Following regulatory changes and heavier enforcement of the gold trade, the Amazonian municipality of Itaituba, notorious as Brazil’s illegal gold capital, is struggling to deal with the new restrictions.
JAKARTA — Residents of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province have filed a lawsuit against three pulpwood companies for a toxic haze that they blame on repeated burning in their concessions. The…
LUBOK PUSAKA, Indonesia — Jaharuddin, 50, sits deep in thought in his living room in Lubok Pusaka village, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, smoking a cigarette and staring out the door.…
River levels in parts of the Brazilian Amazon are even lower than in 2023, when the region experienced its worst drought.
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…
For the last two decades, countries around the world have been in a frenzy to earmark large swaths of their lands and waters as protected areas to meet the ambitious…
That amounts to 1.5 metric tons of the precious metal in 2023, sourced from wildcat mines known as garimpos, which have a long history of illegality and opaqueness.
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…
Fire outbreaks are setting records all over Brazil, with flames burning the Amazon, the Cerrado, the Pantanal and the São Paulo state.
A growing trend for macabre dead bat ornaments sold via online merchants, many of them based in the United States, is driving unsustainable harvesting from the wild. A new study…
With the past 10 years, the hottest on record, and four days in July the hottest ever recorded, the climate emergency is coming ever more into focus. Directly linked to…
The article, published in Nature Sustainability, concluded that the domestic market answered for three times more deforestation than international sales.
In 2004, nomadic herders in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert faced a daunting prospect. One of the world’s largest copper-gold mines, Oyu Tolgoi, was settling in, and herder communities were being forced…
Bangladesh, a signatory nation of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), has failed to control illegal bird trade and has recently been…
Local and Indigenous communities in Suriname are speaking out about a new carbon credit trading scheme that they say the government pushed through without consulting them. They’re worried they’ve been…
It’s been a little over a decade since China launched its Belt and Road Initiative, a global program to improve relations with Latin America and other developing regions through trillions…
A law that would protect a massive stretch of Argentina’s seafloor is running out of time for a parliamentary vote, and conservationists are racing to raise awareness before they run…
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…
Every day, decisions are made worldwide that generate substantial profits but cause severe environmental harm. This degradation affects everyone, including the decision-makers themselves. Business is not immune to externalities: climate…
MPONDOLAND, South Africa — The day the prospectors came, so did the storm. It was 2007, and clouds barreled toward the coast, driven by a wind that churned up dust…
In Bolivia’s Madidi National Park, the Andes and the Amazon meet. Their landscapes gaze upon each other, converge and embrace with the full force of their diverse and vast vegetation.…
Acre's population experienced a flood at the start of 2024 and is now suffering from water shortages due to the severe drought.
Brazilian environmental agents and the federal government have agreed a deal to end a months-long strike by the civil servants.
The Russell’s viper was long thought to be nearly extinct in Bangladesh, where it is known as chandra bora, until about a decade ago. Wildlife biologists were unaware of the…
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a pillar of stability and opportunity for at least 16 million people worldwide, particularly in rural, impoverished communities. But with these pros also…
Indigenous communities across Brazil have suffered a wave of violence in recent weeks as the country reconsiders a controversial law that makes it harder to claim ancestral territory. The Supreme…
KATHMANDU — The list of alleged crimes and lies is long: accusations of forging local signatures, signing children's names on contracts, creating false reports, bulldozing through farmlands under the cover…
For Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Amazonian and Andean forests, coca is sacred. Many ancestral traditions, such as healing and shamanic practices, include the use and cultivation of the plant. But…
With heat waves becoming a significant struggle, especially in urban India, many people are moving to hill stations with work-from-home options, seeking respite in states like Uttarakhand, at the seat…
Sustainable forest management plans in the Brazilian Amazon are intended to ensure compliance with strict environmental rules, but many are used fraudulently as cover for illegal logging, according to new research.
GORONTALO, Indonesia — A palm oil industry body and a state-owned company are proposing a vast new palm oil plan encompassing around 1 million hectares (nearly 2.5 million acres) of…
Vietnamese energy expert Ngô Thị Tố Nhiên was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison late last month, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. Vietnam’s government has not made…
