For more than a year, dozens of environmental groups have been fighting the construction of a controversial port in Panama, arguing that it will harm marine life and the mangroves…
On Dec. 10, 2025, Ghana’s government revoked one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation in our country’s history. The Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations passed in 2022…
RIO DE JANEIRO — The government of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro has banned shark meat for meals in most of the schools it manages, citing health and…
SILIMA PUNGGA-PUNGGA DISTRICT, Indonesia — Rainim Purba first heard the rumor in 1996. Back then, in her mid-30s, villagers were saying a zinc mining company was going to operate near…
KATHMANDU — A cable car line is being built to serve the mountaintop temple of Pathibhara Devi, a popular pilgrimage destination for Hindus in eastern Nepal. But the area is…
COLOMBO — Cricket is more than a sport in Sri Lanka. It is woven into the country’s postindependence identity, a unifying passion that cuts across class, ethnicity and geography. Yet…
Environmental and territorial defenders in Guatemala face a critical moment as violence targeting them increases across the country. In 2024, at least 20 such defenders were killed for their work,…
I write short obituaries for people who spent their lives protecting parts of the natural world. I work on them in the margins of other responsibilities, yet they have become…
A 22-year-old woman is the subject of celebration after she hugged a tree continuously for 72 hours amid fluctuating temperatures and rainfall on the foot of Mount Kenya. Truphena Muthoni’s…
LUSAKA — As Zambia looks to profit from the growing global demand for copper and other transition minerals — essential for the world’s green energy future — the story of…
In 2023, a staggering 196 land and environmental defenders lost their lives worldwide, according to a report by Global Witness. Since 2012, more than 2,100 defenders have been victims of…
Six years after the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in the Brazilian Amazon, the trial of the two…
The secretary-general of a Thai agricultural watchdog is facing a lawsuit that observers say is part of corporate efforts to silence citizens who are calling for greater accountability over the…
PAKAYAKU TERRITORY, Ecuador — Deep in the heart of Ecuador's Amazon, where the Bobonaza River winds through ancient forests in Pastaza province, Sacha Gayas spreads out a hand-drawn map across her…
A rare sighting of a baby dugong off Alor in East Nusa Tenggara has sparked renewed attention to the importance of protecting Indonesia’s seagrass ecosystems and marine wildlife. A short…
BANGKOK — The long-tailed macaque will remain on the Red List of the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, despite objections from the biomedical industry arguing the designation hampers research that…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon — In the village of Ndji, old electrical cables are draped over rickety wooden poles, hanging so low in places, they touch the ground. These makeshift installations provide…
This series, Voices from the Land, brings together opinion pieces led and written by Indigenous peoples from around the world. Through these commentaries, we share our lived realities and reflections…
Daybreak is almost nonexistent during monsoons in Raxidi, a village perched in the thick of the Western Ghats, an Indian biodiversity hotspot. It is the 7 a.m. body clock that…
Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91. Over the course of six…
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — It’s been three years since production began at a coal mine in the mountain village of Ned, some 1,500 kilometers, nearly 1,000 miles, south of Manila,…
In 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a new resolution laying the first groundwork toward a new legally binding international agreement to end plastic pollution. The treaty will contain…
Indigenous territories and the people who defend them in the Peruvian Amazon face a litany of growing threats, activist groups warn in a recent report. In defending their land rights…
Mongabay recently published an investigation revealing widespread Brazilian government purchases of shark meat to feed schoolchildren, hospital patients, prisoners and more. The series has generated public debate in the South…
JAKARTA — The mysterious death of Vian Ruma, a 30-year-old activist opposing a geothermal project on Flores Island, has intensified calls for stronger protection of environmental defenders in Indonesia, where…
Endangered shark meat and heavy metals found in Brazil’s public food trigger a reckoning.
MANNAR, Sri Lanka — Under the blanket of darkness, giant trucks rumbled through the narrow roads of Sri Lanka’s Mannar district, their headlights cutting through the night. On their trailers…
MUARA KATE, Indonesia — More than eight months after the bloody killing of an Indigenous elder in eastern Borneo, police in Indonesia have yet to name a suspect, while community…
Mannar, SRI LANKA — The Vidattaltivu Nature Reserve, nestled along Sri Lanka’s northwestern coast in the Mannar district, is home to one of the island country’s largest and most ecologically…
On the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment, Vietnamese environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach, who was sentenced to five years on tax evasion charges, has been recognized with a prestigious international award.…
COLOMBO — In a landmark ruling, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ordered the owners and operators of the MV X-Press Pearl to pay $1 billion in compensation for the devastating…
A few years ago, Maria Suryanti Jun had idea little idea of what an environmental defender was. Nor did she have any intention of becoming one. But since December 2022,…
