Ben Radford, The Green Left

Transnational companies are forging ahead with plans to exploit the seafloor for valuable minerals, despite widespread concerns about the potential ecological and climate impacts. Large-scale deep-sea mining involves the extraction of polymetallic nodules, which are small rocks formed over millions of years containing cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese.

Water Today interviews Dr. Catherine Coumans about the role Canadian mining companies are playing in the race to mine one of the most ecologically sensitive places on the planet: the deep seabed. 

Mining companies with projects in the North say more federal support is needed following the release of Canada’s new critical minerals strategy, while some environmental advocates are wary of the potential impacts. Jamie Kneen with MiningWatch Canada said the strategy ignores many issues relating to mining. “What we’ve got here is a plan to promote mining, not a plan to really ensure that Canada’s doing anything more than accelerating the kinds of extractive processes of an extractive economy that we’re already engaged in.” Kneen said there should be greater emphasis on planning and co-ordination with Indigenous governments so communities can adequately engage with and respond to resource projects.

Written by Santiago Navarro, Avispa Midia

Keving Hernán Sánchez, an Indigenous Zoque man from Oaxaca, Mexico, left his community at a young age to move to the state’s capital and study literature. He never imagined that after graduating and returning to his territory he would have to learn how to defend it, but that is what happened when a mining project threatened to tear apart the social and environmental fabric of his town.

Hundreds of groups around the world worked with the Salvadoran Water Defenders in the successful campaign to save the country's rivers from toxic gold mining. They join in demanding the release of the five Water Defenders and to allow them to await their trial in their community.     

Attention News Editors—Dr. Louise Comeau, Co-interim Executive Director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) issued the following statement with respect to the Caribou Mine contaminated site. She is available for interviews:

The Conservation Council calls on Premier Higgs to immediately mandate:

The Metals Company is looking to be the first company in the world to commercially mine the deep sea. Critics of the practice released leaked videos of an incident they say raises questions over environmental practices.

By Stefan Labbé, North Shore News

Undercover footage of the latest deep sea mining tests in the Pacific Ocean shows the discharge of waste directly into the sea [1]. The tests were carried out between mid-September and mid-November 2022 by Canadian miner The Metals Company (TMC) and its Swiss operating partner and shareholder Allseas using the drill ship “Hidden Gem” in the Clarion Clipperton Zone between México and Hawaii.

By John Woodside 

​​A Canadian mining company wants to open the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazil's history in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

However, Indigenous rights and environmental advocates are targeting the company's shareholders to stop it, saying Toronto-headquartered Belo Sun has made “misleading” claims to investors about its Volta Grande project.

A report from the Justice & Corporate Accountability Project uses access-to-information records to piece together how embassy and trade commission officials responded when Jennifer Moore of MiningWatch Canada was detained by Peruvian police in April 2017.

By Kevin Philipupillai, The Hill Times