At the UN, losing the race against time to fight climate change
NEW YORK — Against the fitting backdrop of a hotter-than-average late September day in New York City, world leaders gathered at the United Nations yesterday to share what they were…
Articles by Ashoka Mukpo
Ashoka Mukpo is a freelance journalist with expertise in international development policy, human rights, and environmental issues. His work has been featured in Al-Jazeera, Vice News, and The Guardian, among others. Follow him on Twitter at @unkyoka.
Industrial palm oil investors struggle to gain foothold in Africa
It was the “next new frontier” for palm oil. A “mutually beneficial relationship” that would be a win-win for struggling nations in Africa and multinational producers running out of land…
When rich economies cut emissions, poor ones stand to benefit, study says
The world is currently on course to be 3 to 5 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter by 2100, leading to food crises, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks…
Did efforts to protect DRC’s elephants and bonobos leave a trail of abuses?
For almost four years, the teams of researchers traveled by boat up winding rivers, setting up base camps inside dense rainforests for weeks or months at a time as they…
‘We come from the earth’: Q&A with Goldman Prize winner Alfred Brownell
Following the end of its civil war in the summer of 2003, Liberia became a test case for how foreign investment in extracting natural resources could quickly improve people’s lives.…
Fighting corruption in Liberia through on-the-ground reporting (insider)
I’ve been sitting on a bench inside the small waiting room at the Liberia Business Registry just off the main drag in downtown Monrovia when the phrase pops into my…
Western chimp numbers revised up to 53,000, but development threats loom
Nearly 53,000 western chimpanzees live in the forests and savannas of West Africa, a higher number than previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research…
Experts warn: As G-20 tariffs drop, carbon emissions skyrocket
When the Trump administration slapped tariffs on aluminum and other products imported to the United States in early 2018, the move was widely seen as a major turn from a…
Farming communities abused at troubled DRC mega-farm, campaigners say
When then-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila hoisted himself into a tractor to celebrate the first harvest of the Bukanga Lonzo agro-industrial park on March 5, 2015,…
EU customers warned over possible illegal timber from the Congo
Ten European companies have been accused of importing illegally-harvested timber from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by Global Witness. The watchdog group said earlier this month that the…
Liberia’s community forestry becoming a front for deforestation: Report
When Liberia emerged from its civil war in 2003, one of the first major acts of its national legislature was to reform the laws that governed logging and forestry in…
In Liberia, a battered palm oil industry adjusts to new rules
MONROVIA, Liberia - When Liberia signed a series of contracts with international palm oil producers in the years after its protracted civil war, the news was greeted by some as…
Corrupt logging practices in Liberia could mar new era in community forestry
MONROVIA, Liberia - Reaching the remote Garwin chiefdom in central Liberia isn’t an easy feat. Only about an hour and a half of the journey takes place on a paved…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
- Watchdog denounces arrests of four anti-mining activists in Indonesia
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Amazon’s Munduruku stage daring Christmas raid to recover sacred urns
- Belo Monte boondoggle: Brazil’s biggest, costliest dam may be unviable
- Amazon’s Mura indigenous group demands input over giant mining project
Asian rhinos
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesia to capture 3 wild Sumatran rhinos to add to breeding population
