Last week marked one month since Chilean president Sebastian Piñera used a dictatorship-era constitutional power to declare a state of emergency in ten out of sixteen regions of the country, declaring war on protesters. The conflict, which has been superficially described as a reaction to a spike...

We prepared this list of key readings as background for the conference "Turning Down the Heat: Can We Mine Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?" It is not exhaustive nor comprehensive, but we hope it represents some of the key threads in this discussion.

Statement leading up to the COP25 in Santiago de Chile (now relocated to Madrid, Spain)

September 26-28, Santiago, Chile

Faced with the undeniable climate crisis and the false solutions proposed by multilateral spaces which have been co-opted by the transnational business sector and...

Canada treats mining companies like the goose that laid the golden egg. What we get in return looks more like a goose egg.

Mining enjoys massive government support in Canada. Politically, it’s treated as a preferred development option for remote communities and Indigenous peoples. Former...

When I mention that the global mining industry is eyeing the deep seabed as the next frontier in mining I am commonly met with gasps of disbelief and dismay. That gut reaction is often followed up with sensible exclamations about the fact that the world’s oceans are already overstressed by...

The events of October 2019 dealt a hard blow to the economic plans of Ecuador’s elites, in particular their programme for eliminating fuel subsidies. But for the people these dates will be remembered as beautiful days of solidarity, of re-encounter with living traditions, of mutual recognition...

On October 14th, a US foundation, Defend them All (DTA), sent an open letter to Canadian mining company INV Metals urging the company to abandon its activities in Ecuador following a field visit to the Kimsakocha páramo in south-central Ecuador.

DTA is a non-profit organization with offices in...

Since October 2, Indigenous organizations, along with trade unions, social movements and peasant organizations, have been demonstrating across Ecuador against a set of economic austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lending institutions that...

Since October 2, Indigenous organizations, along with trade unions, social movements and peasant organizations have been demonstrating across Ecuador against a set of economic austerity measures (called the Paquetazo) imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lending...

On September 6th, the Institute for Policy Studies and Earthworks released a report (attached to this post) with worrisome conclusions regarding the ongoing consultation process around Canadian mining company Pan American Silver's Escobal mine. In May 2019, the Xinca Parliament denounced a...

MiningWatch expresses growing concern for the “State of Exception” (State of Emergency) declared by Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno on October 3rd which seeks to grant exceptional powers to the police and military forces to repress Indigenous and civil society mobilizations against the so-called “...

Author: Carlos Zorilla. To the human eye, the mostly dark-green Confusing Rocket Frog is not as attractive as the Harlequin Longnose Frog. Both amphibians are found in a patch of forest in Ecuador’s Intag region and nowhere else on the planet. The Harlequin’s discovery in 2016 was amazing enough...

Community organizer and MiningWatch Canada cofounder, Joan Kuyek, is launching a new book on September 12, 2019: Unearthing Justice: How To Protect Your Community From the Mining Industry. 

"Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and...

The new federal Impact Assessment Act, previously known as Bill C-69, came into force at 12:01 this morning. We should be celebrating, but it's hard to cheer too enthusiastically when the law is so much less than it should have been. We worked intensely for three years, with experts and grassroots...

The Shuar Arutam People Have Decided: No to Mining, We Do Not Want to Be Consulted. Through several meetings in different communities, we have met in order to analyze a response to the systematic violation of our collective rights by the State and the mining companies that have been operating in...

On August 19^th, 2019 members of Mariano Abarca’s family, along with supporting Mexican organizations, held a press conference in San Cristobal de las Casas to denounce the 10^th anniversary of impunity for Mariano’s murder and announce their decision to use their right to appeal the Federal Court...