On a Honduran island, a community effort grows to protect its precious reefs
At seven in the morning, the sun rises over Sandy Bay on the Caribbean island of Roatán, Honduras. The soft light seeps through the mangroves and draws golden lines on…
Articles by Sandra Weiss
German freelance journalist and political scientist. After working in the Foreign Service, she moved to Latin America in 1999. Since then, she has been collaborating with news outlets and magazines such as Deutsche Welle, Le Monde Diplomatique, ABC (Australia), NZZaS, Zeit, Milenio Semanal, Welt, Geo etc. Since 2014, she is working on innovative multimedia stories with wekomedia.de. Finalist of Grimme online award, Hansel-Mieth-Preis, Media Award for Independent Journalism, Kurt-Schork-Award and in 2019 winner of the Catholic Media Prize for her multimedia project "Death of a nation".
Cooking with the sun: Entrepreneurs help launch Mexico’s solar revolution
Cooking with firewood, diesel and gas all add to climate change and is harmful to health. So innovators have launched solar cookery enterprises that could transform Mexico’s fossil fuel-dependent businesses.
Biofuel in Mexico: Uphill battle against bureaucracy, organized crime
Combining to hamstring Mexico’s climate-friendly biodiesel industry: a lack of regulatory support, a president favoring fossil fuels, competition from other industries for used cooking oil, and a crime network.
In syntropic agriculture, farmers stop fighting nature and learn to embrace it
MINEIROS/GANDÚ, Brazil — Behind the wheel of his black suburban van, Paulo Borges has to squint to focus on the SUV motorcade in front of him, vanishing in a red…
In the Ecuadoran Andes, protectors of the páramos guard their water source
It's freezing cold. The wind whistles. A gentle drizzle falls from the sky, and the ground wheezes like a soaked sponge with every step. It is an inhospitable and at…
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Forest Trackers
- New oil refinery ‘a huge disaster’ for Nigerian forest reserve
- The Western Indian Ocean lost 4% of its mangroves in 24 years, report finds
- Poverty-fueled deforestation threatens Kenya’s largest water catchment
- Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
Oceans
- ‘One more thing’ about plastics: They could be acidifying the ocean, study says
- Indonesia’s sustainable fisheries push sails into storm in Java Sea
- Java fishers struggle with seine net ban amid rising costs, falling profits
- Agulhas Current enigma: An oceanic gap in our climate understanding
Amazon Conservation
- Conservatives tighten grip on Brazil Congress, hampering environmental agenda
- Trouble in the tropics: The terrestrial insects of Brazil are in decline
- The Amazon will reach tipping point if current trend of deforestation continues
- Amazon reserve for uncontacted people moving forward amid battle over oil fields
Endangered Environmentalists
- Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- Scientists call for end to violence against Amazon communities, environmental defenders
- Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- In Brazil, an Indigenous land defender’s unsolved killing is the deadly norm
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
- ‘South Asia needs its own tiger plan’: Q&A with Nepal’s Maheshwar Dhakal
- Nepal was supposed to double its tiger population since 2010. It tripled it
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Java communities rally as clock ticks on cleanup of ‘world’s dirtiest river’
- ‘Cursed’ dam project in orangutan habitat claims 16th life in less than 2 years
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
