Vancouver

Kate’s roundup of the top mining and environmental news from around the world including:

Ecuador: Jose Isidro Tendetza Antun of the indigenous Shuar Federation will not be attending the climate talks in Lima, Peru, this week. He was recently captured, tortured, and killed after leading resistance to the Chinese CCRC-Tonagguan Investment’s Mirador open-pit copper and gold mine. BTW, President Rafael Correa has assured multinational companies of “full state security from the police and the army” and is pursing oil drilling in the Amazon reserve.

Alaska: XS Platinum and five executives “have been criminally indicted under the federal Clean Water Act for allegedly dumping toxic waste into the Salmon River” from their Platinum Creek mine, falsifying records and reports, etc. Apparently, the toxic waste made its way into the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge where “chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye [salmon]” spa

Worldwide: 180 cities in 35 countries have taken back their water, preventing it from being contaminated by extractive industries.

Selections from the world’s energy news including:

Peru: “A lush expanse of Amazon rainforest known as the [Madre de Dios or] “Mother of God” is steadily being destroyed in Peru, as mercury-filled tailing ponds from gold extraction grow. Sounds nightmarish with “tens of thousands of desperate fortune-hunters” operating “improvised mines” 24/7. 125,000 acres of rainforest destroyed by the illegal gold miners already, 30 – 40 tons of mercury dumped into rivers.

Congo: “Loi Obama” or Obama’s Law requires US companies to ensure they don’t use “‘conflict minerals’—particularly gold, coltan, tin and tungsten … controlled by Congo’s murderous militias.” Disruption ensued as the government began a snail-paced effort to ensure the audits. Result: 11 of 900 mines in South Kivu certified so far. People unable to earn a living, increasingly miserable, thrown into the militias as a result of the well-intentioned Loi Obama.

USA: Did Walmart really pledge “to shift to 100 percent renewable energy … [and] to reduce its climate emissions as quickly as possible” almost 10 years ago? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance says so, but reports that, instead, “Walmart remains as deeply committed as ever to the dirtiest fuels, especially coal.” Only 3% of its US electricity consumption is from renewable energy sources.

Mining The Earth: Taking Back Our Water

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Where There’s Oil, You’re Bound To Find A Bush