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…
Latin American cartels once were masters of the drug trade, but spikes in prices led them into controlling a new venture.
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,…
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.…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
The Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon, has been losing water flow over the last 20 years while facing severe droughts.
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…
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.…
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…
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.
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 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.
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.
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…
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.
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.…
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…
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’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.
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…
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…