The promise of an exclusive university for the Indigenous peoples of the Upper Solimões region, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, persuaded leaders from at least six territories to sign pre-contracts with…
SASIMWANI, Kenya — On a cold November afternoon, Esther Norparua and two of her daughters sat on the ground outside her homestead facing the forest. Dark clouds gathered, but the…
Nepal’s community forestry program has been hailed as a success for helping increase the country’s forest cover from 26% to 45% in 25 years. As part of the program, pioneered…
This year’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, featured much-improved Indigenous representation from last year’s event. Yet despite intensive lobbying by the more than 300 delegates, most Indigenous and civil society leaders…
On the afternoon of November 29, Quinto Inuma Alvarado, Indigenous Kichwa leader and chief of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered in front of his family with three…
On Nov. 17, Ecuador’s highest court ruled in favor of Indigenous and local communities by rejecting a controversial decree that promised to shape how environmental consultations are carried out. Decree…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…
On Wednesday, Brazil’s Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP) put 602 new oil blocks up for auction, at least 21 of which are in the Amazon River Basin. This is…
Both Lula and the Supreme Court have previously called the measures in the bill unconstitutional and against public interests, and Indigenous organizations announced they will challenge the law.
The government of Papua New Guinea has declared two large new marine protected areas, capping a six-year effort in consultation with local communities on how to curtail the harvest of…
The government of Suriname has made plans to appropriate a massive stretch of the Amazon Rainforest for projects related to agriculture and livestock. If finalized, the deal could allow unprecedented…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the…
Five policy briefs released at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai call for urgently protecting the Amazon Rainforest from degenerating into a dry savanna, providing insights about what drives destruction…
JAKARTA — A coalition of civil organizations has launched a tool to support local NGOs and community groups in Southeast Asia to secure financing for nature-based solutions projects. The tool…
PHNOM PENH — “This book won’t stop deforestation, but it can show what’s at stake, what we will lose if we lose Prey Lang,” said Nerea Turreira-Garcia, assistant professor at…
Canadian mining company Belo Sun has filed a lawsuit against community leaders and environmental rights groups for allegedly invading and occupying company-owned land, in a case the defendants are calling…
Wolves, with their widespread distribution from North America to Eurasia, are ecologically vital as keystone species, playing a critical role in maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems by regulating…
“They are going to flood the Tapayuna people’s history,” says Yaku Suya, a 43-year-old Indigenous leader from the village of Tyrykho, in Xingu Indigenous Park in the heart of the…
In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi), in the tropical montane forests on the Amazonian slope of the Andes in…
A recent peer-reviewed study finds that community tropical forest management is a predictor of multiple positive outcomes, both socially and for the environment. According to the paper, published in Nature…
This year’s COP28 kicked off in Dubai on Nov. 30 and saw Amazonian countries arriving with a string of environmental triumphs since the last climate summit hosted in Egypt. While…
Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, president the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered last Wednesday, November 29, in the San Martín region of the Peruvian Amazon. The crime took…
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost South Papua province have lambasted a court’s decision to reject their lawsuit that seeks to overturn an environmental permit for a palm oil…
A severe drought across the Amazon Rainforest continues to be felt along the Tapajós River in Brazil’s state of Pará, where locals say it “is the worst one ever.”
KATHMANDU — In the isolated kingdom of Lo Manthang, tucked away in Nepal’s Himalayas, ancient structures stand tall on arid lands that only allowed tourists in from the late 1990s.…
Funders of the historic $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they have disbursed about 48% of the money meant to bolster the land rights of…
The biggest timber firm in Malaysia’s Sarawak state has been able to maintain sustainability certification despite clearing forests for oil palm plantations and skipping steps in informing affected communities, according…
The Amazon has long been considered home to Indigenous peoples, dating back thousands of years. They worked the land in ways we are familiar with today. They built ditches, ponds,…
While Indigenous peoples comprise just 6% of the global population, they manage or have tenure rights over at least 38 million km2 in some 87 countries. In many places Indigenous…
The Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.