Copper

Featured image: Domingo Ankuash of the Shuar speaking at the Inter-American Commission in Washington DC. By Daniel Cima. by Cultural Survival Cultural Survival condemns the action of the Ecuadorian government in the raiding of the Shuar federation, FICSH (Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar), and the arbitrary detention of its president, Agustin Wachapa, on December 20, 2016. The Shuar have been organizing to defend their ancestral lands from the development of a Chinese copper mine. Under the San Carlos Panantza copper project, the Ecuadorian government conceded 41 thousand hectares of land to the Chinese mining company ECSA for a period of 25 years. The project, currently in the exploration phase, is estimated to deliver around $1200 million USD in annual profits. ...

Image Credit: Ryan Martinez Lewis Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is dedicated to the fight against industrial civilization and its legacy of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. For this reason, DGR would like to publicly state its support of the San Carlos Apache tribe and the residents of Superior, AZ in the fight to protect Oak Flat from the destructive and unethical practices of foreign mining giant Rio Tinto. Background For over a decade the San Carlos Apache tribe and supporters have been fighting against profit-driven attacks on their land by the Superior, AZ based company Resolution Copper (RC), a subsidiary of the international mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The foreign Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian mining company with a shameful history of environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and consorting with oppressive regimes around the globe. ...

By Jonathan Watts / The Guardian The body of an indigenous leader who was opposed to a major mining project in Ecuador has been found bound and buried, days before he planned to take his campaign to climate talks in Lima. The killing highlights the violence and harassment facing environmental activists in Ecuador, following the confiscation earlier this week of a bus carrying climate campaigners who planned to denounce president Rafael Correa at the United Nations conference. ...

By Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin While global warming is a topic of conversation and news coverage every day around the world,‭ ‬the basic raw materials that drive the global economy are rarely discussed as being involved.‭ ‬But these materials play a key role in global environmental issues. Where do plastics come from‭? ‬How is paint made‭? ‬How do simple electronics,‭ ‬like land line telephones,‭ ‬come to be‭? ‬How does the electric grid itself come to be‭? ‬And in a world that is being wracked by warming,‭ ‬how do these basic industrial technologies impact the climate‭? ...

By Oliver Milman / The Guardian A “new frontier” in mining is set to be opened up by the underwater extraction of resources from the seabed off the coast of Papua New Guinea, despite vehement objections from environmentalists and local activists. Canadian firm Nautilus Minerals has been granted a 20-year licence by the PNG government to commence the Solwara 1 project, the world’s first commercial deep sea mining operation. Nautilus will mine an area 1.6km beneath the Bismarck Sea, 50km off the coast of the PNG island of New Britain. The ore extracted contains high-grade copper and gold. ...

By Carla Salazar / Associated Press More than 100 rural Peruvians have been sickened by the spill of a toxic copper concentrate produced at one of the Andean country’s biggest mines, authorities said Friday. The Ancash state regional health office said 140 people were treated for ‘‘irritative symptoms caused by the inhalation of toxins’’ after a pipeline carrying the concentrate under high pressure burst open in their community. Most of the injured had joined in efforts to prevent liquid copper slurry from reaching a nearby river after the pipeline linking the Antamina copper mine to the coast ruptured last week in the village of Santa Rosa de Cajacay, said the community’s president, Hilario Moran. ...

By Tania Branigan / The Guardian Thousands of anti-pollution protesters took to the streets of a south-west Chinese city on Monday, halting the construction of a multimillion pound molybdenum copper plant. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds after rioters lobbed bricks at government offices in Shifang, Sichuan province, the English edition of the state-run newspaper Global Times reported. Other accounts said a dozen police vehicles were overturned or attacked. ...

By Paulina Abramovich / Agence France-Presse A new gold rush is sweeping through Latin America with devastating consequences, ravaging tropical forests and dumping toxic chemicals as illegal miners fight against big international projects. With international market prices for metals high, informal “wildcat” mining has been on the rise in recent years in countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, itself one of the largest producers of silver, copper and gold. Mining investments in those countries are expected to reach some $300 billion in 2020, according to the Inter-American Mining Society. ...

By Environment News Service Thousands of Peruvians protesting in the streets of Cajamarca against a proposed gold and copper mine say they will continue their demonstrations every day until the government rejects the development. They fear the surface open pit mine would pollute their water supplies and destroy the region’s environment. The object of their anger is the Conga Project, located north of the Peruvian Andes 73 km (45 miles) northeast of the city of Cajamarca, at elevations ranging from 3,700 to 4,260 meters (12,140 to 13,980 feet). The mine would straddle two provinces, Cajamarca and Celendin. ...

By John Sweeney / The Guardian Glencore, the commodity and mining firm worth £27bn, stands accused in the Democratic Republic of Congo of dumping raw acid and profiting from children working 150ft underground. The revelations come as the notoriously secretive Swiss-based company, which floated on the London Stock Exchange last year, seeks to merge with mining firm Xstrata in a £50bn-plus deal. When Glencore floated in London, five of its partners became billionaires, but the biggest winner was Glencore’s chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, whose stake is worth £4bn. The company was founded in 1974 by Marc Rich, once one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives, but now pardoned and outside Glencore. ...