JAKARTA — Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres, about the size of Switzerland) of land nationwide that had been used for plantations, mining or other…
Environmental crime used to be treated as a niche concern, a worry for park rangers, customs officers and a handful of conservation lawyers. Not anymore. From Vienna to Belém, a…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced what it describes as a sweeping, science-based effort to reassess environmental governance, zoning and corporate accountability in the wake of floods and landslides…
JAKARTA — Best known as the home of the world’s rarest great ape, the mountainous Batang Toru forest landscape on the island of Sumatra has become a test case for…
Diego Cardeñosa always knew he wanted to study sharks. But when he started his Ph.D., he had to make a choice: tagging sharks in the field — the “fun,” typically…
BWEYEYE, Rwanda — Josephine Irandwanahafi sits in a small, musty provisions shop off the main road in Bweyeye, a border town that marks the entrance from southern Rwanda into Burundi.…
Brazil’s Ministério Público Federal has demonstrated how an ambitious corps of prosecutors can foster compliance with environmental laws. After charges are filed and indictments served, however, the forum for law…
NYUNGWE NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda — It’s a cool morning in the montane rainforest of western Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park. Sunbeams stream down from the canopy, glowing in the mist. Birdsong…
The amount of single-use plastic that gets recycled as a measure to manage plastic pollution is insignificant in Bangladesh. However, some small-scale ventures working in this sector are trying to…
In October, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at California's Otay Mesa border crossing noticed an odd bulge inside a man's pants. Jesse Agus Martinez, a U.S. citizen who…
The crow-sized, slate-blue-backed peregrine falcon, with its bright yellow feet, soars across the skies from Greenland’s Arctic tundra to the steppe plains of Patagonia in South America. Falco peregrinus is…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Two infant siamang gibbons cling to each other. Barely 6 months old, their lanky limbs entwine their tiny bodies as they stare out of the triage cage,…
In the coal towns of northern KwaZulu-Natal, the promise of South Africa’s “just transition” feels like a distant dream. While government plans speak of a fair shift to clean energy…
The most powerful individuals in courtrooms are the judges. Their leadership is essential for bringing any type of reform to fruition, be it an anti-corruption campaign or an ‘all-of-government’ drive…
COLOMBO — In a landmark ruling hailed as a major victory for Sri Lanka’s wildlife conservation, the Colombo High Court in September convicted a person for the illegal possession of…
Two years after Samuel Abayateye went missing from a fishing boat he was tasked with monitoring, Ghanaian authorities are no closer to announcing what happened to him. They also still…
A lower court in the Jakarta suburb of Bogor ruled in October in favor of environmental scientists Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis, dismissing a lawsuit brought by Borneo plantation…
Some legal systems have a civil procedure that empowers a group of people to join forces to create a temporary entity (class), which they use to seek judicial redress from…
All the Pan Amazon nations have legal systems based on Civil (Napoleonic) Law, where courts follow rules established by ‘codes’, which are statutory rulebooks that describe specific infractions and their…
NUSA PENIDA, Indonesia — Two young conservation workers rattle up on a motorbike and dismount at the edge of a coconut grove. Picking through husks, fallen fronds and stray plastic…
ANTANANARIVO — Ninety-five percent of lemur species are threatened by habitat loss, hunting and climate change. The direct threat is often understood to result from the actions of poor rural…
After 11 years, the Alto Tamaya Saweto community has finally received confirmation of convictions in the 2014 murders of Indigenous Ashéninka leaders Edwin Chota, Jorge Ríos, Leoncio Quintanísima and Francisco…
JAKARTA — Flooding disasters in Indonesia are increasingly traced not to natural causes, but to corporate destruction of peatlands, NGO Pantau Gambut warns in its newest report. The report reveals…
Officials in Guatemala have announced plans to occupy a recently closed oil field with the aim of increasing enforcement in protected areas badly hit by organized crime. The Xan oil…
Researchers have developed the first model to map how supply and demand interact in Indonesia’s highly lucrative songbird trade, revealing patterns that could help curb poaching pressure on rare and…
Rainforests have long played a central role in Liberia. Home to hundreds of thousands of people, they’re a source of sustenance, a site for cultural practice and habitat for forest…
Around half of West Africa’s remaining rainforests are in the small coastal nation of Liberia. They’re home to species like western chimpanzees and pygmy hippos, valuable stands of hardwood —…
Ghana has adopted a new fisheries act that introduces a series of regulations aimed at restoring severely depleted pelagic fish stocks and tackling illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. “The…
The CAR is an obligatory land registry for all rural properties in Brazil. The CAR was created because the national rural land registry (Sistema Nacional de Cadastro Rural (SNCR) developed…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s courts have ordered plantation companies to pay more than 21 trillion rupiah ($1.3 billion), an amount 28 times the environment ministry’s entire annual budget, for forest and…
MUARA KATE, Indonesia — More than eight months after the bloody killing of an Indigenous elder in eastern Borneo, police in Indonesia have yet to name a suspect, while community…
MEXICO CITY – About two dozen police officers, government officials and a data specialist sat side by side in a command center in northern Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. For two weeks,…
