Honduras this year launched a plan to eliminate deforestation by 2029, with a special focus on recovering land used by criminal groups for timber trafficking. Officials have already carried out…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Supreme Court has become the last battleground for campaigners and conservationists, as knowledgeable civil society organizations remain largely silent on conservation issues with long-term repercussions. Looking at…
JAKARTA — Residents of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province have filed a lawsuit against three pulpwood companies for a toxic haze that they blame on repeated burning in their concessions. The…
JAKARTA — A controversial zinc-and-lead mine being developed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has hit a roadblock after the country’s Supreme Court ordered the revocation of its environmental permit.…
A growing trend for macabre dead bat ornaments sold via online merchants, many of them based in the United States, is driving unsustainable harvesting from the wild. A new study…
On Sept. 11, 2022, Olivia Bisa Tirko received a call from a forest guard who informed her of an oil spill in the territory of the Chapra Nation in the…
The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. Thailand is the…
On a muddy alluvial land by the intertidal rivers Shibsa and Sutarkhali, several unmechanized traditional river boats, known as country boats, are docked, despite it being a weekday in mid-June.…
JAKARTA — Activists allege that two of the world’s biggest pulp and paper companies have violated their zero-deforestation pledge by clearing natural forests and peatlands in Indonesia. An investigation by…
In May, authorities in southern Thailand arrested six people for illegally transporting 48 lemurs and more than 1,200 critically endangered tortoises, all of which had reportedly been obtained from the…
JAKARTA — Protests are mounting in Indonesia against a China-backed zinc and lead mine being developed on the island of Sumatra in defiance of opposition from local communities. On June…
Events in February felt like a legal double whammy for the environment and its defenders. First, the United Nations Environment Assembly declined a Bolivian proposal to grant rights to nature…
It’s extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine the full extent of the illicit production and trade of timber worldwide. Illegal loggers and the shadowy networks that trade in timber outside…
BOGOR, Indonesia — Mourners filed into the residence of Professor Hariadi Kartodiharjo in Bubulak village near the city of Bogor, just south of Jakarta, on Sunday, June 2. Hariadi, affectionately…
JAKARTA — A campaign calling for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ customary forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has gone viral, with the campaign’s poster shared nearly 3 million…
JAKARTA — A dispute simmering for years has erupted into conflict between villagers and a palm oil company on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi over the latter’s failure to abide…
PHNOM PENH — The trial against Mother Nature Cambodia, one of the country’s last environmental activism groups, kicked off at the Phnom Penh Court of First Instance on the morning…
PORT LOKO DISTRICT, Sierra Leone — At 5 a.m., as the horizon brightens and waves start to subside, more than a dozen wooden canoes along the shoreline between the settlements…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has overturned the sentence of environmental activist Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan on widely criticized hate speech charges for highlighting the damaged caused by illegal shrimp…
KAMBIAYIN, Indonesia — Eka Karlina repeats a mantra to her Dayak Pitap ancestors as she runs her fingers through the soil, combing the field in Kambiayin village for weeds. “Hopefully…
Panama is still trying to understand the extent of the violence that took place during the massive, nationwide protests last year. Groups from all corners of the country, from teacher…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — On Oct. 13, 2023, on National Road 39, a police…
JAKARTA — The largest case of deforestation for industrial palm oil in Indonesia is happening within a concession on a tiny island off the coast of southern Borneo, according to…
In December 2023, three staff members from the Iranian Cheetah Society crowded around a laptop, moved to tears by the sight of a mother cheetah and her four cubs, caught…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is resuming a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae — the latest chapter in an eight-year saga that began over concerns for wild lobster stocks…
ANYAMAM, Ghana — The brother of a Ghanaian fisheries observer who went missing from his assigned vessel last October says the family has received no information from the authorities investigating…
MONROVIA — Chainsaw-milled timber is emerging as a damaging new form of illegal logging in Liberia. Chainsaw milling is legally permitted only for small-scale production of boards for the country’s…
DHAKA — Police in Bangladesh have arrested one person and are looking for nine others suspected of killing a forest officer after he caught them illegally excavating soil in a…
Indigenous organizations from Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard a 16-million-hectare (39.5-million-acre) territorial corridor in the Amazon that stretches from the Tapiche River…
JAKARTA — 2023 saw the worst fire season in Indonesia since 2019, with an area the size of Qatar going up in flames, according to official government data. A total…
States jostling for territorial dominance in the South China Sea have inflicted untold damage on the marine environment, according to a new investigation by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI)…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has sentenced environmental activist Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan to seven months in prison for his online criticism of illegal shrimp farms inside a marine national…
