Mining affects every aspect of a community in a myriad of ways, affecting the economy, the environment, families, health, land use, water, etc. This section provides a number of documents that address the impact of mining on communities.
Gold - Overview
Gold is often co-mined with copper, molybdenum and uranium. Main reserves of gold can be found in South Africa, Tanzania, Mali, Ghana, USA, Australia, Canada, China, Chile, Peru, and Brazil. Gold is extracted via large scale open pit mining or underground mining.
Gold mining produces a large amount...
Impact of Mining on the Environment
Mining has a substantial impact on the environment, although different kinds of mining affect the environment in different ways.
Coal - Overview
Coal is generally obtained through open pit mining. Major coal reserves are found in China, the United States, India, Australia, Russia, Poland, Indonesia and Japan. Coal is mainly used for the production of electricity and heat. When used in a power plant, coal emits sulphur gas (containing sulphur...
Asbestos - Overview
Asbestos is a mineral based fibre that has been widely used all over the world due it its resistance to heat and corrosive chemicals. Typically asbestos appears as a whitish, fibrous material, known as chrysotile asbestos. Asbestos has been used in over 3000 products, everything from brake linings...
Abandoned Mines - Overview
While definitions vary, abandoned mines are most consistently defined as those mine sites where the mine operator or exploration company has ceased or suspended indefinitely their activities, be that exploration, mining or mine production, without rehabilitating the site. Some parties make a...
Backgrounder: Issues Related to Barrick’s Porgera Joint Venture Mine in Papua New Guinea
Violence perpetrated by Porgera Joint Venture’s security forces
Allegations of rapes, beatings and killings of community members by Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) security forces have been prevalent for at least a decade. In 2005, a grass roots human rights organization established by indigenous...
Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The struggle of the former Zaire towards democracy and away from extreme exploitation and impoverishment has been a difficult and violent process. Mining has been a lucrative business in the Congo since colonial times, but it has also been brutal and hugely destructive of the environment and peoples...
Mining in Canada
Mining takes place in many parts of Canada, mostly on Aboriginal lands, causing a range of impacts - environmental, economic, social, and health-related.
Mining in Latin America and the Caribbean
Latin America has seen a major expansion in mining investments since the early 1990s, facilitated by free trade agreements and structural reforms that have deregulated the economies of the region and made them more hospitable to direct foreign investments.
Mexico - background
Mining has played an important economic role in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times. After the Spanish conquest, it attracted settlers to the arid lands of northern Mexico, displacing the borders of the Spanish dominion. In modern times, it became one of the antecedents of the Mexican Revolution when...
Teck Resources
Teck Corporation and Cominco Ltd. merged in 2001. Teck Cominco acquired Aur Resources Inc. in August 2007. Teck Cominco changed its name to Teck Resources Ltd. in April 2009. Company web site: www.teck.com
What Role for Canada in the Americas? Corporate Accountability and the Extractive Industries
What Role for Canada in the Americas?
Meeting the Challenge of Human Rights, Democratic Development, and Economic Justice in a Time of Global Crisis
A Policy Roundtable organized by CCIC’s Americas Policy Group
“Corporate Accountability and the Extractive Industries”
Presentation Notes
Jamie Kneen
M...
MiningWatch's Recommendations for the 2009 Budget and Stimulus Package
Introduction
Prime Minister Harper has made a commitment to include the mining sector in an upcoming stimulus package. There is no denying that this sector, as with other industrial and resource sectors in Canada, is experiencing hard times. Metal prices have plummeted, fewer people are buying...
Ecuador
Since the early 1990s, the Intag region of Imbabura in northwestern Ecuador has been the target of mining exploration. Japanese and then Canadian interests have claimed substantial finds of copper, and have promoted the idea of building a huge open-pit mine in the middle of one...