Focus on Arts and Ecology

Protests by villagers in the northern Philippines have led the Senate to suspend a permit given to a gold miner owned by a UK company. 

By Chantal Eco, April 24, 2026

For the past seven months, Analiza Balliao, 39, has started the day by preparing her two children for school, then tending to the garden where she and her husband Alfredo grow chillies to sell in the provincial market. Once her morning chores are done, she walks to a makeshift camp to join a human barricade.

The obstacle is set up at the entrance of Bitnong village, in the mountain town of Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, northern Philippines.

When Analiza arrives, more than a dozen residents from surrounding barangays (villages) are already there. The women wash dishes, sort out donated vegetables, set a fire on the stove. The men axe wood. Some people sip coffee. Others huddle around a laptop watching their barricade on the news. They are talking, laughing, trading jokes in the easy rhythm of people who have been spending their mornings together for months. Others keep an eye on the road, checking the IDs of every motorist they do not recognise.

The community set the barricade up as a response to a mining exploration permit they say was granted without their knowledge or consent. The permit went to Woggle Corporation, which is owned by Metals Exploration PLC, a UK-listed company. Woggle planned to expand its existing open-pit mining operation in Runruno, also in Nueva Vizcaya, by exploring more than 3,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land for gold, copper, lead and zinc in neighbouring Dupax del Norte.

A permit kept secret

The application for the permit was filed with the Philippine Mines and Geosciences Bureau in July 2022 and approved in August 2025. Residents of Dupax del Norte claim that in that time, community members in the five affected villages of Bitnong, Inaban, Munguia, Parai and Oyao didn’t even know an application was being processed.

Congressman Timothy Cayton, then Dupax del Norte mayor, said at a 23 February Senate hearing that they had made the application public by posting it on a bulletin board and in newspapers. Lawyer Ryan Roset, of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, argued that this is not the same as a public consultation.

“There was no genuine consultation conducted with the different barangays or local government units,” Florentino Daynos, president of Dupax del Norte Environmental Defenders, told Dialogue Earth.

Dialogue Earth reached out to Woggle Corporation by phone and email, but did not get a response.

Analiza first noticed something was amiss when she returned from selling vegetables one morning to find red markers and wires laid across her garden, some of them going through her crops – without warning, without permission. The wires, she was later told, were used to detect mineral deposits beneath the soil.

“We just saw them there, men trespassing on our property along with their equipment,” she recalled, adding that some areas of her property were cleared for this.

Dialogue Earth contacted Metals Exploration by email regarding their permit application and the ingress of exploration equipment into Dupax del Norte. They did not respond.

On 17 September 2025, the community set up the first barricade in their village to block incoming equipment from the mining company. A more substantial barrier on the road entering the village followed the next month. Analiza and Alfredo did not hesitate to join. They continue to take turns guarding it, bringing their children along when school is out to solve the childcare issue.

The resistance has come at a cost. Their income from the garden was already precarious, rising and falling with market prices. Spending time at the barricade has made it even more so. “The important thing is you have something for each day, something for the children’s needs,” Analiza said.

For a time, the barrier was able to prevent Woggle from bringing their equipment into the area, but on 17 October 2025, they faced the first of several dispersals by the police.

In January 2026, the cost of resistance became even higher for Analiza, when she was arrested along with six others by police enforcing a local court order to dismantle the barricade and allow mining exploration equipment to enter.

The day after her arrest, her 10-year-old daughter was rushed to hospital by her father after fainting. Analiza pleaded with the police and was eventually allowed to visit, but officers did not leave her side. She sat with her child under guard, not knowing whether she would be allowed to stay.

“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, my blood pressure shot up because of what happened to my daughter, and I couldn’t go to her immediately,” Analiza told Dialogue Earth in Filipino.

After three days in detention, Analiza was released, heading straight back to the hospital where her daughter was being treated for what turned out to be meningitis. Mother and daughter stayed together in the hospital for two weeks.

A law built for extraction

The legal framework enabling Woggle’s entry is the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, which opened the country to large-scale foreign mining investment and remains the basis for permit approvals today.

Joice Leray, advocacy officer for the Center for Environmental Concerns, a Philippine non-profit, says the law prioritises extraction over community rights and environmental protection, giving agencies like the Mines and Geosciences Bureau broad discretion to approve permits with minimal public disclosure.

She says the mining act “was made to open up, to tear through our country, for foreign mining companies”. Leray added: “In 31 years of this law, we have seen that it does not serve the people”.

The threat to Dupax del Norte is not abstract. Tin Araneta, a geologist with Agham (Advocates of Science and Technology for the People), another non-profit, said open-pit mining in a forested area strips vegetation, destabilises the terrain and can contaminate groundwater and surface water almost immediately once mineralised rock is exposed. The effects can persist for years. Stripped farmland is rarely rehabilitated in time to prevent lasting damage, she added.

“The intensity of the extraction process is too fast compared to how the environment recovers,” Araneta told Dialogue Earth.

Dupax del Norte lies within the Magat watershed – a critical water system spanning four provinces in Northern Luzon that supplies one of the Philippines’ largest hydroelectric dams and supports irrigated agriculture downstream. Residents think that mining in their town will affect the watershed, as all their waterways lead to the Magat River.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau declined to be interviewed for this story. At the Senate hearing in February, however, Ismael Manaligod, head of the regional environmental department covering Dupax del Norte, presented the agency’s findings for approving the exploration permit.

“The entire area covered by the exploration permit has a minimal impact on the Magat River. This is because it is only 0.8% of the total area of the Magat River forest reserve,” he said. He also said that given the area’s distance to the Magat dam, it has no adverse effects on the river, and that the area covered in the permit does not directly drain into it.

“Lastly, Woggle Corporation shall include mitigating measures in its environmental work programme,” he added.

At a separate Senate hearing on 3 March, Woggle’s president, Tommy Alfonso, described the conflict as “a big misunderstanding” and said the company remained open to dialogue. He said Woggle had followed proper procedure throughout, had “undergone a strict 40-month process from 2022 to 2025”, and complied with all government requirements. As evidence of responsible operations, he pointed to FCF Minerals’ track record in the region. FCF Minerals, a Philippines-based subsidiary of the UK-listed Metals Exploration, owns a 60% stake in Woggle Corporation.

“We have contributed more than PHP 5 billion (USD 83 million) to national and local government for the last five years alone, with PHP 1.5 billion of this amount going directly to the local government,” Alfonso said at the hearing.

Leray said the mining industry’s contribution to the Philippine economy remains marginal, making up just 0.68% of the GDP and 0.58% of total employment nationally in 2024, according to Mines and Geosciences Bureau data.

“Their contribution to GDP and employment doesn’t even come close to the agricultural benefits of the land itself,” she said.

For Analiza, the economic argument is a hollow narrative.

“We feel frustrated because they keep insisting on going ahead with mining,” she said.

A victory, not yet an end

The arrests in January did not end the resistance. Instead, they sparked massive public outcry from various groups – from environmentalists to the Catholic church, even a beauty queen. Due to the growing opposition against the project, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau suspended Woggle’s permit, as senators called for an inquiry into its issuance.

At the 3 March hearing, the Senate ordered the local government to facilitate Woggle’s pullout from Dupax del Norte.

The suspension of the Dupax project has had a knock-on effect on other mining operations. On 18 February, FCF Minerals announced that by the end of 2026, they will cease operations at their existing gold mining project in nearby Runruno. The project would need new ore coming in from Dupax to remain feasible, it explained.

Daynos said: “This success in Dupax del Norte is a success against mining all over the Philippines.” He called it “a victory for all of us”, but added that the community ultimately needs the permanent cancellation of Woggle’s permit.

Metals Exploration chief executive Darren Bowden said they were putting the Dupax del Norte project on hold “for a little while”, but did not announce a permanent stop to mining operations. “Dupax at this stage is not a mining-friendly environment, not somewhere where we can move quickly,” Bowden said in a 6 February video published on their website.

“If things turn around in the future, sure, I think there’s still something there, I think there’s still something that could be great,” he said.

Without concrete confirmation that Woggle will not return, Bitnong’s barricade will continue to stand, and Analiza will continue to guard it.

Chantal Eco

A major milestone in China’s environmental legislation, parts of the code have nonetheless caused concern over 'taking one step forward and one back'. 

By Lin Zi, April 22, 2026

China’s new Ecological and Environmental Code brings together several laws on pollution, conservation and green and low-carbon development.

It is intended to tackle long-standing legal overlap and fragmented governance. Twenty laws – on forestry, energy and other issues – were left out and will continue to run in parallel. The “ecological” in the title alludes to the code covering not just pollution but also climate and biodiversity.

However, changes to some key mechanisms have caused controversy. Civil society organisations may now only be able to bring public interest lawsuits when the environment has already been harmed, with major risk of such harm no longer a sufficient reason. At the same time, new requirements on assessing the value of environmental damage and the cost of restoration may raise the financial and evidentiary barriers to bringing a lawsuit. This may limit what civil society organisations can do to provide extra oversight, experts told Dialogue Earth.

The code, which was published on 12 March and will take effect in mid-August, dedicates one of its five parts to green and low-carbon development. This puts China’s climate governance within a legislative framework. However, the language mostly sets out principles and guidance, with no details on who is responsible for reducing emissions or the consequences of failing to do so. Commentators have suggested this situation may be improved later by the creation of a separate climate law.

Dialogue Earth spoke to an academic who contributed to the code, a representative of a civil society organisation which brings public interest lawsuits, and a legal scholar. What signals does the new code send, and what is the logic behind it?

Chinese characteristics: Tension between protecting and using nature

Chen Haisong was involved in the new code’s compilation from the start in 2023. The professor from Wuhan University’s School of Law headed a team that wrote an introductory guide to it. He told Dialogue Earth that unlike France, which gathered all relevant laws into the environmental code it created around 2000, China opted to keep several individual laws alongside the code.

Ten laws on environmental protection and pollution control were incorporated, while elements from other regulations were selectively integrated. Meanwhile, 20 laws remain separate, including those on energy, forestry, grassland, national parks, the protection of the Yangtze, and the protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The code will reduce conflicts between different laws, said He Yini, director-general of Chinese NGO Friends of Nature. She pointed out that environmental problems often touch upon multiple areas – mining pollution, for example, might affect water, air, soil and biodiversity. As individual laws for each did not always match up and could even disagree, the code will help coordinate across them and ensure systematic conservation, she said.

The word “ecology” appears in the code 1,765 times, in many cases as an addition to an existing use of “environment”.

“It might be only one word, but it’s very significant,” said Chen Haisong. “There’s a real difference between, for example, an environmental impact assessment and an ecological and environmental impact assessment. The existing environmental assessments focus mainly on pollution. That’s now expanded to ecological factors like biodiversity and in the future greenhouse gas emissions will be included.”

Although the code has a whole section on ecological protection and emphasises an ideal of systematic protection, it often discusses that protection alongside utilisation. For example, “the state strengthens the management of development and use of other natural resources such as forests, grasslands, wildlife and marine resources, in order to protect and make sustainable use of resources.”

“In the part on ecological conservation, conservation and utilisation are mixed up,” says He Yini. “There’s some controversy over that.” The code puts emphasis on the economic benefits of both conservation and utilisation, with the ecological value of conservation in second place, she adds.

“In China, environmental issues are development issues, so China’s environmental governance has chosen a state-led two-pronged approach of conservation and utilisation,” says Zhu Mingzhe, associate professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Law.

Missing articles: Hitting the brakes on preventative lawsuits?

The code isn’t just a compilation of existing laws. Changes have been made.

The first draft of the code had allowed for government bodies and civil society organisations to bring lawsuits when ecologies or the environment were being harmed or put at major risk. That the part on risk was removed from the final version left some organisations worried less room is left for preventative lawsuits.

Since the 2015 Environmental Protection Law came into effect, public interest litigation involving the environment has seen prosecutors bring both civil and administrative lawsuits, while civil society organisations could bring civil lawsuits. They could also bring preventative lawsuits because the Supreme People’s Court interpretation of the law allowed them to bring cases when there was a major risk of pollution or ecological damage that would harm the public interest.

“Preventative public interest litigation is a crucial way of preventing ecological and environmental harms from arising, particularly irreversible harms like the extinction of endangered species,” says He Yini. “These cases have an important and irreplaceable role and cannot be lost.” She uses the Yunnan Green Peafowl case, China’s first preventative public interest litigation, as an example: construction of a hydropower project was halted following a lawsuit over the risk of harm to the endangered bird’s habitat.

The figures show that prosecutors are already the main force behind environmental public interest litigation. In 2023, 92% of such cases were brought by prosecutors, with only the remaining 4.8% by civil society organisations.

Changes to the preconditions for bringing a lawsuit also caused comment.

Article 1081 requires evidence of the costs of harm and of restoration when bringing a case. He Yini says this is not practical: when a lawsuit is being brought, the behaviour in question is usually ongoing. There may be some initial evidence of the damage caused, but the extent cannot be confirmed. If harm and restoration costs need to be assessed before the lawsuit even starts, there is likely to be a wasteful repetition of that process later and a big increase in the cost and barriers to litigation.

Actual cases show how. In 2011, Friends of Nature brought a lawsuit over chromium pollution in Qujing, Yunnan, demanding the defendant remove the pollutant and restore the local environment. The case dragged on for nine years, with the costs of assessing damages put at about CNY 3 million (around USD 420,000) – equivalent to the organisation’s entire operational budget at the time. An independent body was eventually brought in to assess remediation measures already taken, and ultimately the defendant paid for this work.

Such assessment costs have always been a barrier to environmental lawsuits. A number of soil pollution cases brought by Friends of Nature had to be shelved for a lack of funds, said He Yini. The new article in the code may therefore leave even less space for civil society organisations.

Legislating for the climate: Principles first, consequences later

New climate governance mechanisms appearing in the code have also drawn attention.

There is a section on green and low-carbon development, including a chapter on the response to climate change which covers mitigation, adaptation and China’s carbon targets. This is regarded as an important step for elevating climate from a policy matter to a legislative one.

However, some academics say placing climate under the green and low-carbon development heading may give it lesser status than it would as a stand-alone topic.

This section of the code often uses phrases announcing that “the state encourages”, “the state promotes” or “the state strengthens” – but lacks language on specific duties and the consequences for failing to meet them. For example, the code rules that key greenhouse gas emitters required to participate in the national carbon market must fulfil their duties to reduce carbon emissions – but no sanctions are specified for those failing to do so.

“With no climate change law to provide a framework, China needs to use existing legislation such as the Energy Law to drive emissions cuts,” Zhu Mingzhe told Dialogue Earth.

Climate legislation has been on the agenda since 2009 – but progress has been slow. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress usually sets legislative plans on a five-year schedule. The latest plan, in 2023, described legislation on climate and carbon peaking and neutrality as “Category 3” – not yet ready to become law and in need of further research and discussion. That means the earliest a climate law might be passed is 2028.

“China started drafting its Energy Law in 2005, but it only became law in 2024. The climate change law is even more important and will be handled even more cautiously,” Zhu Mingzhe told Dialogue Earth.

Mangroves implicated in a road project face removal or transplantation, raising ecological damage fears and threatening fishers’ way of life. 

By Shalinee Kumari, April 23, 2026

Just before dawn, small fishing boats sail into the creeks dotting Mumbai’s coastline. By mid-morning, the catch will be sorted, packed and delivered to the city’s many markets. Living along the coast of this Indian megacity, the Indigenous Koli fishing community has followed the same routine for generations.

Along these creeks, mangrove forests stand firm in the mudflats. Forming the city’s first line of defence against floods, they break the force of tides, hold the shoreline in place, sequester carbon and shelter the fish that sustain these waters. In local Marathi dialects, mangroves are known as kaandalvan, teewar and khaarphuti. For fishers, they are the foundation of daily survival.

But a new 26 km coastal road planned between the upscale Versova neighbourhood and the suburbs of Bhayandar threatens these ecosystems.

“I earn around 1,500-2,000 rupees (USD 16-21.50) a day. We fish 365 days,” says Sanjay Bhandari. The 50-year-old fisher works in Charkop, a Mumbai municipality the road will pass through. “If this coastal road comes, my income will go to zero.”          

In March, India’s supreme court declined to overturn a ruling by the high court in Mumbai that permitted the removal of around 46,000 mangrove trees. The city’s planning authority, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will be undertaking the work. The road is expected to be completed in 2029.

The supreme court ruled the road would “benefit the general public” by easing congestion on several major thoroughfares, as well as reducing travel times and fuel consumption for Mumbai residents.

But for fishing communities on the city’s outskirts that depend on the mangroves, their immediate reality has already begun changing.

Within a week of the supreme court’s decision, dozens of fishers from Versova to Charkop told Dialogue Earth they were seeing lower catches. They also claimed of being denied access to fishing areas. The BMC’s mangrove felling and foundational work has only just begun, but these fishers are already facing uncertainty over their livelihoods.

Manohar Bhandari, a fisher in Charkop, where the felling has begun, explains why catches are already declining: “The piling and constant hammering have scared away the fish. The fish understands changes in nature before humans do.”

Fishers always last to know

The proposed road is planned as a continuation of the existing Mumbai coastal road, and as an extension of the coastal corridor connecting to Bhayandar in the north.

According to the BMC, around 55% of the coastal road will be built on stilts, with some sections passing through tunnels.

The road is expected to pass through key fishing areas for several coastal villages including Charkop, Malvani, Gorai, Aksa, Manori and Marve. According to the most recent data, tens of thousands of fisherfolk live along Mumbai’s central and suburban coastlines. Fishers fear the project will restrict access to creeks and traditional routes that have been used for generations.

In areas like Charkop and Gorai, located a few kilometres apart, mangroves stretch deep into the creeks. The air is thick with the sounds of birds and crabs. They move through the mudflats and tangled roots, exposed as the tide recedes.

Several fishers in Charkop, including Manohar and Sanjay Bhandari, say they first learned about the mangrove felling on social media, primarily through the citizens’ group Save Mumbai Mangroves. The group has been collecting geotagged footage of mangroves being felled along the route. Barricades have been installed around the mangroves, so members film from above in their apartment buildings.

The BMC’s submission to the high court in Mumbai reveals around 60,000 mangrove trees are within the project’s zone of influence, and therefore may be “affected/destroyed”. It states around 9,000 trees are to be destroyed in the areas occupied by the bridge and road construction. Nearly 37,000 mangroves in a 68-hectare zone will be “temporarily diverted and affected” during construction, before being subject to a detailed restoration plan.

The court has directed another 36,925 mangroves to be planted on land that will become available following construction. This will be carried out by the Mangrove Cell of the state of Maharashtra, a government unit dedicated to mangrove protection, conservation and management.

Fishers also allege that mangrove trees are being felled late at night, only to be discovered when they fish near the creeks in the daytime. They question the BMC’s intent: “Why hide it?” asks Manohar. “Why not let us see?”

Dheeraj Bhandari, president of the local Charkop Koliwada Society fishing association, says fishing communities and villagers are often the last to be informed of infrastructure projects.

According to Stalin Dayanand, director of the Mumbai environmental group Vanashakti, fishing communities in the project sites were not even informed while the first phase was being planned. “They only found out when their jetties were taken over, access was restricted, and their boats were removed,” he claims.

“Informing them is what an ethical government should do,” says Stalin. “[The fishing communities] always have to fight back, and then some settlement is reached.”

Dialogue Earth has contacted the Mangrove Cell of Maharashtra but not received a response.

Fisherfolk associations from the Koli fishing village of Worli Koliwada petitioned the high court of Mumbai in 2019. They challenged aspects of the coastal road project, and alleged a lack of consultation and adequate surveys when assessing potential impacts on fishers’ livelihoods and marine life. Though the high court ordered a halt to the work, the supreme court eventually allowed the project to continue, with certain restrictions.

The Coastal Regulation Zone framework, established under the Environment Protection Act, regulates development along India’s coasts. Under this framework, state governments are required to form district-level committees to enforce it and monitor projects. The committees must include at least three representatives of local traditional coastal communities, including fisherfolk.

“However, in Maharashtra state government projects, representation in actual decision-making processes is often missing,” Stalin claims.

He adds that Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers are granted statutory rights under the 2006 Forest Rights Act. But fishing communities do not have equivalent comprehensive and national rights-based legislation. “They should be treated on par with tribal communities, because they are Indigenous people who depend on the land and the water for their livelihood,” Stalin says.

Malvani village is located in the central stretch of the project. In early April, around 30 members of the Koli community gathered near their fishing grounds here, protesting the construction of a boundary wall enclosing the site. Pradeep Koli, a fisher, alleges the work began without residents being consulted.

Villagers claimed the construction work meant access to traditional fishing grounds was being restricted. “This land belongs to us. We were never asked,” says Koli. “We have come here to protect our existence, to save our lifeline.”

Livelihoods and cultural ties at stake

Mangrove systems, such as those the road is expected to cut through, serve as rich breeding grounds for marine life. During high tide, fish and crabs spawn in the shallow, nutrient-rich waters. Fishers tell Dialogue Earth they sustain local fisheries that have been depended on for generations.

“If you cut down these mangroves and damage these mudflats, how will they ever grow back?” asks Dheeraj of the Charkop Koliwada Society. “The plan must be changed. We cannot destroy natural resources.” Fishers and campaigners consulted by Dialogue Earth say the loss of mangroves is not just ecological or economic but deeply cultural.

Mangroves have long been part of the communities’ everyday life. Their wood and branches have traditionally been used to build homes. The mangrove ecosystems have shaped daily life, knowledge systems and traditions, notes Stalin, who has been studying the ecology of Mumbai.

Fishing communities have historically used mangroves sustainably and long played a role in protecting them in and around Mumbai, Stalin says: “Even for firewood, they would take fallen branches. Cutting mangrove trees is not part of their practice.”

Mohit Ramle, Mumbai president of the All Koli Community and Culture Preservation Association, has been raising awareness about mangroves and their key role in Koli life using social media.

Standing near Versova Beach, he tells Dialogue Earth how mangrove resources were used in folk medicine for snake bites and insect bites: “Leaves and bark helped treat wounds. Some leaves, when crushed, release a smell that repels mosquitoes. This knowledge comes from our ancestors.”

Mangroves have always held importance in Koli traditions, too. This is reflected in oral traditions and folk songs passed down through generations. These include stories of the sea, nature and spirits believed to inhabit these landscapes, Ramle notes, such as the goddess Holika.

For the Kolis, who have long been nature worshippers, the disappearance of mangroves is not just environmental degradation – it is the erosion of memory, belief and belonging.

‘Mindset more dangerous than a tsunami’

Dozens of fishers Dialogue Earth spoke to say they have complained to the BMC, and have been actively participating in protests around the city. Dialogue Earth reached out to the BMC but has not received a response.

For Sanjay Bhandari, fishing is his only source of income. He wishes to support his daughter to become a cricketer – an expensive pursuit. He laments: “If fishing stops, how will [she] move forward?”

Around him, others are asking similar questions. “We don’t know whose dream project this [road] is,” says Dheeraj. “What we do know is that it cuts through mangroves and will destroy the biodiversity here.”

For a city that has repeatedly withstood devastating floods, water levels rising further due to the loss of mangroves is a real worry, he notes: “If we cut down the mangroves, it will be worse for us.”

For Ramle, the issue runs deeper than a single project: “Concrete alone is not development; living in peace with nature is real development.”

What worries him more is how easily nature is dismissed: “This mindset is more dangerous than a tsunami. A tsunami comes once; this keeps destroying nature again and again.”

Ramle insists the community is not opposed to development. “Our fight is against unsustainable development.”

He thinks many in the fishing community are still unaware of the project itself. Among those who are aware, Ramle says, there is growing fatigue: “Our community is tired of protests and legal fights. People are fed up. They should be able to focus on their livelihoods instead.”

This story was supported by Earth Journalism Network.