SOUTH PESISIR, Indonesia — Bendri lived with his wife and child just 80 meters, or 260 feet, back from the Surantih Mudiak Dalam River, which flows from Sumatra’s Barisan Mountains…
Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.
With more than 70% of the country blanketed by tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a megadiverse country home to more than 5% of the world’s biodiversity, including charismatic…
Developers have rolled out the first ever interactive online tool to track all funding for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples’ forest stewardship and land tenure. The Path to…
SERAM ISLAND, Indonesia — Samadin Samalehu paced up and down the beach in Haya village this past January, gathering human remains into a plastic bag. A heavy rain had begun…
“Don’t go to Zabaleta because they’re going to kill you.” “Why are they going to kill me if I haven’t done anything?” “They’re going to kill you, please don’t go…
PALMAR SUR, Costa Rica — “Once, we were digging to build a fence for the animals and we discovered by luck some archaeological artifacts,” says Ana Isabel Vargas Ortiz, a…
The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near…
It’s a hot and humid afternoon in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Our contact at Burapha Agro-Forestry welcomes us to an empty boardroom full of maps. The meeting goes smoothly,…
MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — At the end of November last year, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Sinomine Resource Group chair Wang Pingwei walked into a lithium processing plant, construction hats firmly…
Ford and Mercedes-Benz lead the automotive world in working to clean up their supply chains, according to a new report with rankings endorsed by a labor and environmental civil society…
NARRA, Philippines — At the foothills of the Victoria-Anepahan Mountains in the Philippines’ Palawan province, the Indigenous Tagbanua have lived with the rhythms of nature for generations. They rely on…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Land-grabbing, lack of consultation, communities wiped off maps and impunity. These are the serious accusations made against the mining company Alphamin Bisie Mining…
Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.
By now, dozens of countries have some version of a forestry incentive program, with the government paying local property owners to keep their trees in the ground. But a lot…
SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and…
Amazonian states have gone largely unrepresented at the top of the Brazilian judicial system for decades, a political distortion that has spurred calls for reform.
It was a sunny day in Koh Lanta, an island known for tourism in Krabi Province, Thailand. Surrounding us were calming shades of blue and green, a white sandy beach…
PHNOM PENH — A new report published by Human Rights Watch on Feb. 28 details a litany of alleged abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project, which covers a vast…
Deep cultural connection to land and nature are inherent to the human experience and a birthright, says Jay Griffiths, author of WILD: An Elemental Journey (2006). But what happens when…
As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
In late December 2023, when communities in the southeastern Peruvian province of Cotabambas received a copy of proposed modifications to the Las Bambas copper mine, they were at first surprised,…
GELAM ISLAND, Indonesia — Not long ago, Suparyanto discovered that his family home on a small island off the west coast of Borneo was to become a quartz mine. “I…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Almost two years after a joint Mongabay investigation revealed systemic failure by Indonesia’s plantation industry to share gains with community farmers, countless small farmers have yet to…
SIDOARJO, Indonesia — On the eve of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, a group of people from across the country gathered at an impromptu art exhibition by the side…
After winning a historic lawsuit late last year, a traditional Afro-Brazilian community has finally obtained legal recognition of its land located in São Paulo’s Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park, a…
Scientists warn that 10% of the Amazon has a high risk of being converted into a drier and degraded ecosystem by 2050, while 47% has a moderate transitional risk.
KATHMANDU — Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his…
Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership — it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen…
JAKARTA — A massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera has cleared thousands of hectares of forest, forcefully displaced local people, and polluted the rivers…