On Tuesday, September 22, American company Tesla celebrated Tesla Battery Day, which coincides with the company’s Annual General Meeting. Tesla is the largest producer of lithium batteries and electric cars in North America, and its majority shareholder is businessman Elon Musk, who has appeared...
Parliamentary Petition Addresses Human Rights Crisis in the Philippines, Mining, and Canada's Role
Please support human rights in the Philippines by signing this petition before December 30, 2020. MiningWatch Canada and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP-Canada) have launched an electronic Parliamentary petition in response to increasing extrajudicial attacks...
Equinox Gold Drives Mexican Farmers to Shut Down Los Filos Mine to Protect Their Dignity and their Health
On September 3, 2020, the families of the Ejido of Carrizalillo in Guerrero, Mexico, shut down operations at Canadian mining company Equinox Gold’s Los Filos mine. Goldcorp began building the mine on Carrizalillo’s collective lands in 2006, which it had purchased illegally, leading to the first 83...
Ecuador Communities Day of Action Hits Cornerstone Resources’ AGM
On August 25, Cornerstone Resources (TSX:CGN) held its Annual General Meeting for shareholders, online and out of the reach of the communities and organizations most affected by its activities.
In response to this closed-door virtual meeting, communities in Ecuador affected by the company’s...
Chile: Valparaíso Court Nullifies Illegal Authorization of Vizcachitas Mining Company Drilling Project
In a historic ruling, the Valparaíso Court of Justice has nullified the illegal authorization of the “Prefeasibility Mining Drilling for Las Tejas” project and has ordered the Regional Environmental Assessment Service (SEA in Spanish) to implement a process of citizen participation for the...
Ecuador Organizations Condemn Canadian Mining Lobby on Important Public Consultation Decision
On August 19th, many organizations from Cuenca and the surrounding area of the Kimsakocha páramo in Ecuador released a public statement (translated below) regarding a letter sent by Canadian company INV Metals to the Cantonal Council of the municipality of Cuenca (attached here in Spanish).
The...
Hudbay Denies COVID-19 Infections at Constancia Mine – Peruvian Organization Responds
On August 4th, Peruvian organization Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras-Cusco (DHSF) published a note on its web site responding to a statements made by Hudbay Minerals, first to a local newspaper, then during its AGM, and finally in a letter written to the Business and Human Rights Centre, denying an...
Quebec Commission of Inquiry Releases Landmark Report on Asbestos
Quebec’s independent Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement) today made public its report on the state and management of asbestos and asbestos mining wastes in Quebec. The three-member Commission was mandated by Quebec’s Minister of the...
Indigenous Shuar Arutam Government in Ecuador Calls Out Canadian Mining Company’s Sham Consultation Process.
On July 14th, as havoc, panic, and fear caused by COVID-19 continues to sweep through the Ecuadorian Amazon, Canadian company Solaris Resources celebrated its new listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Venture Exchange (TSX-V). It then proceeded to launch a two-week Twitter campaign championing...
New Analysis: 21 Lakes, Streams, & Wetlands To Be Destroyed for Mine Waste Storage in Northern Ontario
On June 11, 2020, 21 lakes, streams and wetlands in northern Ontario were re-characterized as a mine tailings impoundment for the proposed Magino gold mine. This magical transformation took place through Schedule 2 of the Metal and Diamond Mining Effluent Regulation (MDMER) under the federal...
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Trudeau on Investor Lawsuits & COVID-19
We wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as part of an international effort by 630 groups from around the world to draw world leaders' attention to the threat of investor lawsuits under the grossly unjust investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions of most international trade and...
Canadian Mining Companies Beware: Communities in Chubut, Argentina Launch Second Campaign for Law to Protect Water Against Mining
On June 22, the Union of the Assemblies of the Communities of Chubut, Argentina (UACCH) officially launched its second “Popular Initiative” campaign, #NosDebenUnaLey (“they owe us a law”) to collect signatures from residents of the province to present a law which would protect water and the...
Papua New Guinea Landowners' Fears Confirmed: Bismarck Sea At Risk; Canadian Conic Metals Unresponsive
As early as 2010, landowners living along the coast of the Bismarck Sea in Papua New Guinea (PNG) sought and won an injunction to stop mine tailings from the Ramu nickel-cobalt mine from entering Basamuk Bay via a pipe system coming from the processing plant. This type of mine waste disposal is...
Canadian Company Threatens Biodiverse Forest in Victoria, Australia with Plans for New Gold Mine
Guest blog by Rebekah Hayden, Rainforest Action Group
Resources company Currawong Resources has been granted a licence in the Wombat State Forest, about 70 km north of Melbourne, Australia, an area with 380 threatened species including brush-tailed phascogales and the dusky antechinus, a small...
Papua New Guinea Seeks to Amend 1992 Mining Act – Implications for Renewal of Porgera Mine Lease
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...
Civil Society of Tonga Speaks Out Against Plans to Mine the Deep Sea
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.
The statement emphasizes the “critical role” of the ocean in...