At the world’s first global congress of Indigenous peoples and local communities from forest basins, representatives began preparations to increase direct finance to community forest conservation — especially in the…
JAKARTA — United Nations rights officials have raised the alarm over alleged human rights abuses and environmental destruction linked to a massive plantation project in the Indonesian district of Merauke.…
Daniel Caniullán has been diving in the cold waters of the Guaitecas Archipelago in northern Patagonia, Chile, for more than 30 years. “Just by looking at the seabed landscape, you…
COLOMBO — Nestled in the eastern edge of Sri Lanka’s Uva province, Nilgala stands out as a landscape of remarkable ecological and cultural importance. Long overlooked in mainstream conservation efforts…
Mongabay published a five-part series delving into Brazil’s ongoing operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories, deep in the Amazon Rainforest. While there has been some disruption…
Not all agroforestry projects are funded equally, suggests a new comment paper published in Nature Climate Change. Integrating crops into existing forests is an often overlooked agroforestry method to store…
Mambélé, CAMEROON — When most 18-year-olds envision their future, few imagine carrying heavy loads through dense equatorial forest. Yet for Marlyse Bebeguewa, now a 38-year-old forest monitoring consultant in Cameroon’s…
In southern Chile’s Huequi Peninsula, residents recently built a fishing pen meant to catch hundreds of fish that feed entire communities. They’d already noticed that fish stocks were declining, and…
Elected officials in the Brazilian Amazon have embraced the rhetoric of sustainable development, and most support programs that promote sustainable production paradigms. Nonetheless, most also continue to support investments in…
The United Nations Ocean Conference, held June 9-13 in Nice, France, saw some progress on better protecting the hundreds of thousands of species that live in marine waters and the…
MAE HONG SON, Thailand — The shores of Myanmar became visible from Sob Moei village in northeastern Thailand as the morning mist rises over the Salween River, the flowing water…
As Linda Alvarado, a young Indigenous Yine leader, travels through the forest in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, she collects clusters of murumuru seeds. These honeycomb-shaped structures fall from…
A Brazilian state was set to close a massive $180 million carbon credit deal, but now faces an escalating legal battle, accused of violating national laws and Indigenous rights, potentially ruining the project.
This is part five of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories. Read part one, part two, part three, and part four. “We’re…
Virunga is Africa’s first national park, created by Belgian royal decree in 1925. Named for the mountains that straddle the borders between modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda,…
Three communities in Papua New Guinea are waiting for the country’s Supreme Court to decide whether their concerns about the dumping of mine waste in the sea near their homes…
I’m in Nice, France, this week attending the U.N. Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has suspended nickel mining in the Raja Ampat archipelago, citing multiple environmental violations by companies operating in the ecologically sensitive islands. The move follows viral…
Brazil, which accounts for large reserves of nickel, graphite, rare earths, lithium and niobium, would be one of the most affected countries.
BANGGAI ISLANDS, Indonesia — Dewdrops cling to weeds in the Banggai archipelago as Deslin Kalaeng grasps a large round root vegetable from the ancient karst. “That’s the Banggai yam,” she…
Back in 2010, Peru and Brazil signed an energy agreement that included the construction of several hydroelectric power plants in the Peruvian Amazon, which were meant to provide power to…
In the late 1990s, academics developed a variant of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) methodology known as a strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Originally conceived as a super-EIA, the scope of…
While oil prospects in the Amazon north shore attract international attention, the offer of exploration blocks around Indigenous territories goes unnoticed in Mato Grosso state.
The EIA is an integral (high-profile) component of regulatory process that has evolved over the last couple of decades to extend ‘upstream’ into the planning process and ‘downstream’ into the…
Before 1988, Brazil had no contingency plans for unexpected encounters with Indigenous peoples living in isolation. If government officials, developers or explorers accidentally stumbled upon a camp, the protocol was…
KLAMATH, California — The Pacific Ocean fog hung densely over the narrow mouth of the Klamath River in this coastal rainforest in northern California. Redwood, Douglas fir and alder disappeared…
In June 2019, an early morning flash flood swept through the Bien La commune in northwestern Vietnam, ravaging crops and farmlands belonging to 60 families. The cause: the Su Pan…
MAE HONG SON, Thailand — The flashlight bouncing off the cave walls stopped abruptly as Sakda Khayankitphuanphon came to a halt in the dark. Scarcely 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from…
EAST HALMAHERA, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia’s North Maluku province arrested 27 people and charged 11 of them with weapons offenses and commercial obstruction in late May following conflict with…
SINGAPORE — The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is under fire for a risk classification system that critics say overlooks illegal logging and governance failures — potentially undermining the very goal…
The Brazilian environmental agency, IBAMA, approved a license to blast a natural rock barrier on the Tocantins River in Pará state to enable boats to pass during the dry season, as part of wider efforts to build a massive waterway for commodities.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has revoked the environmental permit of a controversial zinc-and-lead mine being developed in a, earthquake-prone zone on the island of Sumatra, in what activists say…
