In 2002, a couple vacationing in Costa Rica, stunned by deforestation there, bought land and regrew a transitional cloud forest — a grassroots model worth emulating: Part two of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
MEXICO CITY — The sudden, unexpected construction of a hotel in the middle of a protected reserve in southern Mexico has surprised residents and left many conservationists scrambling to figure…
A Mongabay investigation into land-grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon has led to the suspension of the sustainability certificate of the country's second top palm oil exporter, as shown in email correspondence…
In the first half of the 20th century, Mennonite communities fled Europe for South America and, over the intervening decades, established large colonies in Latin American countries such as Mexico,…
Illegal deforestation, wildcat mining, drug trafficking, and lethal violence: Name your scourge and the Amazon Basin seldom disappoints. But as an unusual compact between police officers, prosecutors, environmental protectors, and…
Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
The dry season of 2015 was a devastating one for Indonesia, with around 100,000 fires engulfing thousands of hectares of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands on the islands of Sumatra,…
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — In the middle of the Paraguayan portion of the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest, a paved road leads to the Mbya Indigenous community of Pindo’i. Roads in the…
A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…
JAKARTA — Deforestation associated with oil palm cultivation has declined in recent years in Indonesia, but in a biodiversity haven at the northern tip of Sumatra, the forest is being…
A wave of violence against Indigenous people in Nicaragua this month has drawn international outcry over the government’s lack of action against land invaders committing human rights violations and destroying…
JAKARTA — Funds from illegal logging, mining and fishing are flowing into election campaigns in Indonesia, authorities have revealed. The announcement by the national anti-money-laundering watchdog, known as the PPATK,…
Bearded pigs play a prominent role in the lives of many people living on the island of Borneo. For some ethnic groups, they're a hunter’s most-prized quarry, providing an important…
In 2015, researchers in Brazil started a project to address a tricky challenge: Reducing exposure to mercury contamination in the region of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the…
BACALAR, Mexico — Less than a decade ago the El Bajío ejido — a form of communal land in Mexico —consisted primarily of rainforest. Today, the landscape is vastly different,…
As biomass burning to make energy surges, nations are setting standards that fail to count carbon emissions at power plant smokestacks, worsening climate change even as those same countries dub biomass “carbon neutral.”
Scientists and activists have tirelessly campaigned for the protection of forests to mitigate rising global temperatures and preserve humanity’s future. For some local Amazonian communities, who depend on logging, mining…
Many of the people archaeologist Dulma Karunarathna interviews in rural Sri Lanka have never been interviewed before. And many of them, representing a variety of religions and languages, tell her…
Several regions of the world are at risk of losing their ability to store carbon, which could result in the drastic transformation of ecosystems and accelerated climate change, one recent…
Insetting is a nature-based climate solution used by brands that rely on agriculture to reduce carbon emissions in their supply chains. Critics say self-monitoring and verification may be weak.
Brazil has an unprecedented opportunity to secure $10 billion dollars or more over the next four years to move the Amazon region towards an equitable, forest-maintaining economy. The very real…
Jaguars have been feared and revered for centuries, inspiring rituals, cults, and, more recently, conservation concerns. Although jaguars’ known range extends from Mexico to Argentina, they’ve been eradicated from almost…
Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…
Over the past 15 years, First Nations in Haida Gwaii and central and northern coastal British Columbia, Canada, have turned the tables around: once subjected to massive economic, social and…
Bolivia’s failure to combat illegal gold mining generated a heated national debate last year. Numerous news sites published investigations into deforestation, pollution and corruption tied to the mining industry, while…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) In 2020, the Indonesian government set a goal of restoring 600,000 hectares, or nearly 1.5 million acres, of mangrove ecosystems by 2024. Progress toward that goal…
DRC community accuses Canadian miner of encroaching into their forests WALIKALE, Democratic Republic of Congo — For the past 10 years, a Canadian-registered company, Alphamin Bisie, has been mining tin…
SEPAKU/BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — In 1977, when Darna was about 8 years old, her family moved from Indonesia’s central island of Java to Borneo, its largest. They were among the tens…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow. SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “Us locals cannot source benefits from the forest…
Analysis of 40 years of climate temperature data shows a connection between Amazon tree loss and Tibetan snow decrease via a 20,000-kilometer oceanic and atmospheric pathway. West Antarctica is also impacted.