February 7, 2023

The Universal Humanity of the Peruvian Uprising

By Japhy Wilson. Have state and capital succeeded yet again in their joint campaign against the stubborn flourishing of universal humanity? Perhaps. But the Peruvian people have awoken, and any such victory can only be temporary and contingent.
May 14, 2021

The curse of white gold?

By Francisco Venes and Stefania Barca, with Anna Mandorli, Ben Witte, Eva Sievers, Laure Remmerswaal, Noor Evers, and Victor Peet. An interview with political ecologists Francisco Venes and Stefania Barca explores debates around lithium mining in Portugal.
December 23, 2020

Challenging extractivism

By Marta Conde and Diego Andreucci. Movements aiming to resist or reform resource extractivism are necessary, but they must converge with broader struggles to overcome capitalism and its entrenched patterns of class, racial and patriarchal domination.
November 8, 2018

3 Years of Impunity – Letter to the world by a victim of the crime of Mariana, Brazil

by Giuseppe Orlandini and Mirella Lino This is a “Letter to the world” by Mirella Lino, a resident of Mariana, written three years after the Bento Rodrigues dam disaster, when an iron ore tailings dam suffered a catastrophic failure, flooding a vast area of Brazil with toxic mud. Her words convey the consequences on personal and family lives of one of the worst “environmental crimes” in the history of mining. 
October 1, 2018

Of climate catastrophe and sacrifice zones – Battle for the Hambacher Forest

by Andrea Brock Activists have occupied Germany’s Hambacher Forest for six years to prevent the area being destroyed and mined for coal. This month the forest has been making headlines as police brutality, coorporate power and state violence combine to attempt ousting the occupiers for good.
June 14, 2018

Two tales of terrorism from the Tía María conflict, Peru

By Alexander Dunlap. The Peruvian state is laying military siege to enforce extraction operations; ironically, land defenders are the ones branded as terrorists.
March 5, 2018

“Down with the fumes!” The Year of the Shootings and its relevance for mining today

by Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez On February 4, 1888, a demonstration called by the “League Against Calcinations” to protest against acid rain ended up with a massacre of civilians by the Spanish army. Researchers Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez argue that the commemoration of this event is an opportunity to spread the message of social and environmental justice today.
September 13, 2016

Rosia Montana's movement for democratic justice

Rosia Montana is a small village in Transylvania, Romania, where, for the last fourteen years, a Canadian corporation has been pushing for the development of what would be the largest open cast cyanide-use gold mine in Europe. In the 1990s, Rosia Montana was declared mono-industrial, not allowing for any other form of business than mining to be developed by locals. Under this pressure, the majority of Rosieni were discouraged and disillusioned, ultimately conceding their displacement by selling their lands and properties. People have been told […]
August 4, 2016

Tales of dispossession in times of crisis: lessons from Greece

The case of gold-extraction in Halkidiki is only one chapter in the “book of dispossessions” in Greece during the crisis period.  Land, natural resources and public infrastructure in Greece comprise investment targets for local and international speculative capital; their current exploitation is now taking place to unprecedented extent, intensity and geographical spread.*
July 26, 2016

Who owns the world’s largest gold producers?

Institutional investors have become the dominant shareholders in the largest gold mining companies, with implications for their activities.*
July 21, 2016

Mining, water appropriation and latent conflicts

What if environmental conflicts do not manifest themselves? The Cobre Las Cruces mining company has managed to access and control common water resources thanks to a top-down, technocratic version of science, which silences social conflict.*
May 26, 2016

Why is Bolivian mining still irresponsible?

A recently published study explores the reasons why the socio-environmental implications of mining have not improved under Evo Morales.