Possible plans to develop large-scale agriculture in Suriname have sparked backlash from Indigenous communities, conservation groups and some members of parliament, who are concerned about deforestation of the Amazon and…
The adage ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is not legally true, but the concept reigns supreme on frontier landscapes in the Pan Amazon. Land grabbers and peasant pioneers share…
Humanity’s footprint in Ecuador now covers more than 30% of the country’s total area, at the expense of coastal ecosystems, the Andes, and forests across the country. But it’s the…
In December, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced that it was set to spend $6.2 billion on mining the rich, high-grade iron ore deposits of eastern Guinea’s Simandou Mountains, with…
From September to November 2023 Manaus, a city located in the relatively intact forest area in the central part of Brazilian Amazonia, was surprised to find itself under a dense…
The Atlantic Forest, located along Brazil’s southern coast, has been in dire straits for decades, with expanding cities and agriculture leaving only a small fraction of the forest standing today.…
JAKARTA — Fires razed nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of lands and forests in Indonesia in 2023, as the country suffered from unusually scorching weather due to El…
In 2015, independent journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown revealed that $700 million had appeared in the personal bank account of Malaysia’s then-prime minster, Najib Razak. The money had come from the…
New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions.…
JAKARTA — After years of declining deforestation, forest loss caused by Indonesia’s pulp sector is on the rise again, showing a fivefold increase in 2022 compared with 2017 levels, a…
After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According…
Mario Rene Xol used to enjoy life in Aldea Tierra Negra, an Indigenous village bordering the Lachuá-Ik'bolay Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) in northeastern Guatemala. Since the arrival of palm oil…
This is the first article in our five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market. Read Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. At the outset…
Last week, Mongabay published a recap of the major trends in the world’s tropical rainforests for 2023. Here’s a glimpse into some of the key issues to monitor in 2024.…
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, uncontrolled illegal fishing with agrochemicals and explosives is causing long-lasting damage to aquatic ecosystems, while representing a real danger to human health, a recent study has…
The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines. This year, the list is more concise than in the past. Previous year-in-reviews: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |…
A special announcement interrupted the “Halting and Reversing Forest Loss by 2030” event during Nature, Land Use and Oceans Day at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai: COP28 president Sultan…
Brazil confiscates biggest catch of shark fins to date In June, IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental protection agency, announced it had seized 28.7 metric tons of shark fins, the largest confiscation…
A new species of stone oak tree has been described from deep in the forests of northern Sumatra and appears to be an important source of food for the Tapanuli…
Once roaming across Southeast Asia, the Javan rhino today persists on a single peninsula off the western-most coast of Java in Indonesian. There, in Ujung Kulon National Park, around 70…
Ten years ago this month, I stood with the CEO of Asia’s biggest agribusiness, Wilmar International, to announce the company’s new No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy. It banned…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
Areas of the Apurinã territory in the Lower Seruini area, in southern Amazonas state, were sold by Nemus under an NFT project that promises to preserve the forest and generate carbon credits.
In 2023, Mongabay launched the fourth season of its serial podcast, “Mongabay Explores,” highlighting the Congo Basin. The six-part series takes a close look at the second-largest rainforest in the…
JAKARTA — Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was a rare breed of Indonesian bureaucrat: a visionary policy leader with a love for nature, someone who for decades built bridges between environmentalists and Indigenous…
The promise of an exclusive university for the Indigenous peoples of the Upper Solimões region, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, persuaded leaders from at least six territories to sign pre-contracts with…
Study finds Earth could reach 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2040 and shows regional climate variables in fine detail. These findings, along with others, are very worrying for the Brazilian Amazon.
There is only limited potential for finance to change agricultural practices in the Andean Amazon, because landscapes are largely populated by smallholders who are notoriously risk-adverse in how they manage…
This is a critical moment for the most damaging infrastructure project in the Amazon. On Monday, December 18th, a proposed law (PL 4994/2023) was put on the plenary agenda of…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…