In Middle Madeira, fishing became more costly and demanding, with fishers needing to spend more days and travel farther to spots to maintain decent productivity, which led many riverines to illegal activities.
The Amazon’s most fertile, productive forests, which are critical for supplying Brazil’s agricultural region with rainfall, are also the most vulnerable to drought, according to recent research that has mapped…
Mines are widespread in the biome, affecting especially Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and Peru, following a sharp increase in the price of the metal, which nearly doubled since 2018.
This is the second article in our two-part series on Indigenous land rights and the Keo Seima REDD+ project. This series was co-written by a Cambodian journalist whose name is…
The lead up to Venezuela’s presidential election, scheduled for this Sunday, July 28, hasn’t been about the candidates’ experience or the viability of their policies. The focus has been on…
The construction is part of a series of projects to upgrade infrastructure in Belém ahead of the COP30 climate summit next year, alongside dredging Guajará Bay to make space for ocean liners to address the shortage of hotel rooms in the city.
“Finish your yogurt, sweetheart, it’s good for your bones. And take a few almonds, so you’ll stay healthy.” You may have heard this before, and rightly so. Minerals, such as…
A lawsuit has temporarily stalled construction on a controversial highway project in north-central Panama, which allegedly bypassed environmental regulations and could damage several protected areas along the Caribbean coast. The…
In the Brazilian Amazon, low river levels and insufficient rain might lead to 2024’s dry season being worse than 2023’s historic drought.
The bill went into effect as the use of pesticides banned long ago in the European Union exploded in the Brazilian Amazon.
Scientists have warned that mining of the metals needed for the global clean energy transition could threaten Africa’s already beleaguered great apes unless strong conservation measures are implemented. Nearly 180,000…
Major raids to seize cattle in protected areas and to fight illegal mining on Indigenous territories are suspended during the strike.
This is the second of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part One. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — “Fifteen years ago, this whole village was…
This is the first of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part Two. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track…
This year, both the Pantanal and the Amazon have recorded alarming rates of burning, with the wetland breaking recent records that caused an international uproar.
In 2023, Socfin hired a consultancy to investigate longstanding allegations of human rights violations and environmental damage raised by communities living around the Belgian transnational company’s oil palm and rubber…
After being locally extinct for a century in Belém, the host city of next year’s COP30 climate summit, it’s being reintroduced by conservationists who have so far released 50 individuals into the wild since 2018.
By selling directly to companies, the Wai Wai were able to earn much more for Brazil nuts than by selling to middlemen who typically pay the lowest price on the market.
After years of delays, a class action lawsuit is finally moving forward against the companies involved in a catastrophic dam collapse that released toxic sludge into communities across rural Brazil.…
A year-long Mongabay investigation tracked several dozen illegal or suspicious activities in and around Araroibia in the last few years, including logging, deforestation and cattle ranching, and found a clear rise in environmental crimes in the region in mid-2023, the deadliest year for Indigenous people in Arariboia since 2016.
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…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to establish 2 million hectares, or nearly 5 million acres, of sugarcane plantations in the eastern region of Papua, home to the last great…
"What makes these trees so special is still a great mystery, and it takes time and studies to unravel," Eric Gorgens said. The professor of spatial and environmental analysis at…
A new report has found wildlife smugglers employ sophisticated methods to traffic species from the Brazilian rainforest, including widespread fraud and corruption.
Mining can take its toll on the environment when done irresponsibly, especially in vulnerable ecosystems like the Amazon Rainforest. Deforestation and river pollution are common complaints from communities living near…
A court in Suriname has halted development on hundreds of thousands of hectares of Amazon Rainforest, much of it occupied by local and Indigenous people. The landmark ruling could give…
The raid occurred two weeks after Mongabay showed the links between the REDD+ projects and a suspected logging scam.
Robert Masolele says he remembers being struck by how small-scale farmers in his native Tanzania cleared large areas of forest to grow lucrative crops of cotton and cashews. In an…
Friends, relatives and Indigenous organizations now say the international uproar wasn’t enough to curtail local crime.
According to the investigators, the group was running land-grabbing and timber laundering crimes in the Amazon for more than a decade and profiting millions of dollars.
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…
PHNOM PENH — A rights group in Cambodia has accused a United Nations project of promoting private sector actors tied to human rights and environmental abuses. The U.N. Development Programme’s…
