Indigenous guards: The shield of Colombia’s Amazon
In early February, in downtown Bogotá, Colombia, Luis Alfredo Acosta recited a line in a book from memory: “I am from the rainforest because I smell like the rainforest; I…
Land Conflict News
Organized crime & gold trade are increasingly connected, report shows
Latin American cartels once were masters of the drug trade, but spikes in prices led them into controlling a new venture.
Brazil’s Indigenous Akroá Gamella reclaim and restore their land, one patch at a time
For more than 12 years, the government of Viana municipality in Brazil’s Maranhão state dumped used needles and syringes into three springs in Tabarelzinho village, inside the Taquaritiua Indigenous Territory,…
UN calls out Indonesia’s Merauke food estate for displacing Indigenous communities
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.…
‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal under fire as Amazon prosecutors seek repeal
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.
Unnoticed oil & gas threat looms for Indigenous people near Amazon blocks
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.
Police in Indonesia’s Halmahera Island charge 11 farmers in latest nickel flashpoint
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…
Ahead of hosting COP30, Brazil is set to weaken environmental licensing
The new rules, considered unconstitutional by experts, would benefit around 80% of the ventures with a self-licensing process that exempts environmental impact studies and mitigation measures.
Amazon illegal gold mines drive sex trafficking in the Brazil-Guyana border
Poverty and poor border controls have allowed young women to be trafficked into the sex trade catering to illegal gold miners in Brazil’s border areas with countries like Guyana and Venezuela.
Deforestation and fires persist in Indonesia’s pulpwood and biomass plantations
JAKARTA — Industrial plantations of trees to make paper and wood pellets are causing widespread and persistent environmental and social violations in Indonesia, despite claims to the contrary by the…
Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push
Indonesia’s environment ministry plans to curb deforestation and push for environmental rehabilitation in response to industrial nickel mining on Kabaena Island, where severe ecological damage and the cultural and economic…
Indigenous rights advocates petition to overturn Indonesian conservation law
JAKARTA — For years, Mikael Ane, an Indigenous farmer from the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, has faced prison not for harming the environment, but for trying to protect…
Delay in land reform fuels new wave of settlers and violence in the Amazon
Grassroots organizations are settling new areas in the Brazilian Amazon amid disappointment that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been slow to jump-start the stalled land reform agenda.
Bolivia expels members of fake nation Kailasa over Indigenous land lease scandal
The United States of Kailasa maintains that it is a real nation. With this title, over the last three years, they have traveled to different countries in South America to…
‘We can’t talk solutions without understanding complexities: Kari Guajajara on Brazil’s Amazon
This is the last of three interviews with Indigenous representatives at the United Nations about the latest issues in their country's Amazon forests. Read the interview about the Peruvian Amazon…
At the U.N., mining groups tout protections for Indigenous peoples
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. In mid-April, the Trump administration cleared the way for a controversial copper mine proposed for western Arizona. The mine would destroy…
Amazon people brace for a drier future along the endangered Madeira River
The Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon, has been losing water flow over the last 20 years while facing severe droughts.
‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
This is the second of three interviews with Indigenous representatives at the United Nations about the latest issues in their country's Amazon forests. Read the interview about the Peruvian Amazon…
Military-backed plantation project in Indonesian Papua triggers rights concerns
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s national human rights commission has found a slew of legal and rights violations in a government-backed project to establish large-scale plantations in the eastern region of Papua.…
In Borneo village, Indigenous Dayaks leave farming amid stricter fire rules
MANTANGAI, Indonesia — The last time Remie recalled a good harvest season here in Central Kalimantan province was in 2018, when 20-liter bags of rice seed were piled against the…
Amazon illegal miners bypass enforcement by smuggling gold into Venezuela
Mongabay followed the steps of Adriano Aguiar de Castro, who, according to authorities, jumped from one gold laundering scheme to another and now is also involved with gold smuggling into Venezuela.
Ecuador communities resist Canada-backed gold mine in sacred highlands
This is the second part of a three-part series on underreported issues involving Canadian mining companies and Indigenous peoples or local communities. Read part one and part three. Shrouded in…
Illegal gold mining creeps within a kilometer of Amazon’s second-tallest tree
Illegal gold miners have been moving into Amapá in the wake of federal raids on mining hotspots in other parts of the Brazilian Amazon, including the Yanomami and Munduruku Indigenous territories.
Mongabay investigation spurs Brazil crackdown on illegal cattle in Amazon’s Arariboia territory
A Mongabay investigation that revealed an illegal cattle boom amid a record-high number of killings of Indigenous Guajajara has been cited by Brazilian authorities to remove thousands of head of cattle from the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Amazon Rainforest.
After decade of delays, pressure mounts on Indonesia to pass Indigenous rights bill
JAKARTA — Rights activists have lambasted Indonesia’s parliament for delaying yet again a long-awaited Indigenous rights bill — stuck in limbo for more than a decade — even as communities…
For scandal-ridden carbon credit industry, Amazon restoration offers redemption
As REDD projects around the world face setbacks, restoration projects in the Amazon are flourishing as a means of reviving market confidence in forest-based carbon credits.
What pushes Indigenous Munduruku people to mine their land in Brazil’s Amazon?
This is part three of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories. Read part one, part two and part four and part five.…
Palm oil company uses armed forces, tear gas against protesting villagers in Cameroon
Villagers in Cameroon have denounced the use of tear gas by authorities to break up their protest on March 25 against the replanting of oil palm trees by the plantation…
After outcry, Brazil Supreme Court nixes proposal for mining on Indigenous lands
Brazil's Supreme Court backed down and withdrew its proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution.
Brazil plans new Amazon routes linking the Pacific & China’s New Silk Road
Brazil’s plans to build ports and roads to help move grains, beef and iron ore from the rainforest echo a development vision that dates back to the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s.
Indigenous communities in Indonesia demand halt to land-grabbing government projects
JAKARTA — Hundreds of Indigenous people and civil society groups in Indonesia are demanding an end to government projects that have seized their lands, fueled violence, and stripped them of…
In ‘The Battle for Laikipia,’ the human face of resource conflict in Kenya
KIMANA, Kenya — Lush, fertile and green, the Laikipia highlands of Kenya are renowned for their beauty and abundant grasses that feed its wildlife and livestock. They’re also the theater…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- First-ever assessment highlights threats to Atlantic cold-water corals
- Major coral loss in Vietnam’s first marine protected area: Study
- When heat waves hit, clownfish shrink to survive, study finds
- Samoa’s new marine spatial plan protects 30% of the country’s ocean
Amazon Conservation
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- Indigenous Amazonians win landmark ruling against mercury pollution in Colombia
- Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
Endangered Environmentalists
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
