(Washington, DC and Ottawa) Communities and civil society groups are marking the first anniversary of one of the world’s deadliest mine waste disasters by highlighting the dangerous practices of the mining industry, and calling for stricter oversight.
On December 20th, the Provincial Court of the Argentinean province of Mendoza amended an anti-mining Law (#7722) to permit the use of dangerous chemical substances banned under the law like cyanide and sulphuric acid used in the mining industry, essentially giving a green light to large-scale mining in the province.
The international community remains concerned with the ability of transnational mining corporations to operate outside the law, with a lack of enforced accountability for violations committed. Banro Corporation, operating gold mines in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), serves as a case study for the need to find solutions to protect not only the diverse and sensitive eco-system of the region, but also the lives, dignity, and human rights of its people.
We wish to express our deep sense of loss for our comrade, Gloria Chicaiza Aguilar, who succumbed to complications from a lung transplant on December 28, 2019.
Gloria (Glorita) was a strong and courageous woman who fought tirelessly for a just and ecological Ecuador, an Ecuador free of the environmental and social destruction caused by mining and oil extraction.
This Wednesday, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed Taseko Mines Ltd.'s case against the federal environmental assessment of its proposed New Prosperity copper-gold mine in Tŝilhqot’in territory in central British Columbia. The Court found that the federal review panel was well within its authority to make the findings that it did, but also found that Taseko had not shown any inadequacies in the way the Panel had evaluated the information it had received.
The essential element could help us eliminate fossil fuels. But we need to find better ways to mine it.
by Stephen Leahy Dec 17, 2019
Over 40 organizations from around the world have signed a statement in solidarity with the popular assemblies of the southern Argentinian province of Chubut as well as the Indigenous communities and organizations who have been peacefully resisting the imposition of industrial mining in their territory for more than 17 years.
We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply concerned about reports emerging from Chubut, Argentina, a province in the beautiful Patagonia region, about the increased presence of the mining lobby in the provincial legislature pressuring deputies to amend Environmental Law XVII-Nº 68 (former Law 5001), which bans open-pit metal mining and the use of cyanide.