Rights Action reports that, after a delegation of indigenous representatives were invited to take part in a workshop to discuss “mining exploration and exploitation in Guatemala,” they learned the workshop was being co-financed by… “Goldcorp (Montana Exploradora de Guatemala), Skye Resources (Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel), the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) and the Prospectors and Developers’ Association of Canada (PDAC).

This prompted the delegation to formally withdraw from the workshop and issue a statement, which you can find below.

Before reading the statement, please note that while this may have been a good …

Late last week, the highly contested HidroAysen dam project received a major endorsement by a member of Michelle Bachelet’s Chilean Government.

According to the Santiago Times

[on Thursday] Energy Minister Marcelo Tokman joined Interior Minister Edmundo Perez-Yoma to announce a series of measures aimed at alleviating Chile’s current energy crisis… while the announcements themselves came as no surprise, Perez-Yoma’s response when questioned about the HidroAysen project certainly did. “Do you support pushing forward with the Aysen dams?” a reporter asked him. “Yes, I’m for it… Of course I am. I think …

Last week, five of America’s leading jewelry retailers announced their support for the protection of Alaska’s Bristol Bay from large-scale mining; particularly against the proposed Pebble gold-copper mine.

Featured in the report, Golden Rules: Making the Case for More Responsible Mining (pdf), the proposed Pebble mine would come to be “the largest mine in North America, covering over 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of land and generating more than 3 billion tons of mine waste over its life. The waste [would] be impounded in a seismically active …

A worrisome proposal was recently tabled in Fiji that seeks the de-reservation of all Indigenous lands, allegedly, to ensure the survival of the Sugar Cane Industry on which thousands of people depend. This request was prompted in a report authored last November which stated the land could be ‘better utilised’ if the military-backed interim government de-reserved native land and increased the size of sugar cane lots from 4 hectares to 40 and 400.

The Fiji Times reports that interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who has in the past tried to

…

This is the trailer for the film Blue Gold: World Water Wars, a documentary that explores the current and emerging world water crisis from an ecological, social, and political standpoint.

Through examining Court cases, U.N. conventions, local protests, and numerous situations where people are struggling for their basic right to water, Blue Gold reveals the breadth of what we face unless there are changes to the way the world’s water is managed.

As expressed on Facebook,

In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level …

The Mining Advocacy Network reports that indigenous people in Kanaky, more commonly known as New Caledonia, began mobilizing over the weekend to stop a waste pipe that Inco is hurriedly laying for its Goro nickel mine.

A little over a week ago, the company won an appeal case filed by the indigenous concern group Rheebu Nuu in November 2006. The groups says the waste pipe is an imminent threat to the environment.

Kanaky is one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots. The majority of species are endemic, …

A few months back there was a story about a company that plans to use megaphones if they come across any uncontacted tribes while working in the Peruvian Amazon. Repsol YPF, the company calls itself.

Well, the stage is now set for those indigenous People to be aurally assaulted by megaphones. In December, the government of Peru gave Repsol along with Barrett Resources permission to go ahead with their oil exploration plans. Incidentally, Barrett also plans to contact any people they come across, but rather than use megaphones they’re choosing to …

On January 31, the government of India gave South Korean multinational Pohong Steel Corporation (POSCO) permission to go ahead with a huge iron mining, manufacturing and export project in Orissa state. As a result, villagers in the region along with anyone opposed to the project are now at high risk of being violently suppressed.

Friends of the Earth International explains that, “already, on 29 November, 2007, fifty villagers were injured as 100 armed men bombed, beat and sexually molested protesters (mostly women). The police watched the attack, then proceeded to occupy …

Last week, a coalition of indigenous people and environmental groups filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the massive oil drilling project in the Chukchi Sea.

Consisting of the Native Village of Point Hope, the City of Point Hope, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), as well as The Wilderness Society and the Center for Biological Diversity, among several others - the coalition argues that the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) should not have gone ahead with it’s recent …

According to a recent communique from Friends of the Lubicon, TransCanada officials have decided to proceed with their application to build a new jumbo gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon Territory.

Not too long ago they were asked to alter their ‘project timelines’ until they adequately respond to the social, environment, and cultural concerns held by the Lubicon Cree Nation. However, it would seem Transcanada is no the lest bit interested in doing so, nevermind respect the rights of the Lubicon or hold onto any shred of moral and social …