destruction and devastation of mining extractivism for decades, as well as to the safety of workers in the mining sector.

A new report from MiningWatch Canada and a consortium of international organisations reveals how, in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the mining industry has been declared ‘essential’ in many countries worldwide and allowed to operate amid government lockdowns, with devastating results for communities and mineworkers. The analysis draws from field reports and a review of nearly 500 media, company, and civil society statements, 180 of which are directly related to community and/or workers’ concerns.

On April 20, in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis and a terrible drought, the Environmental Evaluation Commission of Valparaíso, Chile, approved Vizcachitas Holding's new drill program in the regional municipality of Putaendo, without citizen participation. Since 2007, Vizcachitas has been owned by a Canadian mining company, Los Andes Copper. The approval of the program will enable the company to continue an exploration project that the company has had underway for more than 10 years.

As governments prepare recovery plans amidst the COVID-19 crisis, an informal alliance of over 150 civil society groups, representing collective memberships of millions in Canada, are demanding these plans move us toward a more equitable and sustainable future, with the release, today, of six Principles for a Just Recovery.