Patricia Silva lays out an array of medicines and doctors’ letters on her kitchen table. She lives a few kilometres from a copper foundry operated by the British-headquartered mining company […]
Read More‘The Dubai of South America’: how the promise of riches from lithium mining turned to dust in Bolivia
Growing up near Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats, Franz Alí Ramos remembers playing in the high-altitude wetlands near his home during the rainy season. “It was a beautiful recreation area for […]
Read MoreFamilies torn apart, charges of kidnap and theft: how plans for a giant mine have sown distrust and unrest in the hills of Jericó
Argiro Tobón, 60, rolls up his sleeves above hands covered in fresh earth. Before him lie the green pastures of Jericó, Colombia, a landscape cultivated by hands like his for […]
Read MoreMining companies are pumping seawater into the driest place on Earth. But has the damage been done?
Vast pipelines cross the endless dunes of northern Chile, pumping seawater up to an altitude of more than 3,000 metres in the Andes mountains to the Escondida mine, the world’s […]
Read MoreBrazil’s last asbestos miners are switching to rare earth minerals. Can they offer a brighter future?
Minaçu, a small city in inland Brazil and home to the only asbestos mine in the Americas, is set to become the first operation outside Asia to produce four rare […]
Read More‘Scratch the earth, there’s gold!’: Small miners, big firms and armed gangs fight over Peru’s mineral wealth
Deep in the mountains of northern Peru, a bloody war is being fought over gold. As its international price sets successive record highs above $3,000 (£2,220) an ounce, criminal gangs, […]
Read More‘It’s like putting a whale in a blender’: the rise of deadly ship collisions in Chile
The memory of a blue whale gliding past his small boat haunts Patricio Ortiz. A deep wound disfigured the cetacean’s giant body – a big chunk had been ripped from […]
Read MoreCompany supplying critical EV metal ‘did not disclose’ Erin Brockovich pollutant in drinking water
One of Indonesia’s largest nickel-mining companies, which supplies a mineral critical to the global electric car industry, did not tell the public that local drinking water was polluted, according to […]
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