Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro ordered creation of a "Special Military Zone" in the Orinoco Mineral Arc following reports of a massacre at a mining camp in the region.
Indigenous and Black communities in Colombia’s Chocó department filed a lawsuit, claiming 37 of their children died after drinking water contaminated by nearby mining operations.
Informal gold-miners paralyzed Peru's southern rainforest region of Madre de Dios for weeks to demand the overturn of executive decrees restricting their activities.
A court in China ruled that a lawsuit against ConocoPhillips China and China National Offshore Oil for a 2011 oil spill can proceed under a new law allowing NGOs to directly sue polluters.
Members of the Pemón indigenous people blocked the landing strip of Venezuela's Canaima National Park in protest of illegal miners operating on their lands.
Indigenous people and advocacy groups charge the mega-project to build a transcontinental railway through the Amazon basin would mean "genocide" for isolated tribes.
In an open acknowledgement that it cannot secure its pipeline system from plunder by criminal gangs, Mexico will no longer pump refined gasoline and diesel through the network.
Small-scale gold and emerald miners in Colombia launched a strike, blocking roads at several points across the central department of Antioquia to protest raids on their operations.
Hundreds of indigenous and Afro-Colombian protesters in Colombia's Cauca region marched cross-country against illegal gold mining—despite paramilitary threats.
The slaying of an indigenous leader who planned to travel from Ecuador to denounce a mining project before the Lima climate summit is the latest attack on regional ecological defenders.
Afghanistan's new mining law is intended to boost foreign investment, but critics charge lack of transparency will allow mafias and armed gangs to control the nascent industry.
Davi Kopenawa, shaman and internationally renowned spokesman for Brazil's Yanomami people, has demanded urgent police protection following a series of death threats.
