Africa: Defending the Environment in the Time of Covid-19 - Increasing Threats, Clampdowns On Freedoms and Tragic Losses

Protecting the environment has become even more dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic. Land and environmental defenders across the globe already face killings, threats, harassment… Read more »

Africa: How to Tackle the Illegal Timber Trade? New Rules On Implementing China's Forest Law Could Hold the Key

As consumer and industry demand increases, China's timber imports have grown rapidly in recent years. The country now relies on imports for over half of its timber. But many of the… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: Global Witness Pledges to Bring Greater Transparency to DRC's Mining Sector

Last week we published an investigation reporting that the controversial mining magnate, Dan Gertler has seemingly used a suspected international money laundering network… Read more »

Africa: A Tale of Two Indabas - Cape Town's Parallel Mining Conferences and 'The New Scramble for Africa'

In Cape Town this week, two very different conferences on the mining sector have been taking place. The annual African Mining Indaba (industry indaba) brings together the global… Read more »

Africa: If the EU Is Committed to Tackling Deforestation, It Should Not Let Finance Off the Hook

The beginning of 2020 hit us all with daunting images of fires destroying vast areas of Australian biodiversity. The loss of precious wildlife and broken ecosystems has shown… Read more »

Africa: New Chinese Rules On Illegal Timber Could Help Safeguard the World's Climate Critical Forests

Whilst many countries around the world have adopted legislation to tackle the trade in illegal timber, China - the world's second largest economy - has been a notable absence. Read more »

Africa: From Forests to Fossil Fuels, We're Following the Money Behind the Climate Crisis

In 2019, people everywhere spoke out on the climate crisis and governments declared climate emergencies. Yet the world's forests burned, people defending forests were attacked and… Read more »

Africa: Why Cutting Off Artisanal Miners Is Not Responsible Sourcing

Artisanal mining gets a lot of bad press. It is often demonised as a sector rife with human rights abuses, child labour and environmental destruction. Companies have sometimes… Read more »

Africa: Global Finance Is Still Destroying the World's Biggest Rainforests

Over the last few days, thousands upon thousands around the world joined the Global Climate Strike, calling for urgent action to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.… Read more »

Africa: Guinea's Bribery Saga Reaches New Peaks

Lurid bribery revelations led the government of Guinea to confiscate world-beating iron ore reserves from junior mining company BSG Resources in 2014. So when bitter rival Rio… Read more »

Guinea: Govt Moves to Strip Billionaire of Iron Ore Concession

A government committee in Guinea today recommended stripping diamond billionaire Beny Steinmetz of one of the world's biggest iron ore concessions on evidence his company bribed… Read more »

Guinea: Global Witness to Resist Attempt to Stifle Public-Interest Reporting

Officials of the companies Beny Steinmetz Group Resources and Onyx Financial Advisers have filed a claim in the UK High Court against Global Witness under the Data Protection Act.… Read more »

Guinea: New Evidence Ties BSGR to Company Behind Guinea Mine Bribery

A director of Beny Steinmetz Group Resources set up a company that signed corrupt deals with the wife of an African president in a multi-billion-dollar mine scandal, Global Witness… Read more »

Guinea: Proof Company Was Lying in Mining Scandal?

Beny Steinmetz Group Resources says there was no corrupt behaviour in its acquisition of licences to one of the world's largest iron ore concessions, in the West African nation of… Read more »

Guinea: Corruption Arrest in U.S. Puts Beny Steinmetz Group Resources in the Frame

The US authorities have arrested a man in Florida in connection with the controversial acquisition of mining rights in Guinea by Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), according to… Read more »

Guinea: Beny Steinmetz Group Resources Must Publicly Address Questions Over Mining Concession

The Financial Times has published serious corruption allegations relating to the confiscation of half of one of the world's biggest iron ore concessions and its granting to a… Read more »