Palm oil fresh fruit bunches in Indonesia. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Last summer, an Indonesian NGO published research showing that an oil palm developer controlled by one of the country's…
A youth leader who lives near one of Wilmar's Nigerian oil palm projects shows an alternative water hole the community has dug as a result of the plantation polluting its…
Fragments of cerrado forest in Brazil's Mato Grosso state. The proposed railroad route goes through some of the last standing intact forest in the state. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.…
Blooming Amazon rainforest in southeastern Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Human activity has destroyed huge swaths of the Amazon rainforest's biomass as trees are cleared to make way for…
Children carry a banner commemorating two children allegedly killed in 2013 by an employee of the company that owns the Santa Rita dam. The banner reads in part "They are…
Mongabay-Indonesia chief editor Ridzki R. Sigit argues that efforts to increase smallholder productivity among Indonesian smallholders are sorely needed. A mature oil palm plantation. Photo: Ridzki R. Sigit In a…
Belize's Great Blue Hole, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that would be included in areas opened to oil and gas drilling under a new proposal from the Belizean…
Motive not yet clear in nightclub stabbing of Indonesian environmental campaigner Slain activist Jopi Peranginangin posted this photo to his Facebook page in April. (The children are not his.) An…
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Sandra Cuffe Nickel Mine, Lead Bullets: Maya Q'eqchi' seek justice in Guatemala and Canada The Guatemalan cabinet ministers for the environment, the interior,…
ith demand for seafood increasing and numerous fish species declining due to overfishing and other threats, scientists are proposing a seemingly drastic solution: close the high seas to fishing and…
Toribia Lero, an indigenous leader from the faction of the indigenous organization CONAMAQ (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu) that is not recognized by the government sits for…
An aerial view of part of the spill on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo credit: Refugio Response Information website. On Tuesday, an underground oil pipeline burst near Goleta, California, spilling…
A Malaysian-flagged vessel was blown up in the waters of Belawan for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters. Photo: Ayat S Karokaro. The Indonesian Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry redefined fireworks…
Two palm oil plantations have recently been established in Peru, supplanting primary forest. Satellite imagery analysis shows extent of the massive development, which is led by a group of companies…
by 20 May 2015
VICE correspondent Ben Anderson with conservationist Mike Griffiths walking in a hazy Indonesian village. Credit: Jackson Fager/HBO For the sixth episode of its third season, HBO’s Emmy-winning news series, VICE,…
Officers from Indonesia's Natural Resources Conservation Agency carry a dead tiger in West Sumatra. Two of the critically endangered creatures have turned up dead in the province this year. Photo:…
Peatland cleared for palm oil outside Palangkaraya in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province. Photo: Rhett Butler The charity that Indonesia's Golden Agri-Resources has enlisted to devise and implement its zero-deforestation and…
A stump is all that remains of an illegally felled tree in the rainforest of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Recent findings indicate amendments made to the Lacey Act in 2008 may…
For produce raised on some of Senegal’s most fertile cropland, the shortest route to the richest urban markets runs through another country. This geographic reality, with its multiple logistical hurdles,…
Yu Feng, a vessel with Taiwanese flags suspected of fishing illegally, sails near Sierra Leone in 2009 before being detained by the U.S. Coast Guard and Sierra Leonean government agencies.…
Forest clearing for oil palm in Sumatra. Photo: Rhett Butler The Mandarin Oriental hotel chain has landed in environmentalists' crosshairs for the practices of its sister company Astra Agro Lestari,…
OTHER REPORTING BY DAVID HILL Brazilian firm's mega-dam plans in Peru spark major social conflict Peru is proposing a huge hydroelectric dam in the Amazon that, if built, will be…
Cleared Cerrado in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler China has been investing heavily in Latin America’s natural resources and crude oil. Recently, the country even pledged to…
With more than 3,000 hectares cleared so far and more to come, Greenpeace and other organizations call for detailed land-use strategy in Cameroon In its push to become a middle-income…
The Mount Tambora caldera. The area was declared a national park last month. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Indonesian researchers believe they have identified six new animal species in the newly declared…
'Copy-paste' not good enough for civil society groups calling for the policy to be strengthened A Greenpeace activist dons a mask of Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in a smoldering…
A logging road transects Peruvian rainforest (this is not an image of one of the newly detected roads). Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Roads spread out like multi-fingered tendrils, eating…
A fishing boat off the coast of Java. Photo: Rhett A. Butler The Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) has organized dozens of non-bank financial institutions to support the country's maritime…
Inside Central American rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Thanks to the world’s voracious appetite for crops like coffee, palm oil, rice, rubber, soy and tea, large-scale agriculture is one…
A Sumatran elephant of the sort that lives in the Leuser Ecosystem. Photo: Rhett A. Butler A new report provides evidence that a supplier of palm oil giants Wilmar and…
Twenty-three yellow-crested cockatoos and a green parrot were found crammed into plastic water bottles aboard a ship in Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port last week. Photo: Petrus Riski Days after police…
A Madagascar nightjar (Caprimulgus madagascariensis), which shares a genus with the endangered Itombwe nightjar (Caprimulgus prigoginei). Photo by Francesco Veronesi Many of the world's endangered animals live in only one…
