The opencast coal mine at Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales is the UK’s largest - and has produced eight million tonnes of coal. Now Miller Argent, the owner and operator, wants to extend the mine. Banks Mining has applied for planning permission to begin a new mine at Highthorn, in Northumberland. The application will go before Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, today. MAT HOPE of DeSmog UK spoke to the people most affected.
In Colombia, whole villages are suffering due to the mining of coal which is destined for Europe. However, the local villagers are now unionising and fighting for more rights. MARINA KELAVA reports.
Greater Manchester Authorities has launched an immediate probe into its investments after an investigation by The Ecologist revealed it was funding the company behind the world's biggest, and most controversial, coal mine. JAN GOODEY reports.
On World Day of Indigenous Resistance, Wayúu woman ANGELICA ORITZ shares her experience as a human rights defender, living and fighting for the future of her community in the shadow of the largest opencast mine in Colombia
A collapse in the price of uranium has not yet stopped Australian mining company GME from trying to press ahead with a massive open-pit uranium mine on an Arctic mountain in southern Greenland, writes Bill Williams - just returned from the small coastal town of Narsaq where local people and Inuit campaigners are driving the growing resistance to the ruinous project.
The alleged murder of activists Aysin and Ali Buyuknohutcu by a mining company following a legal dispute is resonating in Turkey. The married couple had been taken to court by Bartu Mermer after protesting to protect their local forest. In March 2017 the company’s lawsuit collapsed and the mining was stopped. But six weeks later, the couple were shot dead at their country home in southern Turkey, reports BURAG GURDEN.
Two months ago Colombia's largest gold-mining project ‘La Colosa' was called off after a small town said "NO" in a local referendum. A wave of public consultations against similar projects is now sweeping Colombia and beyond, while the Government hesitates to introduce rigorous environmental regulations for the industry writes BURAG GURDEN
Australia's governments and mining giant Adani have announced the go ahead for a mega mine - despite the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) warnings over climate change and the likely impact on the Great Barrier Reef. MAXINE NEWLANDS reports
London-listed copper giant Antofagasta has been entangled in scandals in Chile involving water depletion, dangers to local communities, corruption of national politics and environmental contamination, write Ali Maeve & Liam Barrington-Bush. Yet the London Stock Exchange remains silent. Following the company's AGM last week, a new London Mining Network report puts their actions and operations into the spotlight.
Silver, indigenous Huichol communities and the peyote they venerate have co-existed in Wirikuta, northern Mexico for thousands of years, writes Kurt Hollander. But it's become an increasingly troubled relationship, one that illustrates the deepest conflicts of Mexican society. The region is protected as a UNESCO Natural Sacred Area, but foreign mining companies are determined to exploit vast concessions that pose severe threats to the fragile landscape, its inhabitants and their ancient culture.
A crucial component of concrete, sand is vital to the global construction industry, writes Nick Meynen. China alone is importing a billion tonnes of sand a year, and its increasing scarcity is leading to large scale illegal mining and deadly conflicts. With ever more sand fetched from riverbeds, shorelines and sandbanks, roads and bridges are being undermined and beaches eroded. And the world's sand wars are only set to worsen.
From child-soldier to Netflix star, the Congolese park ranger has won his award for stopping oil exploration in the Virunga National Park. He talks to SOPHIE MORLIN-YRON
Meet the man securing justice for the Dongira tribe's sacred hills...in the first of her profiles of two of this year's winners, SOPHIE MORLIN-YRON interviews the recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia
Brazil's extreme right wing government is preparing to open up the rainforest territories of dozens of uncontacted indigenous tribes to 'free for all' development by defunding the protection they currently receive, according to information received by Survival International, which warns: 'The reality is these cuts could sanction genocide.'
As China pursues a startling array of energy, mining, logging, agricultural, transport and other infrastructure projects on virtually every continent, it is having an unprecedented impact on the planet, writes William Laurance. It's not that China is any worse than historic colonial powers - the difference is in the sheer scale and pace of environmental destruction, and the total lack of oversight under which Chinese mega-corporations operate.