On June 17th a judicial decision marks a new phase for the struggle over water flow to the “Volta Grande” (“Big Bend”) of Brazil’s Xingu River between the two dams…
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…
It might sound nihilistic and harsh to describe Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (Indochina) as forming a kind of buffer zone against the onslaught of snaring and the defaunation of forests…
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
A horrifying video surfaced last week showing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre struggling to kill an African savanna elephant in Botswana. LaPierre’s pursuit of a trophy, documented (though never…
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, together with two dozen other leaders from around the world, have called for a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness…
The Brazilian president is making big promises to reduce Amazon deforestation, even as he moves to legalize large scale land theft with potentially catastrophic results for Earth’s climate and the Amazon.
The video of a bobcat attacking a couple in North Carolina is frightening, and we wish them a hasty recovery. Rest assured, however, that such behavior – and the infection…
The fondness for bird watching is so much a part of the life of “the birders” that it is even unconscious. Without realizing it, I am listening and watching our…
In a recent report entitled “Destruction: certified” Greenpeace concluded that “certification is not a solution to deforestation, forest degradation and other ecosystem conversion”. Although Greenpeace acknowledges some positive impacts of…
If the inequities made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t already grotesque reminders of humanity’s failings, then the assault on our planetary boundaries is downright dangerous. It’s 2021, and four…
In 2019, XPRIZE Rainforest opened its doors and challenged the world to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies by offering a $10 million prize for the best one. The consequent mobilization will extend…
Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s state of Amazonas, has gained worldwide notoriety for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, first for the collapse of its hospital system in April 2020…
Even in this era of “alternative facts,” the letter to the New York Times from Norte Energy (the company responsible for Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam) will surely be remembered as…
Dear President Biden, Congratulations to you and Vice President Harris on your historic election. We pray for the success of your administration and your efforts to confront the COVID-19 pandemic,…
“Disasters and emergencies do not just throw light on the world as it is. They also rip open the fabric of normality. Through the hole that opens up, we glimpse…
The launch of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) in 2014, with the support of nearly 200 corporate, government, NGO and Indigenous peoples and local community endorsers, put forests…
The solitude of the north is changing. George Angohiatok noticed this quite graphically a decade ago when, after returning to Iqaluktuuttiaq (or Cambridge Bay, as it was renamed by settlers), he observed…
Humanity today face multiple crises. A pandemic grips societies around the globe and with each passing year greed, poor governance, and naivete push us further toward a climate change forced…
Rieli Franciscato, one of the most experienced field men of the National Indian Foundation of Brazil (FUNAI, a federal agency to protect Indigenous peoples), died a few days ago with…
While watching 2020 unfold has been like watching someone set themself on fire with a bucket of bacon grease and a firecracker, one morning I stumbled on something that made…
The global conservation community now faces the added challenge of Covid-19 on top of a longstanding set of complex conservation, sustainability, and development challenges. In the wake of this pandemic,…
Note: CIMB has issued a response to this piece. It’s that time of the year: Indonesia is burning once again. Miles and miles of primeval forest are being lost to…
Cottongrass Summer, a new book by the British author Roy Dennis is a breath of fresh air among the mountains of doom and gloom reads about the environment, the climate…
On July 15, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro decreed a ban on fires in the Amazon for 120 days. While this is ostensibly positive—a message to the world that Brazil’s government…
As sick patients flood hospitals throughout the Sunbelt and healthcare providers step up selflessly to meet the challenge, I think about my friend Rosa Moreno, the most courageous nurse I…
My name is Arkilaus Kladit. I’m from the Knasaimos-Tehit tribe in South Sorong Regency, West Papua Province, Indonesia. For decades my tribe has been fighting to protect our forests from…
We have come to realize that the origins of the coronavirus pandemic are directly related to how we treat the environment. The harmful acts of eating wild animals, denuding forests,…
It was the middle of the afternoon in one of the world’s largest metropolises when the sky went black. Thousands of miles away, tens of thousands of fires raged, plunging…
Everyone’s lives have been upended by coronavirus, but perhaps nowhere have the impacts been as devastating as in Mesoamerica’s indigenous territories. In March, just before the pandemic really hit the…