The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) has begun taking inventory of all excavators that have been seized from illegal mining sites since the fight against illegal mining (galamsey) began in 2017.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, explained that the measure was to ensure that all confiscated mining equipment was handed over to the ministry, in accordance with the country's mining laws.

Green Scenery a Civil Society Organisation working on environment issues has issued a press release calling for government to halt all logging and exporting of timber. Green Scenery is anxious to see the Government of Sierra Leone put behind logging and log exporting as a means of revenue generation.

The ruthless quest for gold in eastern Cameroon has left the landscape peppered with deadly open pits

It was the last day of the summer holidays when, on his way to meet friends in his hometown of Batouri, eastern Cameroon, 12-year-old Saustem Brandon Samba slipped on reddish mud and fell into what at first looked like a large puddle.

• The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated group of mountains situated along Colombia’s northern coast, which has the unique distinction of harboring more threatened endemic species than anywhere else in the world.
• Agricultural expansion has come at the expense of vital habitat over the past several decades. Now, resource exploitation and infrastructure projects planned for the region are further threatening the mountains’ ecosystems, according to scientists and local activists.

Ercilia Araya is the President of  Pai-Ote, a Colla Indigenous community of 60 people in the Atacama Region of Northern Chile.  Since 2014, Ercilia has been criminalized and harassed for defending her community’s land rights against mining projects, and denouncing the pollution of sacred water sources in the Andes.

The ancestral territory of Pai-Ote is of great mineral wealth and includes the “Maricunga Strip”, one of the most important gold districts in the country. At least a dozen gold mining projects, most of them Canadian, are operating there.

Members of the organization Fuerza de Mujeres Wayúu (Force of Wayúu Women) have received death threats and been subject to defamation and stigmatization for opposing the harmful effects of a mining project in La Guajira, Colombia.

Force of Wayúu women is part of a group of four organizations that filed a nullity claim for the environmental license granted to the multinational company Carbones de El Cerrejón, which owns one of the largest open pit coal mining mines in the world. The presence of the mine in the region has had a devastating effect on the quality of li

he Northern Territory government released its long overdue draft Aboriginal justice agreement (AJA) this month.

• Indonesia’s parliament is rushing to pass a controversial mining bill by Sept. 30, when the current legislators’ term ends.
• President Joko Widodo had previously asked for deliberations of this bill and other contentious pieces of legislation to be suspended, following massive student-led protests that have turned deadly.
• Watchdogs say the bill panders to the interests of mining companies, granting them bigger concessions, longer contracts, and fewer environmental obligations.

Study shows martial law in an island territory is also being used as pretext for violence

President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and declaration of martial law in an island territory are being used as a pretext to attack people defending their land and environment in the Philippines, new research shows.

Community rights activist Eakachai Itsaratha recalls his brush with death after being abducted in southern Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand - As an outspoken community rights activist in a country with one of the worst records of enforced disappearances in the region, Eakachai Itsaratha long understood that one day he too would become a target.

Our latest WOLTS publication is a fascinating photo essay from one of our pilot research communities, Mundarara, in Tanzania. The piece by Jim Grabham, titled “Are rubies undermining Maasai culture”, shares insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with two participants in a one-year training programme on gender, land and mining that has been developed and carried out by the HakiMadini and Mokoro WOLTS project team in Tanzania.

Papua New Guinea out of pocket $157m from failed attempt at mining material from deep-sea vents as opponents point to environmental risk

The “total failure” of PNG’s controversial deep sea mining project Solwara 1 has spurred calls for a Pacific-wide moratorium on seabed mining for a decade.

The company behind Solwara 1, Nautilus, has gone into administration, with major creditors seeking a restructure to recoup hundreds of millions sunk into the controversial project.