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…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Deforestation on the rise as poverty soars in Nigeria
- Refuge of endangered ‘African unicorn’ threatened by mining, poaching, deforestation
- Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber
Oceans
- Indonesia cancels fisheries infrastructure projects in Maluku region amid lack of funds
- Murky provenance of a Chinese fleet clouds Madagascar shrimp fishery
- What’s popping? Humpbacks off South Africa, new acoustic study finds
- Fisher groups are the marine militia in Indonesia’s war on illegal fishing
Amazon Conservation
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
- ‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- Pharmaceutical water pollution detected deep in the Brazilian Amazon
Land rights and extractives
- Ousted anti-mining mayor heads back to Philippine city hall after landslide win
- Thai gold mine blamed for sickening local villagers is set to reopen
- “Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga
- Analysis: Myanmar’s gemstone riches bring poverty and environmental destruction
Endangered Environmentalists
- Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- “We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Death threats and friction with military force Guatemalan rangers to flee
- Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
Conservation Effectiveness
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
