JAKARTA — Indonesia is experiencing a resurgence in forest clearance due to the expansion of pulpwood and oil palm plantations, reversing years of declining deforestation associated with these two industries.…
New research from the NGO Conservation Strategy fund, working with federal prosecutors in Brazil, has refined a tool that puts a dollar value on the socioenvironmental costs of illegal gold mining across vital ecosystems in the Amazon.
While wind turbines and solar panels multiply across the Brazilian dry forests, Tião Alves insists on tin windmills and PET bottle-based heaters. "Backcountry technology," as he defines it, arguing that…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — Chris Malgan sits in his outrigger canoe, singing and shaking a ring of coconut shells in the water next to the boat. The inky skies…
In early January, Brazilian environmental agents went on strike, claiming their salaries do not make up for their risky and highly-qualified work, in a threat to Lula's zero deforestation target.
Big philanthropic projects like the Protecting Our Planet Challenge usually capture the media spotlight, but how effective are these endeavors? Do they take into consideration the inextricable human rights considerations…
Nature is in crisis. Yet, there’s a massive $700 billion gap between the financing needed to stop biodiversity collapse versus what’s available each year. In December 2022, nearly 200 governments…
On May 9, 1983, Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo’s placenta was planted in the mountains of Putumayo, where Colombia’s Amazon rainforest meets the Andes. Her mother, Concepción Buesaquillo, was a midwife by…
Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.
SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and…
Amazonian states have gone largely unrepresented at the top of the Brazilian judicial system for decades, a political distortion that has spurred calls for reform.
It was a sunny day in Koh Lanta, an island known for tourism in Krabi Province, Thailand. Surrounding us were calming shades of blue and green, a white sandy beach…
PHNOM PENH — A new report published by Human Rights Watch on Feb. 28 details a litany of alleged abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project, which covers a vast…
Deep cultural connection to land and nature are inherent to the human experience and a birthright, says Jay Griffiths, author of WILD: An Elemental Journey (2006). But what happens when…
As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
Conflicts between communities and government plans to protect vast swaths of land in line with international conservation policies, such as the “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of the…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — News of apparent renewed interest in deep-sea mining came as a shock to Jonathan Mesulam in late 2022. Looking out over the Bismarck Sea that…
Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership — it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen…
JAKARTA — A massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera has cleared thousands of hectares of forest, forcefully displaced local people, and polluted the rivers…
“When I see the rainforest burning, I know what I’m really seeing is Amazonia dying. I see that fire and, as a scientist, I know how much that hectare will…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Vegetation lurches over a concrete wall that runs alongside a quiet road in the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. Behind the wall, and the rusty…
A new road connecting eight Indigenous Waorani communities to urban centers in Ecuador’s Pastaza province aims to improve access to the interior of the Amazon and reduce transportation costs. But…
Echoing the harrowing imagery of a Ku Klux Klan onslaught, a chilling episode unfolded on Sunday, January 21, showcasing the brutal reality of Brazil’s rural hinterland. In Bahia, two Indigenous…
A new amendment to Peru’s forest and wildlife law is being criticized by opponents as unconstitutional and a step backward in forest protection after it came into effect Jan. 10…
Several palm oil and cacao companies operating in the Peruvian Amazon have systematically contributed to clearing at least 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) between 2012 and 2021 in the country’s most…
JAKARTA — The construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo may destabilize the current stable population of endangered proboscis monkeys, a study has warned. President Joko…
In 2023, a group of small communities in Ecuador ousted the world's largest copper mining company from their community forest reserve, asserting that the company was violating the "rights of…
The conservation group African Parks says it has contracted the law firm Omnia Strategy LLP to investigate allegations of human rights abuses at Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of…
Dr. Sakib Burza says his fondest memories are climbing the majestic pine trees in the Kashmir Valley where he spent most of his childhood with his family. On a normal…
U.S. sanctions imposed in 2022 against Nicaragua’s mining industry were supposed to help combat a bloody wave of human rights abuses against local communities. But several years later, some aspects…