PORTO ALEGRE — On the set of I’m Still Here (2024), the acclaimed Brazilian film by Walter Salles Jr., supporting actress Angela Ribeiro was approached by a woman with red…
For Indigenous peoples and local communities across Central and South America, financial opportunities from voluntary carbon markets come with both benefits and risks. Working with the Rainforest Foundation Norway and…
The return of the floating structures shows the resilience of illegal gold mining in the Amazon, which destroys the riverbeds and contaminates the water with mercury.
In December 2024, Ecuador completed a debt-for-nature swap to support Amazon conservation through the creation of the Amazon Biocorridor. While this provides economic relief, Amazonian leaders contend they were not…
Honey-hunters in northern Mozambique rely on honeyguide birds to locate three-quarters of their harvest each year, a new study says, underscoring the economic value these wild birds play in the…
Ayuuk leader Arnoldo Nicolás Romero, a municipal commissioner of the Buena Vista ejido in San Juan Guichicovi, a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was found dead…
LELILEF SAWAI, Indonesia — Hernemus Takuling’s life in this coastal village has changed ever since construction began on the Weda Bay Industrial Park, which borders Lelilef Sawai, home to around…
The last time Ecuador held elections, in 2023, the country’s national assembly had been dissolved and then-President Guillermo Lasso had faced potential impeachment for a corruption scandal involving embezzlement of…
In Finland’s freezing Arctic, lakes and rivers have nourished the lifeways of Indigenous Skolt Sámi communities for generations as they fished and herded reindeer. But three years of research undertaken…
In the summer of 1948, naturalist Charles J. Guiguet spent four months on the Goose Island Archipelago, a cluster of tree-covered islands with wild, rocky beaches located off the central…
Brazilian Amazon states are leading an offensive against environmental regulations in the Amazon and beyond.
More than a year late, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation has finally submitted its response to an investigation that found evidence of grave human rights violations at the Salala…
Each year, thousands of migratory birds such as the colorful African pygmy goose, maccoa duck and African spoonbill stop at the Cleveland Dam wetland in Zimbabwe to breed and rest.…
Gold mining has exploded in Nicaragua over the past few years, bringing in billions of dollars and becoming the country’s top export, surpassing even coffee and beef. International sanctions against…
The Arctic region has shifted from storing carbon dioxide to releasing it into the atmosphere, according to the 2024 Arctic Report Card released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric…
Over the last several decades, La Mosquitia has become one of the most dangerous regions of Honduras. Drug trafficking, cattle ranching and illegal logging have pushed into the isolated forests…
Human rights are not just words on paper. Advocates, social movements and government champions have brought much needed positive changes by pushing for the adoption of international human rights standards…
Once estimated as 20,000 in the territory, hundreds of illegal miners still remain and may expand business at the slightest sign of the security forces withdrawing.
International organizations and government agencies providing funds to support conservation have at times found that their money has been tied to human rights violations. This can include armed eco-guards they…
Unprecedented images of uncontacted Indigenous people in Brazil’s Massaco Indigenous Territory, in the Amazon region, have prompted a push for greater enforcement to protect the land of these vulnerable populations.
Three Indigenous communities in Peru’s Amazon are no longer engaging in unsustainable or illegal forest activities to make ends meet as they complete one year of a conservation basic income…
Rodrigo Agostinho, head of IBAMA, Brazil's federal environmental agency, for two years now, spoke with Mongabay about the progress of his agency and the challenges it faces in protecting the country's biomes after four years of regression under former president Jair Bolsonaro.
The World Bank has cancelled a $150 million project to boost tourism to Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park, following allegations of human rights abuses by park authorities. Under the Tanzanian government’s…
Intense protests flared up last December in communities opposed to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s plans to build two maximum-security prisons in sensitive ecosystems and Indigenous territories without consulting local populations.…
Several years ago, I took a solo trip to the Huánuco region of the central Peruvian Amazon. After traveling five hours from the nearest town by car, boat and tuk-tuk,…
On the slopes of Mount Kalatungan, a protected area on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, rows of robusta coffee shrubs thrive alongside tropical hardwoods like lauan. The…
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.
