Saying justice is no longer possible within Peru, Awajún and Wampis leaders in Amazonas region announced they plan to seek independence or unite their territory with Ecuador.
Sabino Romero, cacique (traditional chief) of the Yukpa indigenous people, who opposed extractive industries in Venezuela’s Sierra de Perijá, was assassinated in a road ambush.
Lenca indigenous communities in Honduras have declared a state of “maximum alert,” pledging to resist hydro-electric and mineral development projects slated for their lands.
Hundreds of National Police troops have surrounded a protest encampment estabished by campesinos at the site of the Conga mining project in northern Peru.
Colombia’s largest coal miner, Cerrejon, under force majeure due to a work stoppage, was targted in a guerilla attack that left four of the company’s trucks destroyed by fire.
Protesters demonstrated against the Dominican government’s deals with a Canadian mining multinational, and with developers claiming titles to properties in an ecological reserve.
Ecuador’s indigenous movement reacted to the re-election of President Rafael Correa by calling upon him to end the extractive model and criminalization of protest.
The Yanacocha mining company issued a statement warning that a consulta by local villagers on the Conga project could “place in danger all the mineral industry” of Peru.
A contractor gets 38 years for the murder of two leaders of the union at a Drummond mine; the judge asks for an investigation of the company’s managers back in Alabama.
Canadian companies plan to make $50 billion on a Dominican gold mine; Dominicans can look forward to getting $1.3 billion—and an environmental disaster.
Peru’s conflict-ridden Yanacocha mining company is appealing a ruling of the National Water Authority barring expansion of its open-pit operations into new lands.
The Munduruku indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon charge that the government is militarizing their lands to quell opposition to mega-scale hydroelectric projects.
