For 13 years, the Indigenous Ogiek people have been embroiled in a legal battle with the Kenyan government for legal recognition of their rights to the Mau Forest, the largest…
KATHMANDU — On June 6, a 41-year-old woman was attacked by a tiger while she was collecting firewood in a forest in Nepal's Bardiya district, a key habitat for endangered…
ELGEYO-MARAKWET COUNTY, Kenya – Taking on the steep ridges one steady step at a time, Elias Kibiwot Kimaiyo heads deep into Kenya’s Embobut Forest, where he was born and raised.…
GORO, New Caledonia – Known widely as the “Madagascar of the Pacific,” New Caledonia is coated in remnant Gondwana rainforest and surrounded by reefs rich in marine life that constitute one…
GORO, New Caledonia — On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a…
When workers dig through the earth at the San Andres mine in western Honduras, one of the country’s largest mining operations, they sometimes find something mixed in that wasn’t there…
Salatou Sambou, a fisherman and father of five, has been involved in the Kawawana ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in Senegal since 2008. One of the first members of…
When is seaweed much more than seaweed? In the United States, seaweed farms are sprouting up all over the country, but on the east end of Long Island, New York,…
SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, Mexico – Lucio Jimenez Ocampo is always surrounded by coffee. In the yard of his house in Santiago Atitlán nestled in the Oaxaca state’s Sierra Norte highlands, there…
It was over twenty years ago when locals in Bolivia’s northern plains told archaeologist Heiko Prümers, with the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn, about mysterious mounds of earth in the…
When 700 members of Tanzania’s anti-riot Field Force Unit (FFU) arrived in the Loliondo division of Ngorongoro on June 6, no one told local Maasai pastoralists about the purpose of…
The route connecting the provinces of Loja and Zamora Chinchipe in Ecuador is a series of roads surrounded by green, leafy and picturesque mountains. Near the city of Zamora, signs…
Persistent rain couldn’t dampen the high spirits of Mamalilikulla First Nation members and their guests on a dark day in May. As lowering clouds played hide-and-seek with soaring mountains, the…
Since the last ice age, wide rivers have meandered toward the southern shores of Hudson Bay in Canada, to join its salty waters. On their way, they’ve created swaths of…
In the 18th century, when European ships sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Northwest coast of the Pacific Ocean, they raved about the “wilderness” of the…
For years, Ruth Alipaz has been fighting against the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project. The project involves the construction of two reservoirs that together would flood at least 66,200 hectares (163,500…
Tropical forests harbor around two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity. The Neotropics—comprising Central America, the Caribbean and South America—are home to a third of the world’s known bird species, the highest…
*UPDATE: On March 30, 2021, a press release announced that the Collegiate Court of Circuit in Work and Administration Matters had reversed the decision to suspend activity on Sections 1,…
CASILLAS, Guatemala — Evelin Cante got involved in the protest camp right from the start. Her village isn’t far from the Escobal silver mine in southern Guatemala, and she was…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo – Through taxes, in particular the reforestation tax, logging and mining operators in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must pledge to restore landscapes they…
BARINGO COUNTY, Kenya – Last December in the town of Marigat, in Kenya's central Baringo county, Paul Chepsoi had to excuse himself from a dinner of nyama choma (roasted goat)…
AGUA BONITA CAMP, Colombia – Walking all day through the jungle to visit the encampments of friends and relatives is what Tumni Abtukaru misses the most about life before his…
Our footsteps intermingled with the sounds of rain dripping through the canopy as my eyes examined the surrounding green vegetation, which was usually so vibrant, but was now subdued as…
RIPÁ, Brazil — One muggy morning last December, eight women and their chief drove out of the Indigenous Xavante village of Ripá across a forested savanna in the Brazilian state…
Patricia Gualinga takes a deep breath and pictures herself inside the rainforest in Sarayaku, Ecuador. “It’s hard to describe the smell of such pure air when you’re in the rainforest”,…
During the first conference of the parties to the Escazú Agreement (COP 1) held in April in Santiago, Chile, Indigenous leader Nadino Calapucha asked participants to respect the heart of…
Adiela Jineth Mera Paz wakes up every morning with only one thing on her mind – protecting her land in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, on the Colombia-Ecuador border. However, this is…
The Amazon gets a lot of attention, but there’s another massive forest in South America: the Gran Chaco. This hot, dry forest stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina, covering 87…
Food systems are responsible for 80% of the world’s deforestation, 70% of freshwater use and contribute to 40% of the planet’s land degradation says a recently published report by the…
The revelation that Indigenous people and local communities (IPLCs) receive well below 1% of climate finance, despite reports stressing their role in biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation, is giving rise…