Category Archives: Mining

BHP to destroy at least 40 Aboriginal sites, up to 15,000 years old, to expand Pilbara mine

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Exclusive: WA minister gave consent to BHP plan just three days after Juukan Gorge site was blown up by Rio Tinto in a move that has horrified the public

Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation, even though its own reports show it is aware that the traditional owners are deeply opposed to the move.

In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”.

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Rio Tinto apologises to traditional owners after blasting 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site

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Mining giant detonated explosives at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia, destroying two ancient rock shelters

Mining giant Rio Tinto has apologised to traditional owners in Western Australia’s north after destroying a significant Indigenous site dating back 46,000 years, saying it is urgently reviewing plans for other sites in the area.

Rio detonated explosives in a part of the Juukan Gorge last Sunday, destroying two ancient rock shelters, which has devastated the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people.

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Juukan Gorge: Rio Tinto blasting of Aboriginal site prompts calls to change antiquated laws

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Conflict between mining and Aboriginal heritage in WA has spawned a system of suffocating bureaucracy and lopsided agreement-making

A 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site destroyed by Rio Tinto this month is one of more than 463 sites that mining companies operating in Western Australia have applied for permission to destroy or disturb since 2010.

None of those applications have been refused. And under the state’s 48-year-old Aboriginal heritage laws, only the land or lease holder has the right to appeal – traditional owners do not.

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Politics and Porgera: why Papua New Guinea cancelled the lease on one of its biggest mines

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The announcement not to renew the goldmine lease is fraught but part of an attempt to ‘take back PNG’

Late in April, in the middle of a global pandemic and slow-boiling domestic economic crisis, the government of Papua New Guinea made the surprising announcement not to extend the mining lease on a goldmine that contributes roughly 10% of the country’s total exports.

The announcement not to renew the special mining lease for the Porgera mine was a shock, not least to the mine’s operator, Barrick Gold, and their joint venture partner Zijin Mining.

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Pollution causing birth defects in children of DRC cobalt miners – study

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Researchers link exposure to mining pollutants to greatly increased risk of conditions such as spina bifida and limb abnormalities

Thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being exposed to dangerous levels of toxic pollution that is causing birth defects in their children as they mine for cobalt used to make rechargeable batteries for smartphones, laptops and electric cars, a new medical study has found.

Research published in the Lancet last week found that local people working in mines in the African “copperbelt”, a mining region stretching across Zambia and the DRC, are at significantly higher risk of having children born with serious birth defects.

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Trump order encourages US to mine the moon

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Executive order says US will oppose any international effort to bar it from removing chunks of moon, Mars or elsewhere in space

The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.

The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty.

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Human rights activist ‘forced to flee DRC’ over child cobalt mining lawsuit

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Landmark legal action against world’s biggest tech companies lead to death threats, says activist Auguste Mutombo

A Congolese human rights activist has said he was forced to flee the country with his family after being linked to a lawsuit accusing the world’s largest tech companies of being complicit in the deaths of children in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In December, the Guardian revealed that a group of families from DRC were launching landmark legal action against Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell. They claim they aided and abetted the deaths and injuries of their children, who were working in mines that they say were linked to the tech companies.

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Canada mining firm accused of slavery abroad can be sued at home, supreme court rules

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Case brought by three Eritreans against Nevsun Resources can continue as companies operating overseas face new legal risk

A Vancouver-based mining company can be sued in Canada for alleged human rights abuses overseas including allegations of modern slavery, Canada’s supreme court has ruled.

The decision means three Eritreans who filed a civil suit against Nevsun Resources in British Columbia can continue their case in a lower court.

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Clive Palmer charged with criminal offences by corporate regulator

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Asic boss confirms mining magnate and former politician charged with four offences by the regulator for conduct dating back to 2013

Mining magnate and former politician Clive Palmer has been charged with criminal offences that could see him jailed by Australia’s corporate regulator.

The head of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, John Price, revealed on Friday that the Queensland businessman had been charged with four offences by the regulator for conduct dating back to 2013.

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Rio Tinto announces $1bn spend to reach net zero emissions by 2050

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World’s second biggest miner says it will reduce emissions by 15% by 2030, but ‘will not set targets for our customers’

Mining giant Rio Tinto says it wants its globe-spanning operations to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and will spend US$1bn over the next five years to reduce its carbon footprint.

The second biggest miner in the world has also committed to reducing its emissions by 15% by 2030.

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‘Coal workers are orphans’: the children and slaves mining Pakistan’s coal

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Injuries and fatalities are common among thousands of debt-bonded men and children toiling in one of the world’s harshest work environments

All photographs by Mashal Baloch

The spectre of death hovers over the coal mines of Balochistan. Under scorching skies, this turbulent south-west region of Pakistan is home to one of the world’s harshest work environments, where tens of thousands of men and children descend below the surface each day to dig up thousands of tonnes of coal.

The threats of underground explosions, methane gas poisoning, suffocation, or mine walls collapsing are omnipresent and there is barely a single worker across the state’s five massive commercial coal mines who has not been touched by the fatalities that are common here.

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‘Gold pits have become tombs’: mining leaves a tragic legacy in Cameroon

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The ruthless quest for gold in eastern Cameroon has left the landscape peppered with deadly open pits

It was the last day of the summer holidays when, on his way to meet friends in his hometown of Batouri, eastern Cameroon, 12-year-old Saustem Brandon Samba slipped on reddish mud and fell into what at first looked like a large puddle.

The puddle turned out to be an abandoned gold mine, with a steep drop, 18 metres deep. Samba tried to get out, his arms and legs scrambling frantically in search of something to grip on to as muddy water choked him.

His father, Sah, still carries a photo of his son’s lifeless body after it was recovered from the mining pit in September 2017.

Between 2017 and 2019, at least 115 children and adults drowned or were buried alive by landfalls in the mostly abandoned pits in the East and Adamawa regions of Cameroon, according to Forests and Rural Development (Foder), a local watchdog that is alone in tracking the accidents and deaths.

“The whole area was not at all secure,” says Sah, whose fury is clear as he describes how gold mining pits in the region – which locals call “tombs” – have been left open and abandoned by Chinese companies, among others.

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Race to exploit the world’s seabed set to wreak havoc on marine life

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New research warns that ‘blue acceleration’ – a global goldrush to claim the ocean floor – is already impacting on the environment.

The scaly-foot snail is one of Earth’s strangest creatures. It lives more than 2,300 metres below the surface of the sea on a trio of deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Here it has evolved a remarkable form of protection against the crushing, grim conditions found at these Stygian depths. It grows a shell made of iron.

Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum – which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defence department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour.

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Brazil prosecutors charge 16 people with murder in dam collapse that killed 270

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  • Former CEO of mining giant Vale among those charged
  • Vale ‘acted directly to create false impression of safety in dams’

Brazilian prosecutors have charged 16 people – including the former CEO of mining giant Vale – with murder and environmental crimes over the collapse of a tailings dam which killed 270 people on 25 January 2019.

The charges were announced by state prosecutors in Minas Gerais days before the first anniversary of the disaster, which sent a torrent of liquid mining waste across the picturesque countryside, flattening Vale’s plant, offices and canteen, and killing guests at a nearby countryside guesthouse.

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How the race for cobalt risks turning it from miracle metal to deadly chemical

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As a case in the US alleges links between tech companies and child miners in Congo, the Guardian’s global environment editor assesses the dangers of element in high demand for batteries

If the prophets of technology are to be believed, the best hope for solving the climate crisis is ever more efficient batteries. But the race to produce enough materials for this energy-storage revolution is creating a host of other environmental problems, as cobalt-producing nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Cuba are discovering.

Lung disease and heart failure have been linked to high levels of this element, while the mines that produce it are blamed for devastated landscapes, water pollution, contaminated crops and a loss of soil fertility. Scientists are also investigating a possible link to cancer.

As with any chemical, the risks depend on the amount and duration of exposure. Cobalt is a metal that occurs naturally in rocks, water, plants, and animals. It is less toxic than many other metals. At low levels, it is beneficial to human health and is a component of vitamin B12.

Related: Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

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I saw the unbearable grief inflicted on families by cobalt mining. I pray for change

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When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels at the cobalt mine where he worked – two years later he was dead

Bisette sits before me, her face drawn with woe. Even though this is my second research trip to the cobalt provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I am ill-prepared for the torment I will witness. We thank Bisette for her courage, for we know she is fearful that even a rumour that she is speaking to us could result in brutal reprisals against her and her family. She inhales sharply and recounts a tale of unimaginable grief.

Raphael was born to Bisette’s sister, but after both his parents died when he was a baby, Bisette raised Raphael as her own son. She says he was a bright and cheerful child. Raphael loved to learn but, when he was 12 years old, the family could no longer afford the $6 (£4) a month required to send him to school. Instead, Bisette says Raphael did what most children in his village had to do: he went to work as a surface digger at a nearby industrial cobalt mine near Kolwezi.

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Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

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Dell, Microsoft and Tesla also among tech firms named in case brought by families of children killed or injured while mining in DRC

A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal.

Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by human rights firm International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 parents and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The lawsuit accuses the companies of aiding and abetting in the death and serious injury of children who they claim were working in cobalt mines in their supply chain.

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Australian litigation funding giant rejects Christian Porter’s ‘lawfare’ claim

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Exclusive: IMF Bentham says several class actions against mining sector companies are for corporate breaches, not environmental

Australia’s biggest litigation funder, IMF Bentham, has rejected the attorney general’s suggestion the industry is engaging in “lawfare” against mining companies.

The company also hit back at claims by the chief executive of employer body AI Group, Innes Willox, that the industry is out of control, costing Australian business billions of dollars and needs urgent regulation.

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Clive Palmer company reapplies for mine four times size of Adani’s Carmichael

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Exclusive: public notice on proposal was placed in classifieds of paper in Queensland town of Emerald

A Clive Palmer-controlled company has applied for a mining lease and environmental authority to build a massive coalmine four times the size of Adani’s in the Queensland Galilee Basin.

The Galilee Coal project – formerly called China First – has not progressed since it gained federal environmental approval in late 2013.

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Cook Islands: manager of world’s biggest marine park says she lost job for backing sea mining moratorium

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Environmentalist Jacqueline Evans says she was dismissed from the Marae Moana for urging caution on deep-sea mining

The public champion of the world’s largest marine reserve – the Cook Islands’ Marae Moana – has said she lost her job managing it because she supported a moratorium on seabed mining in the Pacific.

Six months ago, Jacqueline Evans won the Goldman Environmental prize – the world’s foremost environmental award – for her work establishing Marae Moana (meaning “sacred ocean”), which covers the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone of more than 1.9m sq km.

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