Today, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Indigenous Peoples' Rights International (IPRI), together with over 200 partners released an open letter asking the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and State parties to put human rights at the centre of the energy transition at COP27.

(Ottawa) In September, MiningWatch Canada conducted another human rights investigation at the North Mara Gold Mine in Tanzania, owned and operated by Canadian company Barrick Gold. The findings of this investigation are published today in the latest report: “He was murdered”: Violence against Kuria High after Barrick Takeover of Mine.

(Reno, Nevada) Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples from international frontline communities affected by mining, and mining accountability NGOs, will converge in Reno. The purpose of the conference is to share their experiences, to develop a vision for a future with a truly just transition to renewable energy sources, without the need for destructive and disruptive mining. MiningWatch staff and some board members will be attending the WMAN 2022 conference next week. Stay tuned for updates.

Dundee Precious Metals rejects study that says there were 'serious errors' in its Ecuador project

Study said project could put local communities at 'significant risk' and lead to arsenic contamination 

By Naimul Karim, Financial Post

B.C.’s mining regulations fall short on tailings dams, cleanup costs and Indigenous consent when comparing with some other jurisdictions

By Francesca Fionda, The Narwhal

Mining is big business in B.C. The industry brought in $9.5 billion in gross mining revenues in 2020, employs more than 11,000 people and the province is home to over 1,200 mineral and exploration companies.

(Ottawa/Cuenca, Ecuador) An independent analysis of Dundee Precious Metals’ Loma Larga project has revealed serious errors and omissions in the company’s plan for its gold-copper project that could put downstream communities in southern Ecuador at significant risk, including potential for arsenic contamination.

A new documentary Blue Peril is a visual investigation that presents a scientifically robust and disturbing picture of far-reaching impacts of deep sea mining for Pacific Island communities. It highlights the serious implications for Pacific Island economies and way of life – with Hawaii and Kiribati predicted to be in the firing line. Focusing on the Tonga and Nauru sponsored licence areas of The Metals Company (TMC) in the Pacific Ocean, Blue Peril incorporates the best publicly available data into internationally accredited oceanographic and spatial imagery programs. Blue Peril is accompanied by technical notes. Catherine Coumans and other experts are available for comment.

In a recently published decision, the OECD Investment Committee faults the Canadian government for its handling of a complaint brought by Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fonds before Canada’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. The complaint concerned Canadian-based Sakto, a real estate group of the daughter of Sarawak Governor Abdul Taib Mahmud.

(Basel/Amsterdam/ Paris/Ottawa) In an important recent decision, the OECD Investment Committee finds that the Canadian government’s handling of the Sakto complaint: 

We are mourning the loss of Sue Moodie of Whitehorse, Yukon. She was a kind, principled, and determined community activist, who loved music, being with friends, and living in the bush.

This week, Eleanor Goldfield digs into mining – past and present. First, author and organizer Mitch Troutman discusses his latest book, The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners who Seized an Industry. Mitch shares the importance of remembering and sharing a radical past, as he puts it: nothing was ever inevitable and that history is taught best when it gives us agency in the present.