In Defence of Life follows the struggles and triumphs of four communities resisting large-scale mining projects in Colombia, the Philippines, South Africa and Romania.

Courageous environmental and human rights defenders from these communities describe how they have suffered and why they are standing firm to protect their families, land, water and life from destruction by mining.

Their inspiring David and Goliath struggles demonstrate that when injustice and destruction become globalised, so does resistance.

This Field Report includes information submitted by KHRG community members describing events which occurred in Hpapun District between January and December 2013. The report describes human rights violations, including sexual harassment, violent abuses, landmine incidents, forced labour, land confiscation, gold mining, arbitrary taxation, and theft and looting. In addition, fighting between Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and Border Guard Force (BGF) soldiers resulted in injury and displacement of villagers.

A exploração artesanal de ouro é uma das principais actividades de rendimento das populações de Manica. O seu legado é transmitido entre gerações. Os vestígios da exploração são notórios ao longo das montanhas, rios e dentro das comunidades. Esta actividade, em alguns casos, envolve toda a família (pai, mãe e filhos) com uma divisão clara de tarefas.

A Free Burma Rangers (FBR) team travelled to the town of Maw Chee [Mawchi] to get information about the Burma Army and mining activities in that area.

Las autoridades campesinas de Zongo en la lucha por la defensa de su territorio demostraron que legítimamente son autoridades para ejercer justicia en sus territorios y en lugares donde la gente quiera acogerse a su jurisdicción, se abrió un camino para practicar su autodeterminación recuperando las tierras que había acaparado un empresario minero.

The growing scale of resource development activities accentuates the complexity underlying the sustainability of traditional livelihoods in Mongolia. At the same time, Mongolia experiences growing vulnerability to climatic variability and change, expressed in the form of intense desertification, water stress, and extreme dzuds.

Habitat degradation poses a great threat to biodiversity conservation. Abundance and diversity of butterflies is an indicator of good environmental health. Understanding how different butterfly species respond to habitat degradation is a necessary step towards the development of effective measures to enhance environmental protection. This study investigated the impact of land use patterns on the diversity, abundance, and conservation status of butterflies in the Kisii highlands; a densely-populated region in Kenya that has received little attention in ecological studies.

The Central Asian countries are particularly affected by the global climate change. The cultural and economic centers in this mostly arid region have to rely solely on the water resources provided by the rapidly melting glaciers in the Pamir, Tien-Shan and Alay mountains. By 2030, the available water resources will be 30 % lower than today while the water demand will increase by 30 %. The unsustainable land and water use leads to a water deficit and a deterioration of the water quality.

New Caledonia is a widely recognised marine and terrestrial biodiversity hot spot. However, this unique environment is under increasing anthropogenic pressure. Major threats are related to land cover change and include fire, urban sprawling and mining. Resulting habitat loss and fragmentation end up in serious erosion of the local biodiversity. Mining is of particular concern due to its economic significance for the island. Open cast mines were exploited there since 1873, and scraping out soil to access ores wipes out flora.

Using an overall document data comprehensive analysis system and a structure analysis, this study preliminarily classified technical indicators, structured the regulatory index database on construction of land reclamation, and explicated the information operation process and main content of land reclamation. From the perspective of module design, this article describes the most significant details about information query and release process, engineering construction quality monitoring and control, the land reclamation engineering acceptance process, and post‐project evaluation.

The ‘WISE-UP to climate’ project aims to demonstrate the value of natural infrastructure as a ‘nature-based solution’ for climate change adaptation and sustainable development. Within the Tana River Basin, both natural and built infrastructure provide livelihood benefits for people. Understanding the interrelationships between the two types of infrastructure is a prerequisite for sustainable water resources development and management. This is particularly true as pressures on water resources intensify and the impacts of climate change increase.