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…
Ten years ago, four Indigenous Asháninka environmental defenders were murdered in the forests near their community of Saweto in Peru’s Amazon Ucayali region. In 2023, a court in Pucallpa found…
The Forest Stewardship Council has suspended its certification of a controversial logging company in the Peruvian Amazon accused of encroaching on the traditional territory of the Mashco Piro, an Indigenous group…
Researchers have found that low-intensity logging of a tropical forest has no negative impacts on key ecosystem services such as the carbon storage and food availability for wildlife. But even…
As images of dozens of isolated Indigenous Mashco Piro men and boys on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon sparked huge worldwide media coverage, questions remain about whether the government…
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…
The raid occurred two weeks after Mongabay showed the links between the REDD+ projects and a suspected logging scam.
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.
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…
An analysis of two carbon credit projects in the Brazilian Amazon has found that they may be connected to illegal timber laundering.
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…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
This story is part of a Mongabay series on female environmental defenders in the Amazon. Read about the lives and work of Soraida Chindoy, Maydany Salcedo, and Etelvina Ramos. “Don’t…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — “I would like to announce to the public and the journalists that on November 2, the Ministry of Mines and Energy requested [Prime Minister Hun Manet]…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…
Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, president the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered last Wednesday, November 29, in the San Martín region of the Peruvian Amazon. The crime took…
*Name changed for the security of sources who feared retributions from authorities KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — “The company operates as they please. We’ve asked the authorities for help, but they…
The biggest timber firm in Malaysia’s Sarawak state has been able to maintain sustainability certification despite clearing forests for oil palm plantations and skipping steps in informing affected communities, according…
JAKARTA — Activists have urged the Forest Stewardship Council to cut ties with a leading Canadian pulp and paper producer that they allege is effectively under the control of an…
PHNOM PENH — “Make the bosses rich in Cambodia,” then-prime minister Hun Sen said at the 2012 inauguration of a sugar refinery in Kampong Speu province. “If a country has…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Sometime after 10 a.m. on Friday, April 21, sweat poured down the face of veteran environmental activist San Mala as he crawled through the forest undergrowth,…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A fresh incursion into Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary has added new evidence to mounting allegations of timber laundering by Think Biotech, which exists on paper as…
MUKU, Papua New Guinea — Fidelis Nick’s eyes lock onto the police vehicle as it passes through his village in northwestern Papua New Guinea. A few people wave greetings as…
RIO DE JANEIRO — Monitoring the threats that uncontacted traditional peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon is set to become easier for Indigenous rights activists and agencies, thanks to a…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A flurry of subdecrees released through the end of July and early August show that the Cambodian government has approved he addition of more than a…
BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the…
This story is the third article of a three-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the link between Cambodia's garment factories and illegal logging. Read Part One and Part Two. KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia…
This story is the second article of a three-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the link between Cambodia's garment factories and illegal logging. Read Part One and Part Three. KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia…
This story is the first article of a three-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the link between Cambodia's garment factories and illegal logging. Read Part Two and Part Three. KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia…
JAKARTA — Singapore-based pulp and paper giant Royal Golden Eagle is linked to deforestation in Indonesia despite having a no-deforestation policy since 2015, an investigative report says. RGE is one…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
