DRC communities turn up heat on EU lenders funding palm oil giant PHC
On May 24, 2024, clashes broke out between members of a local community and security guards at an oil palm plantation in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo…
NGOs News
Short on funds and long on risk, Venezuelan conservation groups worry for future
Conservation has become a near-impossible task in many parts of Venezuela. Government funding has dried up, political pressure has scared away international donors, and criminal groups continue to overpower the…
Lebanese youths take up rods and reels to learn sustainable fishing
AMCHIT, Lebanon — Amchit’s harbor bustles with activity on a sunny January morning, one of the first in more than three weeks. A group of 16 youths from the coastal…
Conservation X Labs announces merger with AI nonprofit Wild Me
Conservation technology company Conservation X Labs and nonprofit Wild Me have announced they are merging in a bid to ramp up the role of artificial intelligence in biodiversity protection. With…
‘Indigenous’ and ‘local’ shouldn’t be conflated: Q&A with Indigenous leader Sara Olsvig
DUBAI — It was Sara Olsvig's love of ice that brought her to the desert of Dubai for the 2023 U.N. climate summit, COP28. As an Inuit child growing up…
Despite progress, small share of climate pledge went to Indigenous groups: report
Funders of the historic $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they have disbursed about 48% of the money meant to bolster the land rights of…
Namibia hosted Africa’s 1st community-led conservation congress. Where will it lead?
Last week, communities and conservation stakeholders from across the African continent gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to attend the first Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Conservation Congress. “IPLCs themselves organized this…
Forest conservation ‘off-track’ to halt deforestation by 2030: New report
A new report reveals that deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022, dimming the prospects of ending forest loss by 2030. The spike indicates rates are trending “in the wrong…
African NGOs seek more funds, trust, and autonomy in global partnerships
In the conservation world, partnerships between the big international NGOs, or BINGOs, and local grassroots organizations are often marriages of unequals. And as with any union, the biggest pain points…
Conservation success lies with governments, not NGOs: Q&A with Hem Sagar Baral
KATHMANDU — Whenever a potentially undescribed new bird species is reported in Nepal, ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral takes the next flight to the location to assess the claim. The scientific…
Cambodia approves, then suspends, marble mine in Keo Seima REDD+ project
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
Protecting Nigeria’s gorillas & other endangered species: Q&A with WCS’ Andrew Dunn
Nigeria is one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. However, over the past few decades, this plethora of biodiversity has come under significant threat amid a rapidly growing…
Villagers turn to charcoal made from bamboo to save a protected forest in Madagascar
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Ankarafantsika, a primary forest in Madagascar’s northwest Boeny region, is the site of a vicious cycle where declining livelihoods and its environmental impact aggravate one another. Rice paddies,…
Fire imperils Madagascar’s baobabs: Q&A with park director Diamondra Andriambololona
MORONDAVA, Madagascar — As the director of Kirindy Mite National Park and Andranomena Special Reserve near Madagascar’s southwestern coast, Diamondra Andriambololona oversees the protection of nearly 162,770 hectares (402,213 acres)…
Extreme reforestation: Baobab planters confront fires, loggers, cattle and more
BELO-SUR-MER, Madagascar — The situation was dire in Kirindy Mite National Park during a visit in November 2022. The previous year, a huge tract of forest had been ravaged by…
Madagascar bush fires prompt exasperated NGO to curtail tree planting
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — After 14 years in Madagascar, it was the last straw for Graine de Vie, a Belgian NGO dedicated to reforestation. In October, 50,000 saplings in the Ambohitantely…
Community conservation benefits Sulawesi flying foxes, but more is needed, experts say
After four years of conservation action, the number of flying foxes — large bat species — flocking to the Indonesian island of Mantawalu Daka has grown from around 8,000 to…
Element Africa: Gold in Ghana, oil in Nigeria, and fracking in South Africa
One dead, four injured as Ghana gold miner moves to evict artisanal miners BENSO, Ghana — Police killed one person and injured four others while attempting to clear trespassing miners…
Element Africa: The platinum ‘bully’ and the secret oil deal
South Africa community stands up to ‘bully’ platinum miner GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — The South African government has given a platinum miner until March 1 to discuss compensation to communities…
Failed mangrove tourism project in Sumatra highlights need for community collaboration
SICANANG, Indonesia — In October 2019, the Sicanang Mangrove Forest ecotourism project launched as a mangrove tourism destination. At its launch, the project, in Sicanang village on the outskirts of…
Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
Thuý, who helped run environmental programs at a nonprofit based in Ho Chi Minh City, had for weeks pondered quitting her job to pursue an advanced degree. The 24-year-old, who…
Electricity day and night: Solar power is changing isolated Amazon communities
TERRA FIRME, Brazil — Growing up, Maria de Fátima Batista often studied in the dark, using a candle or lantern for light because the riverine community where she lives in…
Despite pledges, obstacles stifle community climate and conservation funding
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caught Costa Rica’s Cabécar Indigenous communities at a precarious time. Amid the species-rich forests of the Talamanca Cabécar Indigenous territory, climate change had already begun…
Small share of land rights pledge went to Indigenous groups: Progress report
Update Dec. 5, 2023: A subsequent analysis in 2023 by the Forest Tenure Funders Group found that 2.9%, not 7%, of the pledged funding delivered in 2021 went directly to…
Thai zoos come under scrutiny again as tourism rebounds from COVID-19
BANGKOK — A run-down department store tucked among Bangkok’s skyscrapers is home to the rooftop Pata Zoo, where nearly 300 animals pace in cages littered with feces, food scraps and…
Cambodian mega dam’s resurrection on the Mekong ‘the beginning of the end’
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived…
Nigerian refugees in Cameroon turn biomass into charcoal to spare trees
MINAWAO, Cameroon — On market day in the Minawao refugee camp, every necessity is spread out beneath the mid-morning sun: vegetables, dried fish, soap, new and used clothes, farm implements.…
Fish-farming practices come under scrutiny amid surge in aquaculture
A new report alleges poor animal welfare conditions on fish farms in Indonesia, one of the world’s leading producers of fish products. Produced by Act for Farmed Animals (AFFA), a…
Cameroon’s Nigerian refugees who degraded their camp are now vanguards of reforestation
MINAWAO, Cameroon — The refugee camp comes to life soon after dawn, some residents shouldering tools and exchanging greetings as they head out to the small farms they've established on…
Sea restoration projects quilt a ‘mosaic of habitats’ with striking results
After years of scallop dredging and fish farming, Loch Craignish, a coastal inlet near Argyll, Scotland, was in disrepair. The dredging had destroyed parts of the seafloor, effluent had polluted…
At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury
Thirty years ago, Brazil issued a decree officially recognizing the ancestral land of the Yanomami people as an Indigenous territory. The new designation made the area, located deep in the…
For 20 years, Comoros had only 1 national park. It’s now creating 5 more
Before the inhabitants of Itsamia in Comoros decided to intervene, turtles arriving to nest on its beaches drew villagers from neighboring hamlets. Anywhere from 10 to 30 green sea turtles…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- In Brazil’s Amazon, land invasions — and fires — threaten a protected reserve
- A Guatemalan reserve turns from civil war refuge to deforestation hotspot
- Narco activity takes heavy toll on Colombia’s protected forests, satellite data show
- Photos confirm narcotraffickers operating in Peru’s Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve
Oceans
- Lab-grown corals resisted bleaching during Caribbean’s worst marine heat wave
- Six months after first Houthi ship sinking, attacks slick Red Sea with oil
- $35m debt-for-nature deal aims to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
- Arctic melt ponds influence sea ice extent each summer — but how much?
Amazon Conservation
- Extreme drought pushes Amazon’s main rivers to lowest-ever levels
- Drought forces Amazon Indigenous communities to drink mercury-tainted water
- Acre’s communities face drinking water shortage amid Amazon drought
- Deal ends environmental agents’ strike in Brazil, but grievances fester
Land rights and extractives
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
- In the DRC, a government commission is taking funds owed to people relocated by mines
- A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right?
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
- Mongabay video screening at Chile’s Supreme Court expected to help landmark verdict in Brazil
- Indonesian activist freed in hate speech case after flagging illegal shrimp farms
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
