Community rights activist Eakachai Itsaratha recalls his brush with death after being abducted in southern Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand - As an outspoken community rights activist in a country with one of the worst records of enforced disappearances in the region, Eakachai Itsaratha long understood that one day he too would become a target.

Our latest WOLTS publication is a fascinating photo essay from one of our pilot research communities, Mundarara, in Tanzania. The piece by Jim Grabham, titled “Are rubies undermining Maasai culture”, shares insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with two participants in a one-year training programme on gender, land and mining that has been developed and carried out by the HakiMadini and Mokoro WOLTS project team in Tanzania.

• Indonesian companies were given until March this year to disclose their “beneficial owners” under a 2018 presidential regulation, but less than 1 percent have complied.
• In the easternmost corner of the country, investors hidden by layers of corporate secrecy continue to bulldoze an intact rainforest and have nearly finished building a giant sawmill.

Papua New Guinea out of pocket $157m from failed attempt at mining material from deep-sea vents as opponents point to environmental risk

The “total failure” of PNG’s controversial deep sea mining project Solwara 1 has spurred calls for a Pacific-wide moratorium on seabed mining for a decade.

The company behind Solwara 1, Nautilus, has gone into administration, with major creditors seeking a restructure to recoup hundreds of millions sunk into the controversial project.

KUALA LUMPUR (July 22): Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok has come out to respond to allegations by environmental group Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) that native customary land rights (NCR) are being violated in the palm oil industry.

In a statement today, Kok reiterated that it is mandatory for companies registered under the Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) to recognise land use rights and NCR.

The project has long been lamented by residents in the southern region of Arequipa where farmers say the mine will pollute their fields and affect water supplies

LIMA - Protesters blocked a portion of Peru's main coastal highway on Monday in the start of a new challenge to a billion-dollar copper mining project that has been a lightning rod for conflict.

Indigenous people in Meghalaya have been granted full rights over land and any resources on it, and only they can grant permission for mining, following a "historic" legal victory

BANGKOK, July 4 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indigenous people in an Indian state must be protected from illegal mining and the pollution it causes, the country's top court ruled, providing a "historic" victory to tribal groups fighting for better rights over land and natural resources.

• The Hoti, Yanomami and Piaroa, isolated indigenous groups in Venezuela, are under threat on several fronts.
• Mining, legal and illegal, is disturbing their lands. Some have been forced to labor in the mining industry and others have decided to leave their territories and go deeper into the forest.
• The measles epidemic that has erupted in Venezuela has decimated the Yanomami, and the government has failed to set up health services in their territories.

MONROVIA –  The government of Liberia and major stakeholders in the forestland sector are developing guidelines for rural communities to accept and reject concessions targeted for their lands, a move advocates are hailing would curb land grab and strengthen the relationship between concessionaires and locals. 

Report by Mae Azango, New Narratives Correspondent

The right of foreign investors to sue governments in international tribunals is one of the most extreme examples of excessive power granted to corporations through free trade agreements and investment treaties.

For decades now, corporations have used this power to demand massive compensation for public interest regulations and other government actions that may reduce the value of their investments. Widespread outrage over this “investor-state dispute settlement” system is among the key issues in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

West Africa's native rosewood was listed as endangered last year following a huge increase in trade driven by Chinese demand

GAMAMADU, Guinea-Bissau - Before the ban, Chinese loggers drove straight through Gamamadu village to harvest its most important resource: the rosewood forest.

"So many Chinese came here. We were praying for a means to stop it," said Braima Djassi, a small, white-haired farmer in the village in central Guinea-Bissau, a tiny country in West Africa.

Ecuador's Waorani indigenous tribe won their first victory Friday against big oil companies in a ruling that blocks the companies' entry onto ancestral Amazonian lands for oil exploration activities.

After two weeks of deliberations, a criminal court in Puyo, central Ecuador, accepted a Waorani bid for court protection in Pastaza province to stop an oil bidding process after the government moved to open up around 180,000 hectares for exploration.