Singapore’s highest court has acquitted a businessman who brought Malagasy rosewood valued at $50 million into the city-state. The verdict on April 8 reversed the ruling of a lower court…
An illegal timber trade supply chain stretching from Chinese companies operating out of two countries in West Africa to major hardware stores located throughout the U.S. has been uncovered. A…
RANONG, Thailand — Beyond a metal gate in Ranong, a port town in southern Thailand, a warehouse is filled nearly wall to wall and floor to ceiling with bags of…
Before becoming the chief of police at the Police Specialized in Crimes Against the Environment (DEMA) in the northern Brazilian state of Amapá, Leonardo Brito had never worked in the environmental field…
Ten European companies have been accused of importing illegally-harvested timber from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by Global Witness. The watchdog group said earlier this month that the…
A secretive timber kingpin who died last year has been unmasked as the shadowy figure at the center of a vast network that illegally sources teak, deliberately misgrades it to…
An upcoming Amazon Synod at which Catholic clergy from nine Amazon nations will discuss ecological, indigenous and climate issues is seen by Brazil as international interference.
Peru’s placing of its independent OSINFOR forest inspection agency in the Ministry of Environment – likely a U.S. trade agreement violation – is a serious setback in Amazon illegal logging fight.
According to a recent report by Global Witness, there is evidence of disarray and illegality in Peru’s timber industry. The report focuses on the regions of Loreto, Ucayali, and Madre…
An influential group of U.S. senators, including possible candidates for the 2020 presidential race Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, is calling on investment firms to take responsibility for deforestation caused…
Central Island province in the Solomon Islands has blocked new logging and mining operations in an apparent attempt to halt the degradation of the archipelago’s sensitive ecosystems. “With timber on…
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Guyana has initialed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) to tackle illegal logging, improve forest management and boost the legal timber trade in…
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.
On his first day in office, Brazil’s new president shifted the demarcation responsibility for indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, potentially putting the Amazon at risk, critics say.
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.
Companies and their investors are exposing themselves to massive legal and financial risks by trading, sometimes unwittingly, in products derived from illegally harvested timber, according to a new report. Published earlier…
It is easy to forget that change starts with one person. In a world that is increasingly connected through mobile phones and the internet, especially social media, it is easier…
Agribusiness desperately wants Grainrail built, but it poses a clear threat to 20 indigenous territories, and to the livelihoods of Amazonia’s truckers. A battle could be brewing.
Floor & Decor, a leading flooring retailer in the United States, has continued to purchase products that contain tropical timber from Indusparquet, a supplier in Brazil, despite accusations that the…
Ukraine appears to have stalled in a “massive crackdown” on corruption and illegality in its timber sector, according to the group that exposed the practices. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman launched…
China’s imports of timber from Papua New Guinea (PNG) are winnowing away the country’s forests, according to a group of NGOs, researchers and landowners. Without action by Chinese leaders, they…
HO CHI MINH CITY — The European Union has signed an agreement to support Vietnam’s forest governance improvement goals, aimed at ensuring that the timber it imports from the Southeast…
Alarmed by the entry of poachers who illegally cut down and stole the oldest trees from their territory, members of the Shawi indigenous community organized an assembly this past August…
November 6 is the UN’s International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. A decade after a tragic war in Liberia that was largely…
LONDON — A broad alliance of 30 global banks and financial institutions have pledged to stop wildlife trafficking by pressuring the pocketbooks of criminal syndicates. Tracking the flow of “dirty…
HANOI — Cambodia has asked Interpol to investigate Vietnam after accusing its neighbor of knowingly accepting fraudulent permits for rare, illegally logged rosewood timber for transport across their shared border.…
Top recent stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, include a multi-country series on illegal logging, traveling coral larvae, and a treaty to protect environmental defenders. Peru’s millennial trees could…
The imminent election this month of far right Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president poses threats to the environment, indigenous people, and the global climate.