Plans for a major mining project in western Suriname have sounded alarms in nearby Indigenous communities, who say that the project will destroy local ecosystems, violate their land rights and…
As the demand for critical minerals intensifies with the energy transition, the need for a rights-based approach to mining, focused on respect, is more relevant than ever. This approach relies…
A women-led reforestation effort has planted millions of mangrove trees with a high survival rate across swamps in Nigeria’s oil-rich and severely degraded Niger Delta. For decades, the Ogoni people…
Environmentalist Justin Landry Chekoua says he’s shocked by images of century-old trees uprooted and rivers contaminated in the northern Sangha region of the Republic of Congo. Mongabay had taken photos…
Across South America, Indigenous communities have often considered territorial protection to be the main responsibility of men, while women typically assume roles as caretakers of the household, family, and community.…
South America recorded the highest number of fire outbreaks in 14 years in 2024, with Brazil at the epicenter of the crisis.
MOCOA, Colombia — A bonfire crackles in the center of an Indigenous open-air pavilion atop a hill in the Putumayo jungle, adding warmth to the already sweltering Amazonian heat. The…
JAKARTA — In a controversial speech, Indonesia’s new president argued oil palm plantations are like forests, calling for their expansion by stating, ‘oil palms are trees … they’ve got leaves.’”…
Traditional people need more financing, better access to energy and improved roads to get their products into the market.
In 2015, AquaBounty Technologies became the first company in North America, and likely the world, to get regulatory approval to sell a genetically engineered animal for human consumption. Its Atlantic…
The Amazon Rainforest, where next year’s COP30 climate summit will be hosted, is reeling from two consecutive years of severe drought, with major rivers at record lows, leading to water shortages and transportation disruptions for local communities.
SILVANIA, Colombia — On a warm but overcast afternoon, hundreds of Indigenous representatives and spiritual leaders gathered to witness a remarkable convergence of native nations from across the Americas. Serving…
2024 was a year marked by a COP climate summit so dismal that many governments and analysts questioned whether the annual meetings are even worth holding. While world leaders failed…
Indigenous and local knowledge systems’ ability to nurture human-nature interconnection can play an important role in creating the type of transformative change needed to address the underlying causes of biodiversity…
The world lost many conservationists, Indigenous leaders, and environmentalists in 2024. Their lives were devoted to safeguarding the planet’s biodiversity, protecting vulnerable communities, and advocating for justice in the face…
EAST HALMAHERA, Indonesia — Halik Fanen and his wife, Fatimun, spent much of the day sifting the couple’s inheritance into seven plastic sacks near the east of Indonesia’s Halmahera Island.…
One of the main observers of the art of the Kadiwéu, an Indigenous people from South America, was French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. In the early 20th century, he visited Indigenous…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s plan to clear rainforests half the size of Switzerland for sugarcane plantations isn’t just an agricultural gamble, experts warn — it’s a potential environmental catastrophe. A new…
In the late 1990s, the Kichwa community of Sani Isla, in northern Ecuador's Amazon region, learned that the oil company Occidental (Oxy) had plans to conduct exploration on their communal…
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…
2024 was a big year for Indigenous lands worldwide, whether through land rights gains, land grabbing, restoring spiritual connections to lands, or analyzing how these lands support biodiversity conservation. Land…
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — When President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked up the ramp of the Presidential Palace arm in arm with Cacique Raoni, one of Brazil's most prominent…
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant. YURIMAGUAS, Alto Amazonas, Peru — The boat sets sail early in the morning. The plan is to…
Twelve countries, including Brazil, are currently discussing the Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF) framework, which is expected to be concluded by next January.
This year marks the second full year of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowships. Participants, selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants around the world, spend six months…
In 15 conservation units, illegal gold miners destroyed 330 hectares (815 acres) — an area close to the size of Central Park in New York City — in only two months.
"You're engulfed in waves of steam and sweating buckets and there's no cool water anywhere," Kenneth Feeley, a professor at the University of Miami, tells Mongabay. He’s describing the Boiling…
You could be forgiven for thinking there’s no water in the Atacama Desert. In fact, the driest desert on Earth has underground springs that feed the Chaxa, Cejar and Tebenquiche…
JAKARTA — In recent United Nations biodiversity conferences, global leaders have championed Indigenous peoples as critical partners in achieving conservation goals. Indonesia, as a signatory to an international treaty on…
KITABU, Uganda — It’s mid-afternoon in Kitabu, a small town nestled in the hills of western Uganda at the foot of the Rwenzori mountains. Neatly manicured plots of beans and…
Major banks, including Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, are still failing to implement the full scope of U.N. human rights principles, a new report has found. The report by finance watchdog…
“I tried to live a normal life,” Yana, 31, tells Mongabay. In 2020, after the Philippine government forcibly shut down schools for the Indigenous Lumad in the country’s south, Yana,…
