Living deep in the Peruvian Amazon, the Kukama Kukamiria Indigenous community have spent generations with their feet in the Marañón, the river emerging from the Andes that provides the main…
In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth…
INDRAGIRI HILIR, Indonesia — Dahniar starts worrying after a few days without rain during the dry season here on the northeast coast of Sumatra. Traders selling water will complain of…
NUEVA VENECIA, Colombia — Sandra Milena Manjarez puts two plates of bright yellow rice topped with liza — a finger-sized mullet fish similar to a sardine — on the white…
Imagine a mother in a rural village drawing water from a well with her pitcher. This seemingly ordinary water holds her family's future — for drinking, cooking and bathing. But…
The global race to secure minerals critical to the clean energy transition is driving toxic pollution with severe health repercussions for communities living near some of the world’s largest cobalt…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Land-grabbing, lack of consultation, communities wiped off maps and impunity. These are the serious accusations made against the mining company Alphamin Bisie Mining…
The recent death of a critically endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin in southern Thailand’s Songkhla Lake has brought the plight of the waterbody’s tiny remaining population into stark focus. As few…
In late December 2023, when communities in the southeastern Peruvian province of Cotabambas received a copy of proposed modifications to the Las Bambas copper mine, they were at first surprised,…
PACITAN, Indonesia — Parno looked weary at he stared out over his rice field, occasionally shaking his head as he considered prospects for the coming harvest. “How can I not…
Nitrogen pollution from agriculture and human waste, along with other pollutants including plastics, could make clean water scarce in many watersheds worldwide, potentially contributing to declines in public health.
A vessel carrying thousands of tons of fertilizer has sunk in the Red Sea, raising fears of an environmental disaster in a part of the ocean known to harbor some…
KATHMANDU — Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his…
Ocean rise and changes in the Amazon River are ruining the way of life in an archipelago close to where the Amazon River runs into the Atlantic.
KATHMANDU — The Bagmati River, coursing through Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, has transformed into a sewer canal in recent decades, with untreated raw sewage discharged into its waters. Officials are now…
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…
BOGOR, Indonesia — At the age of 60, Siti Salamah started making changes at her family home in the city of Bogor, just south of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. “We always…
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to…
Chitwan, NEPAL — Rajendra Aryal (45) likes visiting the tourist town of Sauraha on the fringes of Chitwan National Park in Nepal. He enjoys the wilderness, the jungle safaris and…
PEKALONGAN, Indonesia — For decades, Sobirin provided for his family by picking flowers here on the north coast of Indonesia’s Java Island. Now in his 70s, much of the farmer’s…
Xalapa, Veracruz, MEXICO — In April 2023, Julia Martínez was washing her two children when she turned on the tap, but no drops came out. She did her best to…
Yuly Velásquez grew up on the banks of the Magdalena River near the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja, an area surrounded by a large network of swamps, lagoons and tropical forests.…
An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
How do you identify microplastics in wastewater? When Wayne Parker started out researching the issue, the existing techniques were time-consuming and cumbersome. For a long time, optical or infrared microscopes…
Even before sunrise, along the beaches of the rivers and lakes of Xingu Indigenous Park in the Brazilian Amazon, a series of bonfires appear on the horizon to warm the…
This story has been supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Carrying a shovel on her shoulder, Nely Flores walks quickly on the beach. “Before the guards from the mine…
Colombia’s environmental authorities plan to take new steps this year to restore an important national park hit hard by deforestation and pollution, most of it from illegal gold mining. Farallones…
VERDE ISLAND, Philippines — Working together to lift an outrigger from the clear, teal water onto a white sand beach, a group of fishers had just returned home to Verde…
More than a year and a half since the iron ore mining stopped, the lives of Vanusia Souza dos Santos and her community in the heart of Brazil’s Bahia state…
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.