The year 2024 saw significant developments in tropical rainforest conservation, deforestation, and degradation. While progress in some regions provided glimmers of hope, systemic challenges and emerging threats highlighted the fragility…
Zooming in on the Peruvian jungle, many hectares of deforestation can be seen amid the thick vegetation, like huge scars hidden among the foliage. They’re dispersed between the forests in…
SIEM REAP, Cambodia — Chhoeung Chheng, a journalist covering environmental issues for local online news outlet Kampuchea Aphiwat News, has died of his injuries after being shot in Siem Reap province…
The boat comes to a halt, shuddering against the dirt bank that rises from the edge of the Ucayali River. Sixto, tanned and with a frown cutting deep furrows across…
The hum of a small plane is heard overhead during a community assembly, but no one looks up. Conversation rises naturally over the sound as the engine’s intense roar fades…
The audience erupts into cheers and applause. The emcee has just announced the four finalists of the “Miss Juan Chávez Muquinuy” beauty pageant, who take the stage for their final…
Imagine you purchased a swanky new chair. The paperwork claims the piece of furniture was made from legally sourced wood. But how can you be sure? After all, global supply…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — Six environmental activists in Cambodia have been released without charge after being arrested and held for nearly three days by Cambodian military. The activists, including Ouch Leng,…
Parties members of the European People’s Party (EPP), a large center-right political party, received political donations from influential companies linked to illegal deforestation and which are likely to benefit from…
Nov. 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon; the suspects haven’t been tried yet.
This is the second part of a Mongabay series investigating Cambodia's illicit timber trade. Read Part One. Several Cambodian journalists helped to report this investigation, but have requested not to…
This is the first part of a Mongabay series investigating Cambodia’s illicit timber trade. Read Part Two. Several Cambodian journalists contributed to this report, but have requested anonymity due to…
PHNOM PENH — In a rare move to combat forest crimes, Cambodian Environment Minister Eang Sophalleth on Sept. 2 banned all forest clearance at the site of a dam project in…
Honduras this year launched a plan to eliminate deforestation by 2029, with a special focus on recovering land used by criminal groups for timber trafficking. Officials have already carried out…
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…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — Rain poured down in torrential sheets as Ouk Mao guided reporters through the winding dirt tracks that were, in August, rutted with deep trenches of mud and…
JAKARTA — Indonesian conservationist Farwiza Farhan says she couldn’t contain her tears when she learned that the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation had selected her as a recipient of its Emergent…
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…
This is the second of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part One. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — “Fifteen years ago, this whole village was…
This is the first of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part Two. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track…
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.
The raid occurred two weeks after Mongabay showed the links between the REDD+ projects and a suspected logging scam.
According to the investigators, the group was running land-grabbing and timber laundering crimes in the Amazon for more than a decade and profiting millions of dollars.
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…
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…
An analysis of two carbon credit projects in the Brazilian Amazon has found that they may be connected to illegal timber laundering.
A wide strip of land cuts through the dense Amazon canopy in Peru’s Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve as shown by a photograph taken during a flyover on March 15, 2024. The…
MONROVIA — Chainsaw-milled timber is emerging as a damaging new form of illegal logging in Liberia. Chainsaw milling is legally permitted only for small-scale production of boards for the country’s…
SOUTH PESISIR, Indonesia — Bendri lived with his wife and child just 80 meters, or 260 feet, back from the Surantih Mudiak Dalam River, which flows from Sumatra’s Barisan Mountains…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four…
This story is part of a Mongabay series on female environmental defenders in the Amazon. Read about the lives and work of Soraida Chindoy, Maydany Salcedo, and Etelvina Ramos. “Don’t…
