Our collaborator Phil Mattera has recently published a profile of Vale, a Brazilian mining corporation with Canadian ties. From the snapshot:
"Over the past decade, Brazil-based Vale has evolved from a large but little known producer of iron ore to one of the world’s mining leviathans—the only one based in the Global South. The major factor in its growth was the US$19 billion acquisition of Canada’s big nickel producer Inco in 2006. It also made an aborted effort to acquire the Swiss mining giant Xstrata. Originally a government-owned firm called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (literally, “sweet river valley company"), Vale was privatized in 1997. Since then it has been more aggressive in its exploration and its labor policies, coming into conflict with indigenous groups, environmentalists and trade unions both in Brazil and abroad."
With profiles on companies like Vale, we continue to focus on extractive industry corporations and their environmental, labor and human rights records in the Global South.
