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…
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.
‘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
- Environmental defenders in Peru’s Madre de Dios face double jeopardy
- Arson attack in Indonesia leaves activist shaken
- For embattled environmental defenders, a reprieve of sorts in 2018
Indonesias forest guardians
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
- In Indonesia, bigger catches for a fishing village protecting its mangroves
Amazon infrastructure
- Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act
- Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- Amazon fish kill at Sinop spotlights risk from 80+ Tapajós basin dams
Asian rhinos
- Search for a new home for Javan rhinos put on hold
- Keeping stray rhinos safe is a challenge on fringes of Nepal park
- Sumatran rhinos to get a new sanctuary in Leuser Ecosystem
