Chorrobocón’s Gamble: Betting on Critical Minerals

In Colombia’s jungles, where the deep green of the Amazon collides with poverty and exclusion, a hidden and dangerous business flourishes. In the remote corners of Guainía, Indigenous communities such as the Puinave find themselves trapped in illegal mining, an activity that allows them to survive but threatens to destroy the land they inhabit. With the decline of gold, strategic minerals have risen as a promise for the future. However, this new mineral rush, which promises to be less polluting than gold mining, carries enormous environmental and social risks.

Energy transition creates a race for strategic minerals with 5,000 applications in the Amazon

Copper, lithium and nickel, among others, are raw materials used to produce electric vehicles, batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. The Amazon holds part of these minerals, and large companies want to exploit it. Most mining applications are in Pará state, and some of them will have direct impact on areas located in Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units.

Dam project threatens indigenous rituals, hunting areas and even gravesites in the Tenharim Marmelos Indigenous Land

InfoAmazonia and Brasil de Fato visited the territory to understand the views of the indigenous people about the construction of the Tabajara Dam – a project for a 37-square mile (97-sq. km) reservoir in Machadinho d’Oeste, in Brazil’s Rondônia state, which is expected to impact 9 indigenous lands, including Tenharim Marmelos.

Perenco: no word from oil firm about environmental damages in Peruvian Amazon

Anglo-French multinational Perenco claims to adopt sustainable practices around the world, ignoring its 58 environmental violations in the Peruvian Amazon that affect ecosystems and its people, as shown by an investigation conducted by InfoAmazonia and international allies. In the department of Loreto, local indigenous communities directly and indirectly influenced by Block 67 were not aware that the company had been sanctioned for environmental violations.

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