NGOs Working on Natural Resources

  • The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) - The Rights and Resources Initiative is a global Coalition of more than 200 organizations dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and rural women. RRI was founded in 2005 to address the insecure and unjust land rights of over two billion Indigenous Peoples and local communities living in the forests and drylands of developing countries.

  • The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) - The Environmental Law Institute has provided technical assistance and built capacity in several post-conflict countries. In Afghanistan, ELI provided comments on a new forestry law. In the early 1990s, ELI helped secure environmental protection and facilitate cooperation around the Gulf of Aqaba through its recommendations during U.S./Israel/Jordan negotiations which led to the Gulf of Aqaba Treaty. ELI staff have also provided technical assistance to other post-conflict countries, including Democratic Republic of the Congo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and South Sudan.

  • Center for International Environmental Law - Established in 1989, CIEL uses the power of law to promote human rights, protect the environment and ensure a sustainable society. It has its offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland where experts provide diverse services such as legal counsel, advocacy, policy research and capacity building across three main areas: Climate and Energy, Environmental Health and People, Land, and Resources.

  • Landesa Rural Development Institute is a nonprofit organization that partners with governments and local organizations to secure legal land rights for world's poorest families. Since 1967, Landesa has helped more than 100 million poor families in 35 countries gain legal control over their land. When families have secure rights to land, they can invest in their land to sustainably increase their harvests and reap the benefits—improved nutrition, health, education, and dignity.

  • EarthRights International (ERI) - EarthRights International is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization that combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment, which we define as “earth rights.” We specialize in fact-finding, legal actions against perpetrators of earth rights abuses, training grassroots and community leaders, and advocacy campaigns. Through these strategies, EarthRights International seeks to end earth rights abuses, to provide real solutions for real people, and to promote and protect human rights and the environment in the communities where we work.

  • Global Witness - Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide.

  • The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank. It aims to address the root causes of some of the greatest challenges facing the planet today—ecological destruction, social exclusion, unfair laws and economic rules, a changing climate. Through research, analysis and knowledge sharing, IISD identifies and champions sustainable solutions that make a difference. IISD also reports on international negotiations, conducts rigorous research, and engage citizens, businesses and policy-makers on the shared goal of developing sustainably.

  • The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is dynamic and multisectoral alliance of  international partners committed to increasing access to land and tenure security for all, with a particular focus on the poor, women and youth. The Network’s partners include international rural and urban civil society organizations, research and training institutions, bilateral and multilateral organizations, and international professional bodies.

Blogs on Natural Resources

  • World Rainforest Movement Bulletin - The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) is an international initiative that aims to contribute to struggles, reflections and political actions of forest-dependent peoples, indigenous, peasants and other communities in the global South. The WRM Bulletin has been published since 1997 to support the struggles of the peoples who defend their territories and forests against the direct and underlying causes of deforestation. One of its objectives is to help transmit the voices of the numerous resistance struggles, as well as to provide information on international plans and initiatives that deal with forests, warning about the risks and impacts on the lives of people who depend on them. The bulletin is distributed by e-mail, available on WRM’s website and printed in cases it is necessary to reach communities or organizations with little or no access to the internet.

  • BIOSEC - Running until August 2020, BIOSEC will look into what constitutes an environmental crime, the responses by the European Union to the illegal wildlife trade, and how new technology is being used to tackle poaching and trafficking. The project aims to generate new data on the illegal wildlife trade to demonstrate the ways that biodiversity protection and security are linked, as well as providing new approaches to understanding the links between the two.

  • Resources and Conflict Blog (R&C) - The R&C Blog offers a platform to present and discuss new ideas and empirical as well as conceptual findings within the conflict and natural resource field. In addition to this, R&C also publish reviews of recent journal articles and edited books.

  • The Conflict and Environment Observatory Blog - The CEOBS aggregates information on multiple conflicts and topics, to be a resource for policy-makers, researchers, activists and journalists interested in the environmental dimensions of armed conflicts. The CEOBS collects data on environmental harm and the human suffering it causes, and the means through which data could be used to inform greater protection for the environment, and for those who depend on it, before during and after armed conflicts. CEOBS’ work also considers the role of environmental factors in triggering or driving insecurity. The blog features regular posts on the relationship between conflict and the environment and posts can be searched by country/conflict and topic.

  • Environmental Change and Security Program - Since 1994, the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) has actively pursued the connections between the environment, health, population, development, conflict, and security. ECSP brings together scholars, policymakers, media, and practitioners through events, research, publications, multimedia content, and its blog, New Security Beat.

  • Resource and Conflict Project - The Resources and Conflict Project analyzes combatants’ strategic and military choices during civil war. It develops new research designed to improve understanding of the dynamics of conflict and contribute to the development of policies that resolve conflicts. The project also creates new data sources at the organizational, micro-, and geographic levels that can be used by researchers and the policy community to address a wide range of issues about conflict dynamics.

  • Global Witness Blog - The Global Witness Blog features regular updates and analysis on Global Witness’s investigations into corruption, particularly in the extractive industries.

  • Environmental Investigation Agency - EIA uses undercover investigations to expose transnational wildlife crime, forest crimes, including illegal logging and deforestation for cash crops . It also investigates potential threats to global marine ecosystems by from plastic pollution and investigates corruption in the fossil fuel industry. EIA’s blog features updates on their work and the results of their investigations and campaigns.

  • The Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts - The Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) promotes human and ecological well-being through original research. PERI’s approach is to translate research into policy proposals that are capable of improving life on the plant. Since its founding, PERI has become a leading source of research and policy initiatives the economics of peace, development, and the environment.

Regional and Country-Specific Blogs

  • Papua New Guinea Mine Watch - The Papua New Guinea Mine Watch is a blog that tracks updates to ongoing controversies regarding extractive industries in Papua New Guinea and surrounding areas. It frequently features posts on the Ramu Mine, the Gold Ridge Mine in the Solomon Islands, the Basamuk chemical spill, and the ongoing attempt to repair damage from the OK Tedi Spill.

  • MiningWatch Canada Blog - MiningWatch Canada is a pan-Canadian initiative supported by environmental, social justice, Indigenous and labor organisations from across the country. It addresses the urgent need for a co-ordinated public interest response to the threats to public health, water and air quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and community interests posed by irresponsible mineral policies and practices in Canada and around the world.

Databases for Researching Natural Resources

NATURAL RESOURCES IN PEACE AGREEMENTS

  • The PA-X Peace Agreement Database - The PA-X Peace Agreement Database is a database and repository of peace agreements from 1990 to date hosted by the University of Edinburgh. It can be searched for peace agreements that contain provisions related to natural resources. PA-X provides a comprehensive dataset of peace agreements from 1990 to the end of 2018, capable of underpinning both quantitative and qualitative research. PA-X also publishes reports on various themes related to peace negotiations, agreements, and post-conflict peace building.

  • Peace Accords Matrix - The Peace Accords Matrix hosts a database of peace agreements from 1989 to the present and the largest existing collection of data on the implementation of peace agreements. Each peace agreement in the database has a dozen or more content pages that sort the relevant provisions into topics areas such as “natural resource management” and provide a detailed timeline of the implementation of those provisions.

INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS AND AGREEMENTS

  • ECOLEX - ECOLEX is an information service on environmental law. Its purpose is to build capacity worldwide by providing the most comprehensive possible global source of information on environmental law. This database combines the environmental law information holdings of FAO, IUCN and UNEP, including information on treaties, international soft-law and other non-binding policy and technical guidance documents, national legislation, judicial decisions, and law and policy literature. Users have direct access to the abstracts and indexing information about each document, as well as to the full text of most of the information provided. ECOLEX provides a brief tutorial for new users on how to use each function of the database.

  • International Environmental Agreements Database - The International Environmental Agreements Database database aims to create a systematic and comprehensive catalog of all intergovernmental environmental agreements, providing environmental negotiators, treaty secretariats, scholars, students, and interested citizens with a reliable list of all historic and current International Environmental Agreements.

  • UN iLibrary - UN iLibrary is the comprehensive global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations. It can be searched for material related to the natural resources in conflict and natural resources in peace processes.

EXTRACTIVE RESOURCE DATABASES

  • ResourceContracts.org - ResourceContracts.org is a repository of publicly available investment contracts for oil, gas and mining projects. It features plain language summaries of key provisions and provides tools for searching and comparing contracts.

  • The Extractives Data Ecosystem: In this portal, users will find links to websites and data portals with extractives data relevant to resource governance. The portals are tagged by the relevant country or region, the subject matter, and in what format the data is accessible (whether as structured data, geospatial shapefiles or quantitative indices).

  • National Oil Company Database - National oil companies (NOCs) play large roles in their home-country economies and are critical players in global oil and gas markets. This open database compiles information on the production, revenues and performance of 71 NOCs. Data has been drawn from official public documents and assembled using a consistent methodology to facilitate cross-cutting analysis and benchmarking of companies. The database can be searched by country and by company. It can also be searched by indicators that include exploration and production, expenditure, revenue, and transfers to government.

  • Extract-A-Fact is a project of Publish What You Pay - United States. Extract-A-Fact provides training modules detailing useful and creative ways to find, analyze, and visualize extractives data, as well as blog posts on how to dig deeper into oil, gas, and mining sector data to answer questions critical to communities impacted by natural resources.

  • World Mine Tailings Database - This database records all failures and significant adverse events in all components involved in the deposition and storage of mineral tailings, including post-extraction downstream-generated tailings, e.g., at smelters or refineries. The original impetus for its creation was an increasing frequency of high-consequence tailings failure events post-1990. The purpose of the database is  to provide a meaningful resource of factual authoritative data for analysis of trends, causes, and consequences, with a view to the changes that will result in effective loss prevention related to tailings management. 

WATER DATABASES

  • Waterlex Legal Database - The Waterlex Legal database and research provided by Waterlex includes water law and policy frameworks for human rights compliance and sustainability.

  • International Water Law Project (IWLP) - Created and directed by Gabriel Eckstein, the mission of the International Water Law Project (IWLP) is to serve as the premier resource on the Internet for international water law and policy issues. Its purpose is to educate and provide relevant resources to the public and to facilitate cooperation over the world’s fresh water resources. As the subject evolves and develops, the IWLP will continue to update its pages and databases.

FORESTRY DATABASES

  • Global Forest Watch - Global Forest Watch is an interactive online platform that offers a variety of data and tools to for monitoring forests. GFW allows anyone to access near real-time information about where and how forests are changing around the world.

CONFLICT AND THE ENVIRONMENT DATABASES

  • The Atlas of Environmental Justice - The Atlas of Environmental Justice is a practical and intuitive online platform that allows searching and filtering across 100 fields, as well as browsing by commodity, company, and type of conflict. The atlas serves as a database, aiming to cover ecological distribution conflicts around the world and serving as a communication tool among Environmental Justice Organizations and scientists working on related issues.