The number of fires shows no signs of easing as Brazil’s Roraima faces unprecedented blazes, and several Amazonian countries, including Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela, registered record-high outbreaks in the first quarter this year.
JAKARTA — Civil society advocates representing more than 2,000 customary communities in Indonesia have initiated last-ditch legal challenges over parliament’s failure to pass an Indigenous rights bill during the 10-year…
For months, residents in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand have been fighting for the introduction of land laws that would prevent agricultural land from being sold to people from outside…
Monarch butterflies are returning to gardens across the United States, but a few months ago, I stood in a mountain forest in Mexico where the monarchs spend the winter. They…
The new extractive reserves allow resident populations to engage in traditional and sustainable extractive practices such as fishing and hunting, while keeping out big businesses, such as commercial aquaculture or logging.
The Philippines’ southern region of Mindanao has a history of war and armed conflict going back more than 400 years. The contemporary conflict’s origin in this region of 26.3 million…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out what it calls a “biodiversity management master plan” amid mounting criticism of the environmental and social threats posed by the construction of…
Dahr Jamail was working in Alaska’s Denali National Park in the early 2000s when he decided to travel to Iraq to better cover the U.S.-led invasion of the region, on…
The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near…
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has deployed military troops, light tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats, and armored carriers to the Guyanese border in what appears to be a brazen threat to claim…
MANILA — The Chocolate Hills of Bohol Island in the central Philippines are a sprawling geological wonder, shaped by nature millions of years ago. Given their recognition as a UNESCO…
The threatened fish of the Mekong River are inching closer extinction, according to a new report that cites piling pressures on the waterway. Though the situation is serious, conservationists say…
MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — At the end of November last year, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Sinomine Resource Group chair Wang Pingwei walked into a lithium processing plant, construction hats firmly…
On April 10, 2023, at 11:30 a.m., four men arrived at Maydany Salcedo’s house. “I’m with the target and awaiting instructions,” was a phrase repeated several times by one of…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is experiencing a resurgence in forest clearance due to the expansion of pulpwood and oil palm plantations, reversing years of declining deforestation associated with these two industries.…
In early January, Brazilian environmental agents went on strike, claiming their salaries do not make up for their risky and highly-qualified work, in a threat to Lula's zero deforestation target.
During a 2020 field trip to a rural area in Vietnam, Hoa (not her real name), then working for a conservation-focused nonprofit, visited local authorities to discuss forest management. Vietnamese…
On May 9, 1983, Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo’s placenta was planted in the mountains of Putumayo, where Colombia’s Amazon rainforest meets the Andes. Her mother, Concepción Buesaquillo, was a midwife by…
Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.
In the municipality of Camocim, on Brazil’s northeastern coast, the fishing village of Praia do Xavier was erased from the map. Or at least that’s how it appeared on the…
As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
In late December 2023, when communities in the southeastern Peruvian province of Cotabambas received a copy of proposed modifications to the Las Bambas copper mine, they were at first surprised,…
GELAM ISLAND, Indonesia — Not long ago, Suparyanto discovered that his family home on a small island off the west coast of Borneo was to become a quartz mine. “I…
Conflicts between communities and government plans to protect vast swaths of land in line with international conservation policies, such as the “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of the…
Conservationists have expressed alarm over the surprise discovery that a Singapore-based company has started construction of a wind farm inside the Philippines' Masungi Georeserve. The Masungi Karst Conservation Area (MKCA),…
Scientists warn that 10% of the Amazon has a high risk of being converted into a drier and degraded ecosystem by 2050, while 47% has a moderate transitional risk.
KATHMANDU — New rules that were supposed to make it easier for Nepalis affected by human-wildlife conflict to receive relief and compensation have created a bottleneck in the process instead.…
KATHMANDU — Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his…
KATHMANDU — Until four decades ago, villagers in Nepal’s mountains would likely name Himalayan wolves as their primary concern among the wild animals native to their region. Lower down in…
Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership — it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen…