Extractive industry
In Ecuador, communities protecting a ‘terrestrial coral reef’ face a mining giant
INTAG VALLEY, ECUADOR — Hundreds of moths land on a white sheet, lit like a false moon in the still, dark forest. Elegant silver ones, fist-sized moths with spots on their wings, fuzzy little citrine fellows, some exquisitely camouflaged in neutral tones, and some shouting their toxicity in vivid color. For three nights, we lure […]
With fracking promising a quick energy boost, can Colombia say no?
“For the first time ever, there is a government that is against fracking,” says Amarilys Llanos Navarro. An activist and lawyer with the Cesar Without Fracking and Gas Movement, an anti-extractivist movement in Colombia’s northern department of Cesar, is referring to Gustavo Petro, who took office as president in August and has vowed to ban […]
Cambodia’s elites swallow up Phnom Penh’s lakes, leaving the poor marooned
PHNOM PENH — On the edges of Boeung Tamok, Phnom Penh’s largest lake, 25-year-old Kong Khun sheltered from the late June heat in a bamboo hut. Despite clear skies, Khun wasn’t out on the water fishing with his family. There is little point, he said. An almost endless convoy of trucks carrying sand, rocks and […]