Intensifying heat waves, extreme floods and forest fires have devastated parts of Southeast Asia in recent years, spurring experts and authorities to look for holistic solutions. Agroforestry, the practice of…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has raised serious concerns over the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, saying it imposes a heavy administrative burden on smallholders while lacking clarity and…
Illegal gold miners have been moving into Amapá in the wake of federal raids on mining hotspots in other parts of the Brazilian Amazon, including the Yanomami and Munduruku Indigenous territories.
TOCOA, Honduras - On a rainy November day in 2024, Storm Sara, a slow-moving tropical cyclone, struck Honduras, claiming at least six lives and displacing more than 6,000 people. Along the…
As REDD projects around the world face setbacks, restoration projects in the Amazon are flourishing as a means of reviving market confidence in forest-based carbon credits.
BOGOTÁ — In June 2022, Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla member, was elected as Colombia’s first avowedly leftist president, promising to fight inequality, bring “total peace” to the country, and…
Villagers in Cameroon have denounced the use of tear gas by authorities to break up their protest on March 25 against the replanting of oil palm trees by the plantation…
RISARALDA, Colombia — “Before, anyone who wanted to grow cacao at 1,200 or 1,500 meters [3,900 to 4,900 feet] altitude was considered crazy,” says Orlando Quintero Gonzales, an agronomist in…
Yams are considered one of the world’s most important crops. A starchy, nutrient-rich root vegetable of the genus Dioscorea, the yam thrives in a tropical belt across West Africa, with…
Brazil's Supreme Court backed down and withdrew its proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution.
Rita grew up in a small village in Uttarakhand with mountains forming the backbone of her childhood. In a recent call with her sister, she laughed, repeating a little rhyme…
In many parts of Brazil, rivers may be losing water to the ground instead of gaining from it. A recent study found that groundwater levels in several regions are lower…
Conservationists have launched a 20-year-long project to protect what is arguably Tanzania’s most biologically rich landscape: the Udzungwa Mountains. The strategy places notable emphasis on communities living here, with more…
CHINCHINA, Colombia — “Before, the seasons seemed etched into the calendar, with well-defined periods of drought and rain. Today, the climate has gone completely mad!” says coffee grower Oscar Gomez from…
Agroforestry, the ancient agricultural system of integrating trees and shrubs with crops and livestock, has seen a revival in recent decades in the U.S. Around the country, agroforestry projects have…
For members of the Sani Warmi collective in Amazonian Ecuador, the day begins before sunrise. They tend to the chacra — their agroforestry garden — and harvest plantain, yuca, palm…
In 2021, the U.K. appeared to be making serious strides against illegal deforestation when lawmakers introduced “forest risk” regulations on imported commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, cocoa, coffee and…
Brazil’s plans to build ports and roads to help move grains, beef and iron ore from the rainforest echo a development vision that dates back to the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s.
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — The Malagasy government is pushing ahead with a controversial highway linking Antananarivo and the port city of Toamasina, 260 kilometers (162 miles) away. Construction has already begun…
KIREHE, Rwanda — Victor Ndwaniye, a smallholder farmer from Nasho, a small lakeside village in Kirehe district in eastern Rwanda, used to irrigate his vegetable farm by collecting water in…
In February, during the flowering time of black cumin (Nigella sativa), beekeeper Pavel Hossen set up an apiary on leased barren land adjacent to farmer Abdul Hakim’s crop field in…
KONSO, Ethiopia — As the first light of the morning sun breaks over the hills of Konso, Kawadaya Oldisha, 45, begins his daily routine of inspecting his terraced fields. His…
Human activities such as mining, agriculture, urbanization, damming and logging threaten the habitats of great apes in Africa and Asia. Apes have shown resilience to these disruptions by adapting their…
YAOUNDÉ — In the village of Apouh, in southwestern Cameroon’s Edéa municipality, a group of women has remained steadfast in its fight against palm oil giant Socapalm. For several years,…
Deforestation in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco, driven largely by agribusiness and infrastructure development, poses an increasing threat to the Indigenous Ayoreo people. The communities, living in isolation, risk losing their ancestral…
Earth’s frozen places — ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost — are melting: A clear sign of climate change and a planet quickly exiting the stable state that gave rise to…
JAKARTA — Palm oil companies in Indonesia continue to operate on protected peatlands and clear forests, despite having their forestry permits revoked and being certified as sustainable, a new report…
Botanist Andrea Bianchi and local plant experts Aloyce Mwakisoma and his brother Ruben were exploring two tiny village forest reserves in the Udzungwa mountains in 2019, when they stumbled upon…
Presented in February by Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes, a draft bill violates Indigenous people's constitutional rights by stripping their veto power against impactful activities on their ancestral lands and adding further obstacles to an already long land demarcation process.
The costs that companies will have to bear in complying with the EU regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR, are “negligible,” according to a recent report published Feb. 12 by…
Mongabay went to Pará state’s southwest and found examples of people struggling to keep sustainable initiatives in a region dominated by soy, cattle, gold and logging.
COLOMBO — Monkeys were expected to be among the chief culprits identified as Sri Lanka carried out a nationwide survey on March 15 of crop-raiding animals. But in a small…
