Energy, Mining & Utilities

Tamson Hatuikulipi, a key actor in the scandal over bribes paid by Samherji, Iceland’s largest fishing company, to obtain fishing quotas in Namibia, is appearing before the Windhoek High Court in the hope of getting out of jail. “I disagree that I was part of a corrupt scheme,” Tamson Hatuikulipi told the court last month. “All my books are up to date, and all relevant invoices are traceable.” Read More

New Zealand’s Supreme Court rejected a giant seabed mining proposal in the South Taranaki Bight, proposed by Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), in September 2021, following a seven-year-long legal fight by Māori tribes, fisheries and environmental groups. The South Taranaki Bight is home to a recently discovered pygmy blue whale population, critically endangered Māui dolphins and the world’s smallest penguin, the Kororā. Read More

In November 2021, Freestone Mines, registered in Harare, Zimbabwe, obtained mining rights to quarry for stone at a site on the Dangamvura Mountain, located in the middle of Mutare, a city in eastern Zimbabwe. Read More

Two of the biggest U.S. energy utilities - NextEra and Southern Company – have been using Matrix LLC, a secretive political consulting firm in Montgomery, Alabama, to fight regulators and progressive politicians in states like Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia, according to a slew of leaked internal memos. Read More

The Court of Appeal, the second highest in the UK, has ruled that it will hear a lawsuit, filed on behalf of 200,000 victims, against Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) for the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana city, Minas Gerais state in southeastern Brazil. Read More

In October 2004, an oil leak from a Shell pipeline caused long-lasting damage and contamination in the village of Goi in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In 2008, a group of affected Nigerians filed a lawsuit against Shell and SPDC, its Nigerian subsidiary, in the Netherlands, with the help of Friends of Earth Nigeria and Milieudefensie. In January 2021, the court ruled in their favor. Read More

Tendele Coal opened the Somkhele coal mine in 2007 in the uMkhanyakude district of the South African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal. The mine activities have contributed to water scarcity, water contamination, destruction of the local landscape and noise pollution. In addition the company has failed to properly relocate local people despite promises to do so. Read More

Ever since London-based Brazil Iron acquired mining rights in Chapada Diamantina, Piatã, Bahia, in 2011, two Quilombola communities home to 150 families, have been dealing with explosions, water contamination and damage to their crops. Quilombolas are descendents of escaped enslaved Afro-Brazilians that live in Quilombo settlements. Now the company wants to expand operations from 600,000 tons of ore per year to 10 million tons a year. Read More

Tribal women from Andhra Pradesh, India, are standing up against a mining company, Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Granites, aiming to destroy their only livelihood: cashew trees which they have been cultivating for years. Read More

Over 1,000 scientists from 25 different countries staged protests during the week of April 4-9 following the release of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). The protesters, who call themselves the Scientist Rebellion, sought to "highlight the urgency and injustice of the climate and ecological crisis." Read More