After the court victory, the community said they will remain vigilant and continue "fighting until we have legal title over our entire ancestral homeland."

The Indigenous Cofan people of Sinangoe in the Ecuadorean Amazon, have achieved a significant judicial victory after the provincial court of Sucumbios ordered a halt to all mining activities in their territories, and recognized their right to prior and informed consent to activities related to nature, water, and the environment in their territory.

Dick Jenkins is a fourth-generation rancher living in Oregon’s most remote county. I wanted to know why he continues living in a rural community, even though life elsewhere might be easier.

“Taking care of [the land] is worth more than all the money in the world,” he told me. “Taking care of the animals, taking care of the environment, it all goes together and we’re very proud of it.”

While Dick’s answer was more evocative than I could’ve hoped for, I can’t say I was surprised by it.

In Brazil, indigenous and traditional communities are fighting for their land in the face of threats from big businesses, mining and environmental destruction. In some cases, the peoples' very survival is at stake.

In early 2018, Ageu Lobo Perreira was on the run. He'd received word that his life and the lives of two other members of the traditional Amazon riverside community he leads were in danger.

SINGRAULI, India -- After years of developing the thermal energy sector to meet the demands of a nation prone to outages, India is now facing a power glut with over 30 such producers teetering on bankruptcy. Yet the government shows no letup in its drive for more coal power and the effect of oversupply is rippling out to other sectors such as banks.

India's embrace of coal has allowed it to triple power generation over the past 15 years to 344 gigawatts, surpassing Japan to become the world's third largest electricity market.

BOGOTA - Nearly four land and environmental activists were killed each week last year, murdered for opposing large-scale agriculture and mining projects in the deadliest year on record, a campaign group said on Tuesday.

In 22 countries surveyed by U.K.-based Global Witness, at least 207 activists were killed, making 2017 the deadliest year since 2002 when the human rights organization started collecting data.

"Gender, Land and Mining in Pastoralist Tanzania" is the product of rigorous field research over two years by WOLTS team members from Mokoro and HakiMadini. Significant stresses from mining, population growth and climate change, as well as disturbing levels of violence against women have been uncovered in this study of two traditional pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Initial findings are based on repeat rounds of participatory fieldwork by the WOLTS team and have already received attention at national and local level.

Up in the highlands of Guatemala, a dark history haunts the mist-covered treelines. In the late 1970s and 1980s, a raging civil war claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, most of whom were indigenous. Across the country, 626 massacre sites have been identified.

Families face pressure to decide the fate of their relatives’ grave, dividing the community of Azacualpa where as many as 350 bodies have already been exhumed

Nothing is sacred in the path of gold miners in northwestern Honduras – not even the dead. 

Winner of "Green Nobel" prize says illegal mining is a scourge as it pollutes rivers with toxic mercury and cuts down forests

BOGOTA - Colombian environmental activist Francia Marquez has faced death threats and been forced from her home in her battle against the mines that she says are polluting rivers and ruining land.

But she has no intention of giving up the work that this week earned her a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the "Green Nobel", which honours grassroots activism.

By Mary Hodgett (TIMBY)

In Liberia, two small communities are fighting to protect their homes, and land rights against a powerful wave of environmentally destructive industries.