In our June newsletter, we wrote about the ongoing abuse of the human rights of victims of rape by security guards at Barrick Gold’s Porgera Joint Venture mine in Papua New Guinea (95% owned, operated by Barrick).

Communities affected by First Quantum Minerals’ massive Sentinel copper mine project in Northwest Zambia have been resisting the project for more than three years. The company has been throwing its weight around with the community as well as the Zambian government, making liberal promises of jobs...

The Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor (CSR Counsellor) was announced with much government fanfare in October 2009 as a central “pillar” in the government’s “CSR strategy” for Canada’s extractive sector. The CSR Counsellor was to provide remedy for people who...

The 149th Session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington DC this Friday will hear from delegates from Colombia, Honduras, Peru, Chile and Brazil about the negative impacts of Canadian mining activities in the region, highlighting the Canadian government’s role.

Guest blog by Kevin O’Reilly, Alternatives North, Yellowknife: The Giant Mine operated at the edge of the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, from 1948 to 2004. As the gold-bearing ore was processed, the mine generated a toxic by-product, arsenic trioxide – a proven non-threshold...

Are you ready to stand up for justice for mining-affected communities in the Global South? If the approval of a mine meant you would be kicked off your land, would you expect a chance to say no this project? And if it went ahead, would you expect to be compensated? If your drinking water were...

In the Philippines, the island province of Marinduque is known as a cautionary tale about the ravages of irresponsible mining. It took Canadian mining giant Placer Dome a couple of decades to wreak environmental destruction on major coral reefs in Calancan Bay and to severely contaminate the Mogpog...

News that the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) has been spying on Brazil’s Mines Ministry starts to expose the extent to which the Canadian government is willing to go in the corporate interest. The scandal in Brazil is consistent with what Canadian authorities have been doing at...

Canadian Embassies have regularly gone to bat to protect the interests of Canadian mining companies in cases where communities don’t want them and/or where there have been egregious human rights and environmental abuses.

Late last week, the Ross River Dena First Nation learned that the Supreme Court of Canada would not hear the Yukon Government’s appeal of an earlier decision that sharply rebuked the territory’s free entry mineral staking regime. This means the earlier decision of the Yukon Court of Appeal stands.

In the final days of the federal environmental assessment hearings for the hotly contested “New Prosperity” gold-copper mine project, proponent Taseko Mines attempted to discredit the overwhelming opposition to the project by Tŝilhqot’in and Secwepemc people and by many non-First Nation people from...

By Payal Sampat, International Campaigns Director for EARTHWORKS and originally posted on their EARTHblog. Transylvania, Romania, is known for its fictional vampires – this is the region where Bram Stoker set his classic vampire novel, Dracula, in 1897. Over a century later, the region is threatened...

On this page you'll find submissions from MiningWatch Canada to the New Prospeirty review panel, including our expert technical report on the net economic benefits of the project by Dr. Marvin Shaffer. This page also includes a few key submissions from other reviewers that relate to the comments...

This statement was given by Ramsey Hart at the last day of hearings for Taseko Mines'  New Prosperity Gold-Copper Project. It addresses three issues that MiningWatch commented on during the review process: the flaws in proposed mitigation measures, the importance of obtaining consent of affected...

In response to appeals from MiningWatch and many other groups, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued an opinion regarding the framework of remediation initiatives developed by Barrick Gold Corporation for women who have been victims of sexual violence by...

Notes for a presentation at the 14th meeting of the African Initiative on Mining, Environment, and Society (AIMES), held in Accra, Ghana, August 13-15, 2013, by Jamie Kneen.