Mining Conflict and Opposition – Republic of Mining

In Portugal’s Rural North, Communities Are Resisting Lithium Mining – by Marta Vidal and Diana Takacsova (New Lines Magazine – April 24, 2024)

April 24, 2024

The remarkable heritage and ecology of Barroso are at risk amid an EU push to secure minerals for a ‘green transition’

As the sun begins its gradual descent in the mountains of Barroso, in northeast Portugal, it casts golden hues upon the region’s vast pine and oak forests. The air fills with the gentle hum of bees collecting nectar from the heather that blankets the rugged landscape in swaths of vivid purple and pink.

August is the peak season for honey, when the heather is in full bloom. Carlos “Libo” Goncalves is as busy as his bees. After taking his horses up the oak-studded hills that surround the village of Covas do Barroso, he dons his protective gear and hurries to the hives he has spread across his village’s common lands.

In Ecuador, gov’t sees mining as the future. But communities are divided – by Michele Bertelli (Al Jazeera.com – April 7, 2024)

April 8, 2024

https://www.aljazeera.com/

Ecuador sees mining as a ‘crucial driver’ of the economy, providing jobs and incomes, but locals disagree.

Las Pampas, Ecuador – The alarm rang at 7am, summoning everyone in the main square. Protesters boarded three trucks, normally used to transport livestock. The convoy carried them close to the nearby town of Palo Quemado, home to the mining project of La Plata in northwestern Ecuador, 130km (81 miles) from the capital Quito.

Since last July, this quiet community has turned into an epicentre of anti-mining protests. Under the sight of military men stationed on the crest of the hill, roughly 100 demonstrators approached the road into town. But a whole riot squad blocked their way.

Northwest First Nation wants to bring a stop to mine road construction – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 23,2024)

February 26, 2024

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Cat Lake seeks injunction to halt First Mining Gold’s access road, pending judicial review

A northwestern Ontario First Nation in close proximity to First Mining Gold’s Springpole Project is heading to court, seeking to stop construction of an access road to the proposed mine site.

Cat Lake First Nation imposed a mining moratorium in 2023 on all mining-related activity within its traditional territory, which includes the Vancouver mine developer’s open-pit project.

Gold miners bring fresh wave of suffering to Brazil’s Yanomami – by Ueslei Marcelino and Anthony Boadle (Reuters – Janaury 18, 2024)

January 18, 2024

https://www.reuters.com/

Brazil is losing the upper hand in its battle to save the Yanomami Indigenous people, who are dying from flu, malaria and malnutrition brought into their vast, isolated Amazon rainforest reservation by resurgent illegal miners.

A year after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared a humanitarian crisis among the Yanomami and vowed zero tolerance for illegal mining, environmental enforcers warn that Brazil is jeopardizing last year’s hard-won progress, when about 80% of roughly 20,000 wildcatters were ousted from the Portugal-sized reservation.

Blinded, sexually assaulted, silenced: the war over lithium, Argentina’s ‘white gold’ – by Harriet Barber (The Guardian – January 11, 2024)

January 12, 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/

In the country’s ‘lithium triangle’ activists say Indigenous land protections have been removed and protests against mining violently repressed

The first time, they came at 2am and without a warrant. Rosa* was alone. She was gagged, her eyes covered, and her hands bound with a cable tie. “I was paralysed. I felt someone choking me,” Rosa recalls. “They called me a socialist, a whore. I was in my underwear; they touched me. One put his fingers inside of me.”

It was the night after widespread protests against sweeping changes to the constitution in Jujuy, a northern Argentine province. The reforms were approved in the early hours behind closed doors, affecting two articles: one limiting the right to demonstrate and the other modifying the right to Indigenous lands, with the undeclared aim of facilitating lithium mining.

Australian company revives its push for a controversial coal mine in Alberta – by Emma Ganey (Globe and Mail – November 21, 2023)

November 22, 2023

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A company whose application for a coal mine in Alberta was rejected two years ago is back – with a new name, and an updated request to explore its lease in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Northback Holdings Corp., formerly Benga Mining Ltd., is a subsidiary of Australian mining giant Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. It is again eyeing a potential mine at Grassy Mountain, submitting applications to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) for a 105-day exploratory drilling program and a request for a water diversion.

Vern vs. the miners – by Robson Fletcher and Joel Dryden (CBC News – November 20, 2023)

November 20, 2023

https://www.cbc.ca/

Vern Emard is 62 years old but his age doesn’t show as he leads the way up a rickety plywood ramp. His boots clomp as he steps onto the metal roof of what he calls his “palapa” — a shelter that’s not quite a complete house — at a high point of land on his remote property north of Blairmore, in the southern Alberta Rockies.

From atop the roof, he gestures across the valley toward Grassy Mountain, its rocky peak protruding from an evergreen forest, dotted with yellow deciduous trees, into blue sky.

Fierce community opposition to copper, lithium projects threatens energy transition – by Editor (Mining.com – November 9, 2023)

November 9, 2023

https://www.mining.com/

Nationwide protests against mining projects are once again grabbing headlines amid a sweeping sense of urgency from governments and communities to gain greater control over minerals and metals that are essential for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

While nothing new, resource nationalism has ignited high-profile disputes in recent weeks, with First Quantum’s struggles in Panama and lithium miners’ in Portugal the two most radical examples.

Indigenous in Argentina appeal to Pope Francis amid mining protests – by Eduardo Campos Lima (Crux Now – July 5, 2023)

July 5, 2023

https://cruxnow.com/

SÃO PAULO – Two weeks after the northwestern Jujuy province in Argentina approved a broad constitutional reform, indigenous communities and labor unions, supported by an official arm of the Argentine bishops’ conference, are demonstrating against it and demanding its revocation.

Groups of protesters have been blockading roads and marching against the legal changes, which they say put in danger their right to occupy traditional lands, their access to water, and their right to manifest against the government.

Federal court allows international mining giant to oppose tribes in Oak Flat lawsuit – by Debra Utacia Krol (Arizona Republic – May 31, 2023)

June 2, 2023

https://www.azcentral.com/

The U.S. District Court in Arizona granted mining giant Resolution Copper permission on Monday to join the U.S. government as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by grassroots group Apache Stronghold.

The Native organization has been fighting to prevent Resolution from building a huge copper mining operation that would obliterate Oak Flat, one of the Apaches peoples’ most sacred sites. Oak Flat, or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, “the place where the Emory oak grows,” is also culturally important to other Southwestern tribes, and is one of Arizona’s remaining riparian zones and a popular site for recreational users.

‘Green colonialism’: Indigenous world leaders warn over west’s climate strategy – by Jenni Monet (The Guardian – April 23, 2023)

April 25, 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/

UN summit in New York hears how resources needed for sustainable energy threaten Indigenous land and people

World Indigenous leaders meeting this week at an annual UN summit have warned that the west’s climate strategy risks the exploitation of Indigenous territories, resources and people.

New and emerging threats about the transition to a greener economy, including mineral mining, were at the forefront of debate as hundreds of Indigenous chiefs, presidents, chairmen and delegates gathered at the 22nd United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

OPINION EDITORIALS: Our View: Declare Minnesota what it is, a mining-friendly state (Deluth News Tribune – March 23, 2023)

March 29, 2023

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Of course Minnesota is a mining-friendly state. We’ve been successfully mining here for more than a century and a half, the industry fueling our state economy, propping up our schools, and defining us.

Minnesota mining has been credited for being a key to victory in two world wars. If it wasn’t for Minnesota mining, the bustle and activity at the port of Duluth-Superior, the largest on the Great Lakes, would be a shadow of itself.

Alaska gold, copper mine blocked over environmental worries – by Becky Bohrer and Patrick Whittle (Associated Press – February 1, 2023)

February 1, 2023

https://apnews.com/

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took an unusually strong step Tuesday and blocked a proposed mine heralded by backers as the most significant undeveloped copper and gold resource in the world because of concerns about its environmental impact on a rich Alaska aquatic ecosystem that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

The move, cheered by Alaska Native tribes and environmentalists and condemned by some state officials and mining interests, deals a heavy blow to the proposed Pebble Mine. The intended site is in a remote area of southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.

Protesters in Azerbaijan outraged over alleged mine pollution – by Dave Gordon(Toronto Sun – January 29, 2023)

January 30, 2023

https://torontosun.com/

SHUSHA, Azerbaijan — An unlikely group of youth, eco-activists and religious leaders find themselves at the centre of the latest in a long series of disputes between bitter enemies, Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

For nearly 50 days, Azerbaijani protesters have expressed outrage at seven mining companies – including a Canadian one – railing against alleged decades-long environmental damage.

A Copper Mine Could Advance Green Energy but Scar Sacred Land – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – January 27, 2023)

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/

Tribal groups are fighting an Arizona project whose backers say increasing the supply of copper, crucial to batteries, would reduce fossil-fuel use.

SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As Wendsler Nosie finished his evening prayers sitting before a mesquite fire, a ceremonial yucca staff festooned with eagle feathers by his side, he gazed sternly toward a distant mesa where mining companies hope to extract more than a billion tons of copper.

That mine could help address climate change by helping the United States replace fossil fuels and combustion engines with renewable energy and electric cars. But to Mr. Nosie, a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, it’s the latest insult in a bitter history.