
Articles by Karla Mendes
Karla Mendes is an award-winning Brazilian journalist working as a Rio de
Janeiro-based Contributing Editor for Mongabay. She has been working as a correspondent for international outlets since 2015 and she specialized in covering environmental, land and property rights issues since 2017. She worked as a land and property rights correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation between August 2017 and December 2018. Prior to that, Karla was a business reporter for over 10 years in Rio, Madrid, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte, including with newspapers O Globo, O Estado de S. Paulo, Expansión and news agency S&P Global Market Intelligence. Karla has a Master in Investigative and Data Journalism from the University of King’s College, Canada, and an MBA in finance from São Paulo’s Fundação Instituto de Administração (FIA). She is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Image by Fábio Nascimento.


Sonia Guajajara: Turnaround from jail threats to Minister of Indigenous Peoples

Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office

For Indigenous Brazilians, capital attack was ‘scenario of war’ akin to deforestation

‘Funai is ours’: Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency is reclaimed under Lula

President Lula’s first pro-environment acts protect Indigenous people and the Amazon

Video: In Brazil’s Amazon, Quilombolas fight major palm oil firm for access to cemeteries

Video: Stolen Quilombola cemeteries in the Amazon, and the probe that revealed it all

Major Brazil palm oil exporter accused of fraud, land-grabbing over Quilombola cemeteries

Despite 11% drop in 2022, Amazon deforestation rate has soared under Bolsonaro

Brazil’s biggest elected Indigenous caucus to face tough 2023 Congress

In Brazil, a heavily fined firm is also accused of waging a ‘palm oil war’ on communities

Mongabay probe key as Brazil court rules on palm oil pesticide contamination

The Fixers: Top U.S. flooring retailers linked to Brazilian firm probed for corruption

Indigenous Brazilians demand justice as 4 killed in escalating violence

Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial

The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)

‘I am Indigenous, not pardo’: Push for self-declaration in Brazil’s census

In Rio de Janeiro, Indigenous people fight to undo centuries of erasure

‘We are made invisible’: Brazil’s Indigenous on prejudice in the city

Brazil prosecutors cite Mongabay probe in new legal battle against palm oil firms

Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon

‘Guardian of the Forest’ ambushed and murdered in Brazilian Amazon

Brazilian Amazon fires scientifically linked to 2019 deforestation: report

Germany cuts $39.5 million in environmental funding to Brazil

Future of Amazon deforestation data in doubt as research head sacked

New film reveals at-risk ‘uncontacted’ Awá tribe in Brazilian Amazon

Deforestation drops in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, but risks remain: experts

Experts deny alleged manipulation of Amazon satellite deforestation data

Brazil’s Congress reverses Bolsonaro, restores Funai’s land demarcation powers
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Deforestation ‘out of control’ in reserve in Brazil’s cattle capital
- In Brazil’s Amazon, land grabbers scramble to claim disputed Indigenous reserve
- Gold mining invades remote protected area in Ecuador
- ‘Panic’ sets in as armed groups occupy, deforest Colombian national park

Oceans
- Thai government turns its sights on illegal coral trade
- Mongabay Explains: What’s the difference between artisanal and industrial fishing?
- Indonesia opens its ‘ocean account’ for sustainable marine management
- The dark side of light: Coastal urban lighting threatens marine life, study shows

Amazon Conservation
- Joenia Wapichana: ‘I want to see the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol territories free of invasions’
- JBS is accused of misleading investors with suspicious green bonds
- Sonia Guajajara: Turnaround from jail threats to Minister of Indigenous Peoples
- From Japan to Brazil: Reforesting the Amazon with the Miyawaki method

Land rights and extractives
- Tense neighbors: Chinese quarry in Cameroon takes a toll on locals
- FOIA lawsuit suggests Indonesian nickel miners lack environmental licenses
- Shadows of oil in Peru: Shipibo people denounce damage, contamination left by company
- In Liberia, a gold boom leads to unregulated mining and ailing rivers

Endangered Environmentalists
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
- Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- Scientists call for end to violence against Amazon communities, environmental defenders

Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’

Conservation Effectiveness
- Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
- ‘South Asia needs its own tiger plan’: Q&A with Nepal’s Maheshwar Dhakal

Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Tunnel collapse at dam project in orangutan habitat claims yet another life
- Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- Indonesia’s grand EV plans hinge on a ‘green’ industrial park that likely isn’t
- Java communities rally as clock ticks on cleanup of ‘world’s dirtiest river’
