Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
On 27 March 2021, the natural sounds of the teak and bamboo forests of eastern Myanmar — calling birds, croaking frogs and barking deer — were drowned out by a…
Despite landmark law, Europe faces tough test to end role in global forest loss (commentary)
In mountaineering, it is said, 80 per cent of fatalities happen on the descent. When you reach the summit, you are less than half way to any meaningful measure of…
‘I’m not distressed, I’m just pissed off’: Q&A with Sumatran rhino expert John Payne
In 2019, the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died. Her name was Iman and ever since her capture in 2014, she had been under the care of the Bornean Rhino…
Trapping holds back speed of bird recovery in a Sumatran forest, study shows
JAKARTA — A decade of protection and natural regeneration of tropical forests has helped bird populations increase in the southern lowlands of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, but continued wild trapping by…
Corruption threatens timber traceability in Nkok, Gabon
“The challenge in the Nkok SIZ is timber traceability. The SIZ must be kept free of illegally obtained timber,” says Marc Ona, executive secretary of the NGO Brainforest. The NGO…
Inaugural Indigenous women’s forum spotlights Congo Basin conservation
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
Dhaka faces manifold problems as water bodies diminish
On April 4, a large fire gutted thousands of shops at a popular clothing market named Banga Bazar in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Firefighters complained of water scarcity as a…
‘It gives life’: Philippine tribe fights to save a sacred river from a dam
DARAITAN, Philippines — Members of the Indigenous Dumagat-Remontado, young and old alike, stood out against the greenery in their traditional red loincloth and tapis. On a scorching Good Friday morning,…
Spamming streams with hatchery salmon can disrupt ecosystems, study finds
Every year, 22 million sockeye salmon begin life some 420 kilometers, or about 260 miles, inland from the Alaskan coast, in plastic bins. They’re at the Gulkana hatchery, the largest…
Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Loggers have entered the Trombetas River Biological Reserve in Oriximiná, in Brazil’s Pará state, to develop a forest management project that has divided the local Quilombola community.
In Sumatra, potato appetite bites into a UNESCO-listed tiger haven
JAMBI, Indonesia — The lunchtime rush is well underway as customers file into a lively Padang-style restaurant here in the city of Jambi on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. A clutch of…
Latin America had the most attacks on environmental defenders in 2022, says report
The human rights organization Front Line Defenders has published its Global Analysis 2022, a report on the state of people who have dedicated their lives to defending the environment, Indigenous…
Snares don’t discriminate: A problem for wild cats, both big and small
In 2019, researchers declared the Indochinese tiger extinct in Laos as widespread snaring in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Park picked off the last few individuals of Panthera tigris corbetti. Two…
A Philippine town and its leaders show how mangrove restoration can succeed
PRIETO DIAZ, Philippines — Working quietly before a bucket of rabbitfish, known locally as danggit, two women precisely cut open each fish with square knives, gutting and deboning before repeating…
World’s ‘largest’ tropical reforestation project slowed by Covid, Bolsonaro, fires
Conservation International and its partners pledged to plant 73 million trees in the Brazilian Amazon in 2017. Only 20% of that goal has been met, with the pandemic, the anti-environmental presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, and fires taking a toll.
Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…
Indonesia legalizes illicit oil palm farms in program slammed as opaque
JAKARTA — Illegal oil palm plantations spanning an area one and a half times the size of London have been amnestied under an Indonesian government program that critics say incentivizes…
Guatemala national park nearing ‘collapse’ amid land grabbing, deforestation
Officials are struggling to keep up with an increasing wave of deforestation in one of Guatemala’s largest protected areas, where squatters are clearing the rainforest to make room for settlements,…
‘Many features of the Amazon are man-made’: Q&A with archaeologist Eduardo Neves
Neves has studied human occupation of the Amazon for 30 years and found evidence of rice, manioc and palm tree cultivation dating back thousands of years.
Mexico approves mining reforms to protect environment, Indigenous people
MEXICO CITY — A major reform approved by congress last week is supposed to limit harmful practices by the mining industry and improve protections for the environment and Indigenous peoples.…
A frontline view of the fight against illegal mining in Yanomami territory
YANOMAMI INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil – Four officers from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, throw themselves from a helicopter into the murky waters of the Uraricoera River below and swim toward…
Brazil’s President Lula recognizes six Indigenous lands, and says more to come
SÃO PAULO — Last Friday, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed documents officially recognizing six Indigenous lands across the country. After years of stalling due to opposition by…
Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
Between 2019 and 2021, swarms of desert locusts̨ swept across the Horn of Africa and East Africa. In response, the worst-affected countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, sprayed millions of hectares of…
Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
KORK THLORK, Cambodia — Vorn Keo, perched on the edge of a green wooden boat, navigates through the flooded forest of Tonle Sap Lake and across the boundary into a…
Cambodian activists commemorate 11th anniversary of Chut Wutty’s murder
PHNOM PENH — On the morning of April 26, a handful of activists took to the streets of the Cambodian capital to commemorate the 11th anniversary of environmentalist Chut Wutty’s…
Bangladesh’s vultures still threatened by poison despite conservation actions
Authorities investigating the discovery of 14 dead vultures in a feeding zone that’s meant to be safe for the scavenging birds have found that they died from eating poisoned bait…
Mouth of the Amazon oil exploration clashes with Lula’s climate promises
State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Madagascar: What happens to villagers when a graphite mine comes knocking?
AMBOHITSY HAUT, Madagascar — Etsizakay, 40, stood amid the rugged knolls of his village, Ambohitsy Haut, and pointed right. “That’s where my brother is buried,” he said. “There ahead are…
The U.S. has cataloged its forests. Now comes the hard part: Protecting them
Environmental groups doled out general praise, with caveats, for a new inventory by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that identified 112.8 million acres (45.6 million…
U.N. parties are worlds apart on plastics treaty solutions
As 175 countries prepare to gather in May to move ahead on a global plastics treaty, the world’s plastic-producing and plastic-polluted countries remain divided on whether the agreement should be mandatory or voluntary, among many other issues.
