Environment

Empresa de Energía del Pacífico (EPSA) dumped over 30 years of accumulated sediment from the Anchicayá dam in western Colombia in July 2001, polluting the river, killing fish, destroying farmlands and mangroves. The Afro-Caribbean community downstream sued EPSA and finally won Col$203,962 million (US$52 million) in compensation in February 2024, after 20 years of court battles.  Read More

Glencore was given a permit to build a dredging waste dump site to serve the McArthur River Mine lead and zinc extraction operation in Australia’s Northern Territories. The regional government was sued by members of the Yanyuwa and Yanyuwa-Mara community (who hold Aboriginal title to the site) for failing to consult them. The High Court of Australia ruled in the community’s favor in February 2024. Read More

Engenia, Tavium and Xtendimax — three weedkillers sold by Bayer, Syngenta and BASF respectively — share a common toxic ingredient: dicamba. First approved for use in the U.S. in 2016 on certain crops, the three weedkillers were outlawed in 2020 after they were found to kill other crops. Read More

Climate activist Mike Smith, a Māori elder in Aotearoa (New Zealand), sued seven of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the country to publicly admit that they caused a public nuisance and dramatically scale back emissions to reach net zero by 2050. In February 2024, New Zealand’s Supreme Court ruled that his lawsuit should b Read More

Investigations by Greenpeace and Repórter Brasil found that close to half of mechanized diggers used for illegal gold mining in the Amazon are manufactured by HD Hyundai Construction Equipment. After extensive pressure from Indigenous and environ Read More

Twenty workers were killed in an explosion at Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel smelter in Morowali Industrial Park on Sulawesi island in Indonesia last December, shining a spotlight on the safety problems that are rife in the production of one of the key raw materials for electric car batteries. Read More

After the Netherlands implemented a sweeping ban on the use of coal in electricity generation by 2030, energy giant RWE took the country to arbitration court to demand €1.4 billion in compensation for the impact on its massive new coal plant in Eemshaven. RWE decided to drop the litigation in October 2023 when it was dealt a series of legal defeats in Read More

Blue Carbon, a carbon trading company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has emerged as a major winner at the global climate change conference (COP28) just concluded in Dubai. It has struck deals across Africa that give it the right to control forestry activities by local communities. Read More

Toyota published advertisements for its Hilux SUV vehicles by depicting them driving through rugged nature scenes. Activist groups Adfree Cities and Badvertising lodged a complaint with the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the grounds that the ad encouraged behavior “grossly prejudicial” to environmental protection. The ASA then banned the ad from being used in the UK. Read More

Cobre Panamá, the largest open pit copper mine in Central America, is operated by Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals. After some 250,000 people in Panama took to the streets to protest against corruption and environmental damage at the mine, Panama’s supreme court declared that First Quantum’s contract to operate the mine unconstitutional, causing it to be shut down. Read More