1. Introduction: Saying Yes to Life

Yes to Life, No to Mining (YLNM) is a global solidarity network of and for Indigenous Peoples, impacted communities, local organisations, and networks who are standing up for their right to say No to Mining and to advance life sustaining and post-extractive futures.

In one of our earlier position papers, we laid out the reasons why we say “No to Mining.” These include the widespread and often unregulated destructive impacts of mining on environments and communities; and the pressures from companies and governments upon communities to accept projects often in the absence of people’s rights to free, prior and informed consent. 

All communities have the right to self-determination of livelihoods and futures, and to defend their territories, livelihoods and the wellbeing of the people and the earth. All communities have the right to say no to mining. 

At the same time, across the world, communities resisting mining are not only saying no to destruction, but yes to life. This paper is an articulation of how communities protect their territories and build lives of connection and thriving – for both present and future generations.

2. Defending Life: The Context of Extractivism 

Extractivism is a term which describes the logic of large-scale resource extraction to serve national and transnational corporate and economic interests, at the expense of local territories and communities. 

“(Extractivism) is a logic of violence that includes abuses to life, health, land, food, and water; displacement of people; violations of Indigenous Peoples rights; gender-based violence and discrimination against women; criminalisation of workers and human rights and environmental defenders; and the use of military and security forces to protect natural resources and corporate interests.” Nat Lowrey and Anisa Rogers writing for Chain Reaction (Friends of the Earth Australia), 2021.

Dron Alliansi Sulawesi – Toxic Tour 2023. Credit: Alliansi Sulawesi

Mining is one of the world’s most destructive forms of extractivism because of its scale and the wide range of impacts caused by its processes, not to mention the ever-increasing expansions for critical minerals under the banners of green energy transition, energy security, the “digital transformation” and defence. 

Expansions in the name of the “green transition” are not driven by care for people and environment, but by market factors – the economic values of key minerals and the geopolitical competition to control supply chains. The underlying logics of most “sustainable” or “green” mining enterprises are extractivism, capitalism, colonialism and imperialism. Saying yes to life means breaking free from these long-binding blights on our world and not falling for their new guises.

Another underpinning and prevailing myth is that of  “development as progress”. This has governed the agendas of the Global North over the Global South for decades. It is tied to the categorization of countries into developed and developing, the imperative of economic growth, and the false idea that transnational investment in resource extraction is the solution for poverty – an idea that not even its authors truly believe. 

It is time to take back the narrative. We assert that people and communities affected by mining and extractivism should have the right to define their own well-being, livelihoods and development pathways.  

The many justifications invented for mining expansions are creating a global profusion of “sacrifice zones”. These are geographical areas where the rights and health of people, lands, water and biodiversity are prioritised below capitalist interests. All over the world, mining frontiers are hotspots for human rights abuses, land grabbing and violence. 

Meanwhile these are often the very same areas where people are practicing sustainable and life-giving alternatives to extractivism, and are stewarding and safeguarding some of the most important ecosystems on the planet. 

In our previously published paper, “Towards Just Transitions for People and Planet”, we articulate the following:  “A truly just transition must be popular, inclusive, and grounded in the Right to Say No, and a right to choose non-extractive ways of life … This includes the amplification of alternatives to mining and extractivism, and empowering new paradigms of global justice that restore balance between peoples and the Earth.” In other words – a just transition is about defending life. 

3. What does “Yes to Life” Mean?

In a world where all futures are at stake, and where we cannot rely on top-down, capitalist and market-driven solutions to our intersected crises, it is essential to bring forth stories from the grassroots and extractive frontlines which help us to collectively imagine post-extractive futures. 

These are our “Yes to Life” stories: examples of surviving, thriving, growing and celebrating which demonstrate pathways and possibilities for pursuing a life-sustaining future at local and global levels.

Yes to life means centering land, water, forests and oceans as living systems with their own intrinsic rights to exist, persist and thrive, as well as to be healthy habitats for all living beings, including people who call these places home and depend on them for survival. 

Yes to Life means understanding communities as being Stewards of Life. It recognises the authority of Indigenous and community governance, and centres life-ways which are based on reciprocal relationships with nature.

Yes to Life means nurturing and supporting systems of Interdependence and Care, centred on the wellbeing of people and ecosystems and on our collective futures – human and other-than-human.

Yes to Life means protecting old ways and innovating new ways of living, which are regenerative and sustainable for generations into the future. It means imagining and bringing about a post-extractive future in which “many worlds fit” – a pluriverse, rather than a hegemony. 

“To say yes to life …

To create in order to reconnect” is, at its core, a collective affirmation:

Yes to autonomy.

Yes to caring for territory.

Yes to creativity as a form of resistance.

Because to create is also a way to resist.”

Claudia Alavez, coordinator of UNIR – Haiti

4. Principles for Saying Yes to Life

4.1 Territorial sovereignty and Indigenous self-determination

Globally, mining expansions disproportionately impact on Indigenous lands. In 2020, according to a report by the World Resources Institute, industrial and illegal mining together affected 450,000 hectares (over 20%) of Indigenous lands in the Amazon region. In Australia, a 2024 study found that 57.8% of critical mineral projects lay within formally recognised Indigenous lands. This went up to 79.2% when including land subject to undetermined native title claims. 

Indigenous stewardship is recognised to be one of the most important ways of preserving critical ecosystems and mitigating global warming. This is because the lands of Indigenous peoples largely contain critical ecosystems and carbon sinks; because many Indigenous traditional practices offer effective climate solutions, such as sustainable agriculture and water management systems; and because Indigenous peoples are custodians of unique knowledge and worldviews that emphasise deep kinship between humans and nature. 

Therefore, Indigenous self-determination over their lands and the extractive activities that affect them are fundamental to the principles and practice of Yes to Life.

4.2 The Right to Say No

The “Right to say No” is an essential balance of “Yes to Life” – one cannot exist without the other. In order to thrive, communities must be able to self-determine and set their own boundaries with regards to extractive projects that affect them. 

When unable to do so, communities are locked into uneven power dynamics with interests whose primary goal is to pursue projects in order to maximize investment returns for shareholders. This power dynamic makes the pursuit of life-sustaining economies and activities challenging, and sometimes even impossible – because when local energies and resources get sucked into survival efforts (firefighting), they are made less available for life-sustaining pursuits (growing green shoots). 

On the other hand, where possible, engagement in local actions that are positive and oriented towards thriving is one of the most important strategies used by communities to assert their sovereignty and to reject projects and influences that are not in their best interests.

4.3 The Rights of Nature and Earth Jurisprudence

Rights of Nature and Earth Jurisprudence movements are founded upon the recognition (understood by many Indigenous cultures) that Nature is a living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with inherent rights. 

As a legal tool for defending not only ecosystems but the communities which depend on them, Rights of Nature gained global attention in 2008 when Ecuador defined nature in its constitution as a living being (Pacha Mama) with rights to “exist, persist and thrive”. These revolutionary laws have become increasingly useful in supporting Ecuador’s grassroots struggles against state-backed oil and mining exploitation. The Los Cedros case, where the inherent rights of a cloud forest were successfully defended against a transnational mining company, is an emblematic example of how local and international networks can work together to bring forth the permanent protection of a biosphere.

Rights of Nature and Earth Jurisprudence movements and initiatives now spread around the world. They champion visions and strategies which challenge the colonial extractive power hegemony in both the Global South and North. The Rights of Nature has recently been recognised as an essential element of a “Just Transition” to a life-sustaining future – see our position paper for a slightly deeper dive on this topic. This is a powerful assertion of the principle of “Yes to Life” – not just for humans, but all species who share planet Earth with us.

The extraordinary biodiversity of Los Cedros Reserve in Ecuador, protected in 2021 by constitutional laws for Rights of Nature. Photo Credit: Liz Downes

4.4 Protection and regeneration of ecosystems

Mining expansions pose an ever greater threat to the world’s most vulnerable and biodiverse ecosystems. A 2026 analysis has revealed that more than 3,267 active mining operations are located within biodiversity hotspots – these operations account for almost 5% of the global mining industry’s total footprint. 

Mining is a key cause of deforestation – a 2024 study indicated that mining resulted in 1.4 million hectares of tree cover loss between 2001 and 2020. This only included extraction operations for five minerals (bauxite, iron ore, copper, gold and silver) and did not include the flow-on deforestation from pollution and infrastructure. Of this forest loss, 260,000 hectares were in Indigenous lands and areas around communities. 

More recently, the devastating impacts of massive industrial and illegal mining expansions can be seen across primary tropical rainforests and Indigenous lands in the Amazon, African, Asia and Pacific regions. Mining also impacts on ocean ecosystems: by pollution from land-based mines, dumping of toxic wastes, and the expansion of experimental explorations for metals in the deep sea. The protection and regeneration of ecosystems are vital to protecting what is left and rebuilding what is lost for a world where ecosystems and communities can thrive.

4.5 Community wellbeing over profit

Industries pushing “socially responsible mining” can never realistically prioritise community wellbeing over, or indeed as well as, investment. Even where companies claim they respect the needs of communities they operate in, there is a dynamic of corporate greed which is inherent to the practice of business under the capitalist model. The bottom line is always profit. 

For this reason, voluntary “environmental, social and governance” standards and schemes claiming to improve the due diligence of mining companies (such as certification schemes) fail by default to protect communities from harm. For communities to be able to ensure their own life-sustaining futures, their rights and wellbeing must be centred first and foremost over those of corporations. This means autonomy, sovereignty, the right to say no, and democratic decision-making power over any project that affects them. 

4.6 Solidarity and collective responsibility

It is difficult for projects building towards life-sustaining futures to be scaled up from the grassroots without global support and networks. Communities fighting mining are often living and working under direct threats of persecution, as well as struggling with food insecurity, threats to livelihoods, destruction of their lands and possibly poverty and other social injustices. 

To make our struggles visible is a call to action: it is to say that extractive frontlines cannot sustain themselves alone. People cannot survive and thrive and defend life against threats when they are isolated. We have a collective responsibility to support and advocate for those who are living under systems of oppression.

4.7 Intergenerational justice

The adverse impacts of extractivism are often intergenerational. In the case of mining projects, operations may last decades – which means decades of tailings accumulation, toxic runoff, land degradation, and soil, water and air contamination. Impacts may continue for decades, centuries or millennia after a mine is closed; and sometimes the damage is irreversible – as in the case of species extinctions, destruction of ecosystems, or the permanent displacement of communities.

So in terms of intergenerational justice, “Yes to Life” means creating and defending the conditions that make it possible for life to continue into the future. It means protecting lands, water, biospheres, and the communities which depend on them for the sake of all generations.

5. Pathways: How Communities Say Yes to Life 

We stand in solidarity with local communities resisting extractivism and uphold their right to decide in respect of all decisions that affect their lands, waters, and futures. This includes autonomy, self-determination, and territorial sovereignty of Indigenous peoples everywhere, and affirm the right of all communities to protect and care for their territories according to their own values and knowledge systems. And we stand for the rights of communities to forge alternatives to the industrial extractive model which help them not just survive, but thrive on their own terms. 

This section, the core of our paper, presents a tapestry of alternatives: ways in which communities are saying yes to life and sowing and tending the seeds of a future without mining in their lands.

5.1 Defending Territories and the Right to Say No

Private property sign expressing no to mining interests, Intag, Ecuador. Photo Credit: Liz Downes

Almost all struggles against extractivism start, and are sustained, at the local level. Mapping tools like the Environmental Justice Atlas paint a sobering picture of the sheer number of communities fighting for their lands across the globe, particularly in the Global South. At time of writing the EJ Atlas contains 4524 cases centred around mining, water justice, land clearance and waste disposal issues; and of course, many cases are not mapped. 

As the intensification of mining puts pressure on ever more local frontiers, communities are defending their Right to Say No in every possible way available to them – through organising, assemblies, solidarity networks, legal struggles, direct action, and much more. These struggles often involve long and gruelling campaigns which, sadly, are ultimately unsuccessful in stopping projects or preventing damage. 

However, whatever the outcome, the act of protecting life does not lose its value. And there are cases around the world where resistance has succeeded in defending life. It is vitally important to make these wins visible and celebrate them in the spirit of “Yes to Life.” 

Sulawesi, Indonesia, hosts the world’s largest nickel mining industry. Enormous, open-pit Chinese, Brazilian and Australian-owned mines funnel ore into a “hellscape” expanse of processing plants and smelters – the Morowali Industrial Park – which stretches along the coast of Central Sulawesi. The environmental and social impacts of this industry are nothing short of catastrophic. And recent expansions further threaten the livelihoods of rice and pepper farmers, who provide thousands of jobs in their regions and protect large tracts of biodiverse rainforest.

Some communities have responded by forming female-led resistance collectives – such as the Loeha Raya Women Fighters of Lake Towuti. These women are organising a campaign to protect their air, water and land from a new mining concession owned by Brazilian company, Vale. Despite intimidation and threats from both company and state, they continue to push back against Vale with a strength that defies the scale of what they are up against – a strength rooted in their conviction that no mining “jobs” can replace the loss of their homes. 

Image: Loeha Raya Women Fighters with YLNM and Rainforest Rescue, 2024, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo credit: YLNM

In Colombia in 2017, the citizens of the mountain district of Cajamarca voted with a 98% majority to ban a huge gold mining project owned by South African company AngloGold Ashanti. The popular consultation was led by grassroots youth activists and small-scale farmers. The victory helped inspire a movement of similar democratic consultations across the country, all soundly rejecting planned mining, oil and gas projects.

“By saying ‘no’ to mining, communities are not saying no to development. They’re saying we need to transition to new forms of development that are not based on exploiting non-renewable resources. People in Colombia are calling for a new paradigm and a new development model that includes alternatives that are rooted in and serve the well-being of the planet and the people.”

YLNM coordinator Mariana Gomez, quoted in The Gaia Foundation.

For over 14 years, communities in Cajamarca, in the highlands of Peru, have fought to hold back the Minas Conga gold project – a planned expansion of Newmont’s massive Yanacocha open-pit mine. The Yanacocha mine itself has an appalling record of air, soil and water contamination and water depletion; the Minas Conga project is projected to be three times the size and threatens to dump its waste in the source lands of five major rivers. Despite being met with violent oppression by the state, civil society groups have remained defiant and have fought several legal battles against the company’s attempts to manufacture environmental and social licence. To date, the multi-billion-dollar project remains stalled.    

Large-scale popular resistance can galvanise the voice for “No to mining” and achieve the blocking of projects that would otherwise devastate lands and livelihoods. In Serbia, a national people’s movement has to date prevented Rio Tinto from developing the huge Jadar lithium project in a historic district. In the Solomon Islands in 2020, the remote community of Wagina Island won a seven year legal battle to stop a Chinese-owned bauxite mining project which would have affected the livelihoods of up to 60% of the population. 

5.2 Practising Indigenous Sovereignty 

Indigenous communities, as prior mentioned, suffer the brunt of contemporary mining expansions for so-called critical minerals. “Yes to Life” for most Indigenous communities is deeply grounded in connection to land, sacred sites, and place-based cultural heritage.

In Ontario, Canada, the Eagle’s Nest nickel project – owned by Australian company Wyloo Metals – is a huge mining operation proposed on Treaty 9 territory on what local First Nations call ‘the breathing lands’. The area covers wetland and peatland ecosystems which form one of the world’s most important carbon storage sinks. In 2021 several First Nations declared a moratorium against mining on these territories: 

“This MORATORIUM is urgently required because, as the caretakers of this part of the Earth where the Creator put us, we have a profound and sacred duty to ensure that this part of the Earth is not so wounded from Ring of Fire development that it can longer support our relations and ways of life, or help protect the world from catastrophic climate change; as the James Bay lowlands stand as one of the last and most important bastions of defence against climate collapse.”

At the end of 2025 an access road was  approved to go ahead by the Government of Ontario, which is pushing the project as a multi-billion-dollar investment in renewable energy resources. Despite this setback, First Nations remain firm in defense of their lands, alongside allies such as the Friends of the Attawapiskat River, the Land Defense Alliance, and the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network. 

In the Philippines, indigenous communities have asserted their rights to defend territories against mining for decades – often while facing serious persecution from the government, corporations and private interests. In the province of Palawan, nickel mining expansions are threatening a once-pristine UNESCO biosphere reserve and the lands of the Pala’wan, Tagbanuwa and Batak peoples. The Coalition Against Land Grabbing (CALG), a coalition of indigenous campaigners, are urging a moratorium on mining based on damage already done to ecologically sensitive areas and agricultural lands, and on the “illegitimacy” of the Free Prior and Informed Consent process employed by the mining company.

On 18th February 2023, to save Brooke’s Point biocultural diversity paradise from ruthless incursion of mining development in the island of Palawan (Philippines) indigenous peoples and local residents put up barricades. People perceive these as one of their last remedies to halt ongoing destruction. Photo credit: Coalition Against Land Grabbing CALG

Indigenous peoples often have to resort to protracted legal battles to defend sacred sites and territories. Occasionally there are wins or milestones worth celebrating – with the caveat that there is often a long fight to continue. In May 2025, nine tribes of the Lakota Sioux of Black Hills, South Dakota, won a lawsuit which cancelled the permit of a graphite drilling project threatening their sacred grounds of Pe’Sla. 

During the same week, Yindjibarndi traditional owners were awarded $150 million in the latest iteration of their twenty-year legal fight against an iron ore mine owned by Australia’s second richest person, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. For the Yindjibarndi, this is nowhere near a “win”, or the end of their struggle: the amount represents a fraction of the $1.8 billion they asked for, and more importantly will never make up for the destruction of up to 250 cultural sites by mining operations. Nevertheless, the result highlights the urgent need for accountability for mining companies who operate with near impunity when it comes to Native Title laws in Australia.

In Sweden, Saami reindeer herders filed a petition to the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, complaining that three metals mining concessions had been granted on their land, in violation of their Free, Prior and Informed Consent and of national laws protecting their territory and traditional way of life. After five years of legal process, in 2025 the UN finally ruled in favour of the Saami. 

5.3 Protecting and Regenerating Ecosystems 

Around the world mining-impacted communities are engaged in ecosystem protection and regeneration activities, in order to restore damaged environments, defend territories, and develop and protect local livelihoods as a preventative measure against mining incursions. 

In the Finnish Boreal, the small community of Selkie has not only stopped decades of destructive peat mining through a spirited campaign, but has undertaken to restore the fragile river catchments and wetlands which had been polluted by the mine. Through a restoration programme bringing together traditional knowledge and science, this wetland has enjoyed a dramatic return to health, with many key species of birds and fish reviving their populations. Read their incredible story, Landscapes of Renewal, here.

In Myanmar, Indigenous Karen people created the Salween Peace Park – an initiative to protect their land, livelihoods and extraordinary biodiversity, and to assert their right to self-determination. During over 70 years of armed conflict, hundreds of thousands of Karen people have experienced genocide, torture, sexual violence, and displacement at the hands of the state armed forces. Karen lands are threatened by logging, private agribusiness, infrastructure projects and gold mining. Karen communities have resisted these threats  through public celebration of their culture, identity and nature stewardship. And so the Salween Peace Park came into being. 

“The Salween Peace Park empowers our indigenous Karen communities to guide local development and conservation in line with traditional knowledge and cultural practices. By basing local governance in the hands of the community, the Salween Peace Park enables the conservation of nature and Karen culture, and the pursuit of a peaceful and stable life for local communities, something that is denied to them by Myanmar government laws and military ambitions.” 

These hopes and dreams have been challenged by ever-increasing militarisation – in 2021 after the coup, and again in 2023, state military-led airstrikes bombarded villages. These assaults have forced hundreds of people to flee and live deeper in the forest, terrified of the next attack. Despite this, conservation and territorial defence activities continue. In 2024, Karen people embarked on a new campaign of self-determination – to register their own land titles without government approval. This process has involved an intensive mapping and documenting of ancestral lands, registering the data in a database, and handing out titles to locals. 

5.4 Defending Food Sovereignty and Land-Based Livelihoods

The term ‘food sovereignty’ was first coined in 1996 by the global peasant movement, La Vía Campesina. This is the right of communities to define their own food and agriculture systems, and to produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically sustainable methods. 

Food sovereignty is not just food security – it is a much broader political concept which asserts food as a human right rather than a commodity. It centres justice and solidarity over profit. It puts the needs and aspirations of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies, rather than market demands. It defends the interests and inclusion of future generations. It offers strategies to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users. Defending food sovereignty is a powerful way for communities to say “no to mining” and “yes to life”. 

Covas do Barroso is a mountainous rural region in Portugal famous for its traditional agro-silvo-pastoral food production, which has been recognised as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Local communities have very strong ties to the land, which is administered as a system of communal lands covering approximately 2000 hectares, called baldios. 

Unfortunately the region also contains lithium resources. In 2023, after years of aggressive encroachments to conduct explorations, UK-based company Savannah Resources was given the green light by the Portuguese government to develop its mining project. Most of the mining area covers the baldios. Local communities have reacted by conducting vigils, blockades, filing lawsuits, hosting international protest camps, creating street theatre, among other tactics. They argue that economic value cannot be assigned to communal lands; and furthermore, the mountains themselves are alive and cannot be quantified:

“When we allow ourselves to be truly present in the mountains, with all our senses immersed in it, listening to its sounds and its silences, seeing its colours, its shapes, its species; when we allow ourselves to feel its soil; when we quench our thirst in its waters or eat its fruits; when we feel the heat of its wood or the breeze of its breath on our skin; when it makes us feel fear or joy; we realise once again that the mountain is alive, that the mountain is part of us and we are part of the mountain.”

From New Tales of the Barroso Mountains, published by YLNM.

In Cajamarca, Colombia, food sovereignty is at the core of “Yes to Life” initiatives and non-extractive livelihoods being developed since civil society resistance stopped AngloGold Ashanti’s huge proposed gold mining operation in 2017. Communities and their local environmental youth collective, COSAJUCA, have built partnerships with local agronomists to teach people pathways towards developing their own sustainable businesses. Cooperative agribusiness has flourished. But the most inspiring story of all is that of the arracacha – a native Andean parsnip of which the Cajamarca region is the world’s biggest producer.  

In 2017, soon after the victory against the mining project, a local arracacha producing association, APROSAN, formed a partnership with the socially and environmentally conscious Colombian restaurant chain, Crepes&Waffles. The partnership assured a stable, generous market price for APROSAN’s products and supported the association to develop less chemical-intensive and more ecologically friendly farming systems. Crepes&Waffles has since expanded its buying of products from Cajamarca to some fruits and raw sugar. APROSAN has also moved into upscaling the processing of arracacha with new cooperatives and selling the raw vegetable as well as products like arracacha chips all over the country, transforming the vegetable from a “peasant food” to the real gold of Cajamarca.

Arracacha: The “real gold” of Cajamarca, Colombia. Photo: Federico Pardo for We Feed The World, The Gaia Foundation, 2019.

Farming communities in northwestern Haiti have collectivised to generate creative solutions to poverty, environmental degradation, and other pressures brought on partly by threats of gold mining in the northern territories of the country. While Haiti currently does not have a visible government and there is no mining legislation, transnational companies are expressing interest, and people are speculating that processes are occurring behind closed doors to allow projects to progress with no consultation. They are preparing.  

A grassroots collective, UNIR, runs workshops and educates affected rural communities in a participatory way, using games, flash cards and trivia to make people aware of the mining being proposed. Their campaign, “Create to Reconnect” has four highly successful initiatives in environmental education and action: Reducing plastic use and designing eco-friendly sanitary towels for women (led by a young woman from the north of the country); installing composters in northern Haiti to revive the use of natural fertilizers in planting; home gardens, integrating more than 15 crops in a single space; and school programs making “eco-bricks”.

“It is a very significant process for us, because we are supporting four community initiatives which promote something special: to create, imagine and inhabit our territory from our own solutions which come from our daily life and the real needs of our communities.”

Claudia Alavez, coordinator of UNIR and member of Yes to Life No to Mining

Ecological restoration and the strengthening of food sovereignty through collective reforestation and food production initiatives in southeast and north Haiti. Photo credit: UNIR Haiti, 2026

5.5  Water sovereignty

Water is essential for all life. But humans and many other species can only survive on fresh water, which makes up less than 2% of the water on earth. Of this, only 0.5% is immediately available to us, the rest being locked up in ice caps, groundwater systems and soil. Yet we are witnessing uncontrolled expansions of an industry which uses vast amounts – not just at the extraction stage, but to an even greater extent in ore processing and refining.

Some of the world’s biggest mining operations are located in arid lands where water is either scarce or exists in finite quantities, such as BHP’s operations in the Atacama desert of Chile, and Glencore’s huge nickel plant near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Mining also contaminates water supplies depended on by people and ecosystems. Hence, struggles against mining are often themed around water, its defence and its protection.

Through the Andes region, spanning Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, communities have used campaign slogans like “Water is Life” and “Water is worth more than lithium, gold, copper” to push back against mining expansions. In the highlands of Ecuador, the resistance against mining expansions have been largely built around the defense and sacredness of water. In 2018, a national “March for Water” involved hundreds of Indigenous people marching 600 kilometres from the country’s south to the capital, Quito, carrying swathes of blue material representing their sacred rivers.

“Water is Life” National March, Ecuador, 2018. Photo provided by Carlos Zorrilla

The arid region of Puna de Atacama spans parts of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. It is erroneously known as the ‘Lithium Triangle’ because of its perceived richness in resources for the “green energy transition”. In reality it is a sacrifice zone where mining expansions for lithium brine in high-altitude salt lakes (salares) are having dire impacts on water, fragile ecosystems, and Indigenous livelihoods. Communities are fiercely resisting, because any more damage to water systems will mean death for their cultures and the entire landscape.

“Friends and farmers, with whom I shared a transcendental part of my life, generously explained to me how the collective use of water makes the existence of farming lands, forests, and wetlands possible amid the desert. The presence of farmers and shepherds, I understood, not only depends on these hydro-agro-ecosystems but also produces the conditions for their very existence … Mining stories are, when all is said and done, water stories.”  Ramón Balcázar, OPSAL (Plurinational Observatory for Andean Salares)

5.5 Building Community, Solidarity Economies and Intergenerational Justice

Local communities are strengthened in their resistance against extractivism when they share identities grounded in place. In Covas do Barroso, Portugal, communities are knitted together by their connection to the baldios – their traditional system of land stewardship. In Ireland, people have been resisting gold mining threats by Canadian company, Dalradian Resources, to the ecologically significant Sperrin Mountains for over ten years – as well as other mining concessions covering 25% of the land mass of Northern Ireland and 27% of the Republic of Ireland. Local groups are empowered and united by the spirit of duchás – the Irish concept for belonging or connection to land which is communal, ecological, and points to an identity shaped by place.

2024: Knitting community. During the camps in Covas do Barroso, a range of activities were organised, such as this crochet workshop led by one of the local residents. Photo: Guadalupe Rodríguez/ Salva la Selva

5.6 Protecting Defenders and Strengthening Collective Resistance 

Environmental defenders around the world get disproportionately targeted and persecuted by governments and corporations protective of their investments. According to Global Witness (2024) most assassinations each year are related to mining. Some statistics from recent years are covered in our paper “Why we say No to Mining.”

From 2012, the Philippines has been ranked as the deadliest country in Asia for people protecting land and the environment. More than 120 environmental campaigners have been murdered over the past 15 years, according to the grassroots organisation Coalition Against Land Grabbing (CALG) – with mining linked to a third of all killings. Through the years of persecution has emerged a tapestry of support for environmental defenders comprising grassroots organisations, Indigenous and rural communities. In the Asia Pacific region, these include Kalikasan, a network of environmental organisations advocating for persecuted defenders; and APNED (Asia Pacific Network for Environmental Defenders). 

In Ecuador, the numbers of environmental defenders being persecuted by corporations and government has increased sharply since 2016, when the country changed its mining investment laws and invited dozens of transnational companies to snap up mining leases across two million hectares of land – mainly Indigenous territories, biodiversity hotspots, and farmlands. As explorations and projects got underway with next to no environmental oversight and zero consultation, new local resistance groups sprang up everywhere. In 2021 several of these groups formed the National Anti-Mining Front, which continues to support a broad swathe of struggles, often with limited resources at their disposal. 

The Intag region of the northwest of Ecuador has a decades-long history of struggle against mining – the longest continuous resistance in Latin America. As a result the region has developed a tightly-linked network of civil society groups, which have collaborated in recent years to declare Intag a “Mining Free Zone”. Citizens have defended their lands in a wide variety of ways – from setting up chain blockades across roads to stop mining companies entering, to community assemblies, to conservation, reforestation and environmental education projects, to legal interventions against criminalisation of defenders, to court battles, and even a national referendum. Emblematic outcomes such as the court wins for the rights of nature in Los Cedros and Llurimagua would not have been successful without these strong civil society alliances. 

5.7 Collective decision-making, governances and convergences 

Strong local collective decision-making and community governance systems are critical in building up the power of civil society resistance and expanding solidarity networks.

The Karen people in Myanmar have constructed a regional coordination of governance to present a strong, united front in defense of their lands. This is grounded in local, grassroots governance bodies and a charter of principles; these local voices are then added together and channelled into a regional General Assembly. In this way, community voices are strengthened in relation to those of neighbouring stakeholders. Members of the General Assembly, in turn, work consistently with representatives of each community. 

“The Salween Peace Park empowers our indigenous Karen communities to guide local development and conservation in line with traditional knowledge and cultural practices. By basing local governance in the hands of the community, the Salween Peace Park enables the conservation of nature and Karen culture, and the pursuit of a peaceful and stable life for local communities, something that is denied to them by Myanmar government laws and military ambitions.”

Popular referendums have in many areas proved to be a powerful and decisive way to galvanise community resistance. In northwestern Ecuador, a campaign called “Quito Sin Minería” brought together rural communities in a campaign calling for a national referendum on mining in the mega-biodiverse Chocó Andino region. In 2023 over 60% of Ecuadorians voted to ban mining in that area. Just a couple of years earlier, the city of Cuenca similarly achieved a referendum at the provincial level, in which over 80% of voters said “no” to mining in the region’s highland watersheds. This win continues to bolster the resistance movements of Cuenca today, even in the face of increasing pressures from the state and corporations to advance grand-scale mining. 

Regional and global networks and convergences are a key way to articulate and solidify collective action, reflection and strategy. The Foro Social Panamazónico (FOSPA) is a biannual regional platform bringing together Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, social movements, and civil society from across the Amazon basin. Similarly, in the Asia-Pacific region, the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) provides a collective space for civil society organisations to tackle shared social and environmental concerns and elevate the voices of frontlines. 

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) is a rapidly growing network now with members in 40 countries. GARN’s organisational structure is grounded in and centres the authority of Indigenous peoples and stands for transforming systems in vision of a regenerative society for all beings on planet Earth. La Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants defending and building food sovereignty across the Global South and North. The Thematic Social Forum on Mining and Extractivism is a solidarity network of people from mining-affected communities which has so far held three global assemblies – Johannesburg (2018), Indonesia (2023) and Brazil (2025). While the Global Tapestry of Alternatives weaves anti-capitalist, post-capitalist, localised democracy groups committed to transformative alternatives.

Bringing people face to face in international convergences around official events like the United Nations COP climate summits has helped to forge cross-sectoral alliances of civil society groups working in different thematic areas of the “just transition.” In November 2025 tens of thousands, including YLNM, converged around the COP30 in Belém, Brazil, in a huge show of unity for a liveable future:

“Our process brought together more than 70,000 people who make up local, national, and international movements of indigenous and traditional peoples, peasants, Indigenous Peoples, quilombolas, fisherfolk, traditional peoples who live from sustainable forest extraction, shellfish gatherers, urban workers, trade unionists, homeless people, babassu coconut breakers, terreiro peoples, women, the LGBTQIAPN+ community, young people, Afro-descendants, the elderly, and peoples from the forest, the countryside, the peripheries, the seas, rivers, lakes, and mangroves.”

People’s Summit March in Belém do Pará, Brazil, November 2025. Photo: Liz Downes

5.8  Celebration of Life

Yes to Life involves the celebration of life in all its diversity – creating movements and resistance that cannot be stamped out. 

The struggle in Tolima, Colombia against mining giant Anglogold Ashanti has gradually evolved, and since 2011 has brought together diverse parts of civil society to flourish into an annual celebration: a protest of art, music and political-environmental education in the city of Ibagué. The colourful Marcha-Carnaval, held on World Environment Day, draws thousands of people together in defense of Life, Water and Land and in opposition to state extractive policies in the name of the “green energy transition”. With national and even international participation, this event makes resistance against mining both attractive and joyful – a flame that cannot be easily put out. 

In Toronto, Canada, a bi-annual event called the River Run is held by the Grassy Narrows First Nation and allies in protest against the diverse extractive industries which impact their lands. The Grassy Narrows community has suffered many traumas including forced displacement, destruction of sacred sites through hydro damming, mercury contamination, logging, and mining expansions. They have also held a long-running blockade against extraction that functions as a language school and cultural center. Mercury poisoning in particular has a multi-generational impact on health within the community. Hence this family-friendly event is both about political action and celebrating survival. 

In Western Australia, a powerful initiative called “Reclaim the Void” was launched in 2022 by elders of Ngalia communities near Leonora – a town in the infamous “Goldfields” region where mining has occurred for over 150 years and which currently hosts over 60 operating open pit mines, some among the largest in the world. The region is riddled with the scars of old mines. The project brought people together in crafting “camps” in town and on Country (Ngurra) to weave huge brightly coloured rugs from discarded fabrics which were then exhibited in significant cultural and meeting places as a celebration of survival and reconnection to Ngurra and Tjukurrpa (law). 

 6. Transforming the Global System

Thematic Social Forum convergence in Indonesia, 2023. Photo: Guadalupe Rodriguez

Making local alternatives possible requires global structural change. As we have said in another position paper on the Just(ice) Transition, “we can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis — but we can build post-extractive futures that sustain life with dignity for all, and the inherent rights of Nature to exist, thrive and regenerate everywhere.” 

This means changing the entire way we conceptualise our political and economic systems at a global level, as well as supporting democratically owned energy transition initiatives at the grassroots level. At the very least we must decentralise the production of renewable energy, demand the reduction of consumption by the world’s richest and most industrialised countries, and centre the imperative to stop creating sacrifice zones in the name of climate action, energy security, national security or AI. 

6.1 Degrowth: Reducing Demand for Extraction

The demand for extraction is created by production for the sake of profit, not need, and for the manufactured consumption patterns of the Global North and its industrial imperialism. This occurs at a relentless cost to the Global South and the marginalised communities within richer countries. 

Degrowth is an increasingly accepted umbrella term for one movement that posits scalable alternatives to the hegemonic global economic system. In a previous position paper we state: “the concept of degrowth is based on an internationalist justice-based perspective, and sheds special light on the necessity for the world’s most affluent regions and classes to reduce their (over)consumption and to tackle the unequal ecological exchange (extraction) of materials and labour from the poorer regions of the world.” 

Degrowth is rooted in anarchism. While propagated to some extent in academia, the concept is rarely mentioned in top-down, hierarchical climate mitigation discourse. It has largely (and rightly) fallen on grassroots groups to do the cutting-edge work of developing degrowth models and practices which have real social benefits.

Often these same groups are also doing justice work supporting the frontlines of extractive sacrifice zones. For example, the Australian Degrowth Network – which has emerged over the past few years in one of the world’s biggest mining jurisdictions – works in alliance with First Nations and anti-extractive networks while supporting community-building and local economic initiatives.

6.2 Just(ice) Energy Transitions 

What does a Just Transition mean to us? As we expressed in our previous paper on this topic: 

“A Just Transition means a transition shaped by peoples and communities, not imposed on them. It must centre the right to say no to destructive projects and the right to self-determination over territories, livelihoods, and ways of life. A just transition must also honour the Rights of Nature, recognising that ecosystems are not resource banks for human use, but living relatives whose well-being determines our own.” 

Farming communities in the “food basket” of southeastern Nigeria have for decades been fighting unscrupulous, mostly state-owned coal mining companies. In 2022, a prolonged action by women of the community of Owukpa resulted in the closing down of the coal mine operating right on their back door. However, by this time the mine and other regional operations had caused years of accumulated damage, particularly air and water pollution, which continues to impact on people’s health. 

Despite this, and despite a serious regional conflict which has made the area unsafe to live in for many and caused significant displacement, farming people are resilient and determined to resurrect their livelihoods. In January 2025, YLNM, in partnership with the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, distributed multifunctional solar power systems to 40 women in Owukpa. The beneficiaries noted that these systems would help improve their homes and businesses.

“We advocate for an energy transition that is both ecologically and socially just. Harnessing Nigeria’s vast solar and wind potential would provide clean, renewable alternatives to coal, offering communities like Owukpa a way forward without the environmental and health hazards associated with coal mining.” 

6.3 Corporate Accountability

We live in an age of economic imperialism and global corporate hegemony. Both must be dismantled in order for a life-sustaining future to be possible. Most attempts at regulation of transnational corporations come from within the power structures that maintain corporate hegemony (eg. so-called certification schemes). However, from the grassroots it is possible to address the impunity of companies and call out, or even directly disrupt, supply chains that cause harm. 

Since genocides such as that in Gaza and Congo and the increasing geopolitical and military tensions around the world, organisations such as YLNM have worked hard to draw attention to the money flows and mines-to-weapons pipelines which make these wars and conflicts so lucrative, as well as the impacts of mining expansions at all stages of the supply chain. Once these patterns are identified, strategic activism can bring accountability to the supply chain. This may include boycotts and sanctions, targeted protests and actions, market and shareholder actions, and legal cases. 

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is a highly problematic international system of secretive tribunals that allows corporations to sue states outside of domestic and international law. The grassroots is gaining traction in challenging this system. In April 2026, over 340 civil society organizations called for a “global coalition to break free from ISDS” ahead of the Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. 

The international food sovereignty network La Via Campesina says: “People’s sovereignty, dignity, and justice cannot coexist with corporate impunity. The challenge before us is not just to document violations but also to interrupt the systems that make them profitable. To do that, we must reclaim the language of law, the tools of economics, and the principles of international solidarity—not as abstractions, but as weapons in the struggle for liberation.”

7. The Importance of Global Solidarity

Local mining and extractive frontlines often find themselves facing a perfect storm of challenges – corporate bullying and divide/conquer tactics, greenwashing and corruption, aggressive state-driven economic campaigns, environmental and social impacts, and – last but not least – violence and militarisation, which may be associated with any of these other factors.  

Communities struggling against violent conflict often find themselves isolated from outside resources and wider advocacy and support networks. This may be because areas are considered too volatile or dangerous; because state or corporate powers actively try to prevent anyone supporting frontlines; or because whole regions are impacted by violence and political conflict, causing overwhelm among human rights and environmental defence networks. Grassroots networks may be too stretched or under too much threat of persecution themselves to be able to support all the frontlines in crisis. 

Bigger NGOs often have comparatively more resources, but their hierarchical structures, competitive business models, funding conditions and self-censorship often create restrictions on the kinds of struggles they can or are willing to support. Without strong local connections, international NGO resources risk being detached from reality, or channelled simply to the most “charismatic” struggles which can attract media and donors – leaving less visible communities struggling on their own. 

For these reasons, when frontline communities are in crisis, it is the grassroots civil society organisations with strong global partnerships who are often best placed to connect struggles, amplify voices and enact timely responses. Global solidarity networks play a key role in making struggles visible, channeling resources to the frontlines that need them the most, supporting life-sustaining local economies, and celebrating alternatives to extractivism. 

Global networks are also well placed to amplify local issues of human rights abuses and environmental impacts, and connect these issues to activist groups who are working to dismantle the root problems and create alternatives at the systemic level. This means tying local struggles to the wider picture of growth-based economies, the imperialist ambitions of the Global North, and the global military-industrial complex. Local voices and stories no longer remain contained, isolated or unheard – they help to focus the energies of those with the most resources to act, and to create a world where extractivism, war, violence and militarisation are alien.

This is exactly why YLNM started twelve years ago from solidarity connections between Latin America and Africa. Now, we are a network of communities and organisations that span the globe.

8. Conclusion: A Future Rooted in Life!

As we have seen through this weaving of stories, “Yes to life” means a diverse range of concrete things that communities around the world are demonstrating and implementing in order to ensure a liveable future. 

Yes to life means … 

• Yes to post-extractive, local economies and livelihoods; 

• Yes to grassroots- and Indigenous-led solutions to the climate crisis;
• Yes to a truly just transition for people and planet; 
• Yes to protecting and restoring environments on which livelihoods depend;
• Yes to protecting and restoring biodiversity and waterways for the sake of the rights of all life to exist, persist and thrive;

and

• Yes to empowering economic models and practices based on kinship, collaboration and reciprocity with nature! 

We know that a fully just and sustainable transformation towards a better future cannot emerge from the same extractivist system that caused the collective crisis we’re in. Such a transformation must dismantle corporate power, challenge neocolonial dependencies, and redefine our relationship with nature based on care, solidarity, and ecological balance. 

As YLNM, we stand for and strive towards the nurturing of a global, systemic socio-ecological transformation which is empowered and led by the grassroots. 

We work together across the Global South and North to envision and forge the conditions for a human society that:

• Upholds the right of local communities and Indigenous peoples to say NO to mining and other destructive projects, on the basis of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent;
• Ensures protection for environmental and human rights defenders (EHRDs); 
• Advances post-extractivist and decolonial alternatives which are guided by planetary limits, peoples’ sovereignty and ecological justice;
• Promotes degrowth and reduced production within industries and sectors which are driving our planetary ecological and social crises;
• Promotes limits on over-consumption, particularly in the Global North;
• Dismantles imperialism;

and

• Recognizes and enforces the Rights of Nature and Earth Jurisprudence as foundational models for sustainable and democratic life on Earth.