What is happening around Malka Golaja.
A documented chronicle: every post carries a date and its sources. There is an RSS feed for readers and aggregators.
After Romania, Bulgaria too: 12 organisations ask Sofia to enter the process over Zijin's complex
Twelve Bulgarian non-governmental organisations wrote to Bulgaria's Minister of Environment and Water on 18 August, a day after 28 Romanian organisations asked for the same. They want the status of a potentially affected party and the documents in Bulgarian.
17 August 2026Chinese gold, Romanian water: 28 NGOs urge Bucharest not to abandon the Danube
Twenty-eight Romanian non-governmental organisations have asked their environment minister to open transboundary public consultations on Zijin's “Čukaru Peki” and “Malka Golaja” complex. The letter invokes the Kyiv Protocol and asks that Romania be granted the status of a potentially affected party.
14 August 2026Zijin has pulled its machinery off Malka Golaja: no equipment and no cabins left on site
We were on site on Friday, 14 August 2026. The works have stopped, and the machinery, cabins, equipment and signs have been removed. Alongside this we publish the exploration decision, which shows the exploration term runs to 2028.
12 August 2026Zaječar councillors file criminal complaint against Zijin over the works at Malka Golaja
Councillors from the “Change We Believe In” movement reported works that, they say, go beyond the permits the company holds. In a single month the cleared area grew from 12 to 30 hectares.
10 August 2026A reply to Minister Đedović Handanović: the data she calls unfounded is in the government's own document
The minister of mining and energy said that claims about a mine near Zaječar are “spreading panic on unfounded data”. Here is claim by claim, against the document the government itself put out for public review.
3 August 2026The deadline for objections has closed: signatures and objections gathered across the Timok region
The early public review of the spatial plan for Čukaru Peki and Malka Golaja closed on 3 August 2026. Objections were collected in Zaječar, Knjaževac, Negotin and Belgrade, on the streets and through citizens' assemblies, with activists from the student movements taking part. More than 400 people have told us they filed objections.
30 July 2026Solidarity civic movement: stop Zijin before eastern Serbia disappears
The Novi Sad-based movement is calling for an immediate halt to the works, the annulment of unlawfully issued permits and accountability for the authorities. Resistance to mining expansion in the Timok region is no longer a purely local matter.
25 July 2026“Zaječar against mines - I live here and I will not move”: 2,000 signatures in three hours
In three hours on the streets of Zaječar, some 2,000 people signed the petition. Another 150 signatures were collected in Knjaževac, and around 500 objections in Belgrade over a single morning.
24 July 2026Danas: Zijin's plan for 126 square kilometres includes the possibility of resettlement
The spatial plan for Čukaru Peki and Malka Golaja envisages a smelter of up to 400,000 tonnes of copper a year, development through to 2050, and the possibility of resettling residents. The smelter's location, the subsidence zone and the environmental measures are all undefined.
9 July 2026New exploration borehole just four kilometres from Felix Romuliana
Serbia's Ministry of Mining and Energy has approved geological exploration for copper and gold by Tilva d.o.o. in the “Nikoličevo West” exploration area, on the edge of Malka Golaja, 4 km from Felix Romuliana and 2.5 km from Gamzigrad Spa.
22 June 2026The spatial plan for the mines near Bor and Zaječar is financed by Zijin
The Serbian government adopted the decision to draft the spatial plan for the “Čukaru Peki” and “Malka Golaja” complexes. The cost of drafting it is borne by Serbia Zijin Mining, the company the plan is being drawn up for.
16 June 2026US customs bans imports of Zijin's Serbian copper over forced labour
On 16 June 2026, CBP issued an order holding shipments of copper from Serbia Zijin Copper at every US port of entry. Six of the International Labour Organization's eleven forced labour indicators were identified among the workers.
12 June 2026Zijin cleared 11.49 hectares of forest without a permit at Malka Golaja; inspectors ordered work stopped
Serbia's forestry inspectorate found that Serbia Zijin Mining was clearing forest at Malka Golaja in breach of the Forest Act. 11.49 hectares were destroyed. The company was ordered to stop immediately and faces a complaint to the prosecutor's office.
6 June 2026The walk to Malka Golaja: a sign at the boreholes, and over 50 protected species in the same fields
On 6 June 2026, activists, biologists and local journalists walked to the exploration boreholes at Malka Golaja. They were met by a trilingual no-access sign whose Serbian text carried a homophobic slur in place of the word “pedestrians”. Six days later, inspectors found 11.49 hectares of destroyed forest at the same site.
31 May 2026We found heavy machinery at Malka Golaja: the works began in April, with no word to residents
On 31 May 2026 we found a line of dump trucks and freshly cut roads at the site. The board on site says the works were registered on 15 April and began on 20 April 2026, across 29 cadastral parcels in Zvezdan. Nobody in the surrounding villages was told.
18 May 2026Great androsace, a plant thought lost from Serbia, found at Malka Golaja
In spring 2026, biologists Dr Miloš Popović and Branko Jotić found great androsace (Androsace maxima) on the Malka Golaja plateau, a protected species last recorded in Serbia in Pančić's time. The site lies inside the planned mine expansion zone.