JAKARTA — Fisherwomen on the north coast of Indonesia’s Java Island are leading the fight against the government’s decision to dredge sea sand for export, warning the activity may exacerbate…
JAKARTA — A recent climate march in Jakarta was forcibly disbanded by an unidentified group of people, which highlights the growing challenges to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — It was late in the afternoon of Sept. 16 when Ouk Mao finally answered his phone. The environmental journalist had spent much of that Monday making…
In a surprise move, the well-known environmental advocate Hoàng Thị Minh Hồng was released from prison in Vietnam on Saturday. Hồng was sentenced on Sept. 28, 2023, to three years…
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — On a sunny Wednesday in August, police officer Loreto Malon and a subordinate were riding their motorcycles in the mountain mining village of Ned on their…
I've spent a significant part of my career exploring and documenting how ecosystems function, and the profound impact humanity has on nature. Over time, I've come to recognize that not…
Ten years ago, four Indigenous Asháninka environmental defenders were murdered in the forests near their community of Saweto in Peru’s Amazon Ucayali region. In 2023, a court in Pucallpa found…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Supreme Court has become the last battleground for campaigners and conservationists, as knowledgeable civil society organizations remain largely silent on conservation issues with long-term repercussions. Looking at…
Budo-Sungai Padi National Park is a swath of dense tropical rainforest a fifth the size of Bangkok that lies along southern Thailand's isthmus linking the country to Peninsular Malaysia. Its…
Until recently, the Hanoi-based nonprofit where Hưng works as a legal advocate distributed its research online, freely circulating information it intended to support policies on climate change and other environment…
Nicaragua has spent the last several years shuttering over a thousand civil society organizations, universities, media outlets and other organizations, often for criticizing President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice…
TRENGGALEK/YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization faces a growing backlash following a decision to enter the coal mining industry, with more than 1,000 young Islamic activists from a mining…
On Sept. 11, 2022, Olivia Bisa Tirko received a call from a forest guard who informed her of an oil spill in the territory of the Chapra Nation in the…
Lalao Aigrette has worked to protect the mangroves of her native Madagascar for more than 16 years. Growing up inland, she didn’t see the ocean until she was around 20…
MEXICO CITY — The representative of a prominent advocacy group for Mexico’s fishing industry was killed in July after speaking out against organized crime in Baja California, where illegal fishing…
JAKARTA — Islamic groups claiming more than 160 million followers across the world’s largest Muslim-majority country are set to operate coal mines, after Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization joined the country’s…
ARU ISLANDS, Indonesia — When the ship with “J7Explorer” embossed across its hull approached the shoreline on May 13, some on the Aru Islands assumed the greenish hulk was an…
Over recent decades, animal advocacy efforts have been mainly geared towards domesticated animals – including farmed, laboratory and companion animals – and with good reason. Every year across the globe,…
A widely criticized move by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to reform mining rules to bestow coal mining licenses on an allied religious organization is carving a rift between its executive…
PADARINCANG, Indonesia — On a white-hot afternoon in June, people from Padarincang subdistrict gathered near a mountain lake to recite an istighosah, an Islamic prayer blended with Indigenous context here…
Events in February felt like a legal double whammy for the environment and its defenders. First, the United Nations Environment Assembly declined a Bolivian proposal to grant rights to nature…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s Bali island is shrinking at a faster rate than most coastal areas in the world due to human activities and wave circulation, according to a recently published…
A year-long Mongabay investigation tracked several dozen illegal or suspicious activities in and around Araroibia in the last few years, including logging, deforestation and cattle ranching, and found a clear rise in environmental crimes in the region in mid-2023, the deadliest year for Indigenous people in Arariboia since 2016.
LANGKAT, Indonesia — Ilham was sitting outside on his terrace in the village of Kuala Langkat on April 18 when a scrum of men in plainclothes arrived at his home…
PHNOM PENH — A rights group in Cambodia has accused a United Nations project of promoting private sector actors tied to human rights and environmental abuses. The U.N. Development Programme’s…
TAKALAR/EAST LOMBOK/JAKARTA, Indonesia — Mustam Daeng Beta exhaled slowly before he began describing his time as a young fisherman many years ago. “Fish bombing was regular, also using poison,” Daeng…
The Escazú Agreement was seen as a real breakthrough when it came into force in April 2021, and is the only binding treaty to have emerged from the Earth Summit…
SANTIAGO — The recent screening of a Mongabay video before Chile’s Supreme Court has intensified international scrutiny of the killing of 26-year-old Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara in Brazil 2019 — a case for which no one has yet gone on trial in Brazil.
JERICÓ, Colombia — Argirio Tobón Tamayo tugs down the top branch of a coffee tree covered in waxy green leaves, bending it back to reveal coffee cherries in shades of…
PHNOM PENH — The trial against Mother Nature Cambodia, one of the country’s last environmental activism groups, kicked off at the Phnom Penh Court of First Instance on the morning…
Panama is still trying to understand the extent of the violence that took place during the massive, nationwide protests last year. Groups from all corners of the country, from teacher…
Civil society groups in Southeast Asia are calling for greater public participation and transparency in the drafting process of a regional declaration on environmental rights, as well as stronger levels…
