Environment

Baotou Iron & Steel Group in China’s Inner Mongolia province is planning to spend 2 billion yuan (US$280 million) to expand a huge manmade lake near Baotou city that contains toxic historical “tailings” (waste left behind after processing ore) from the world’s largest rare earth mine and refinery. Read More

Dateline Resources has been granted U.S. government approval to mine for gold and rare earths at the Colosseum project inside the Mojave National Preserve in California, despite the fact that major questions about the project being raised by the agency that manages U.S. national parks and monuments. Read More

Indigenous communities in Chile are trying to strike a deal with Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM), based in Santiago, Chile, and Albemarle, which is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, to reduce the environmental impact of the world’s largest lithium mines. Read More

Indigenous communities in Suriname have sued their government to withdraw an agreement with Chinalco (Aluminum Corporation of China Limited), to dig for bauxite near the village of Bakhuis in the central region of the country. Read More

A U.S. federal court ruled in favor of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma after it sued Enel Group for violating its tribal sovereignty. Enel was ordered to remove a massive 84-turbine wind farm that it built without obtaining mining permission, in order to profit from the renewable energy boom.  Read More

When black rain poured down around the Tata Steel plant in IJmuiden, a shipping town in the Netherlands, residents were told that they had no need to worry so long as they kept their windows closed, peeled their vegetables, and washed their hands more frequently. That was in 2018. Read More

Spills from Petroperú’s oil drilling have devastated the Marañón river in Peru for some 50 years. In order to tackle the pollution, a group of Kukama Indigenous women sued the government and Petroperú asserting that the river is a living entity with rights that should be protected. In March 2024, a court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the company to clean up the river.   Read More

A proposed US$2.5 billion open-pit copper and iron mining complex, under development by Andes Iron, that would have threatened Humboldt penguins and other marine species, has been denied permission to proceed after a years-long legal battle fought by local communities and environmental groups. The project was also embroiled in a corruption scandal linked to former president Sebastian Pinera. Read More

Rio Tinto Zinc is quietly trying to restart a $2.4 billion plan to dig for lithium in the Jadar region of Serbia two years after the original mining permit was canceled in response to a massive popular uprising in 2022. Read More

A KLM ad campaign that claimed customers could “fly sustainably” was declared illegal by a Dutch court in historic win against greenwashing, after the company was sued by Fossielvrij NL (Fossil-Free Netherlands) and Reclame Fossielvrij. Read More