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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/social-justice/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>News on Social Justice</title>
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				<item>
					<title>Cambodia defies UN call to free ‘arbitrarily jailed’ environmental activists</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/cambodia-defies-un-call-to-free-arbitrarily-jailed-environmental-activists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/cambodia-defies-un-call-to-free-arbitrarily-jailed-environmental-activists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Aug 2026 10:30:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/02191929/Ly-Chandaravuth-addresses-Mother-Nature-Cambodia-supporters-before-the-court-issued-a-verdict-on-July-2-2024-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327551</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Climate Justice, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corruption, Crime, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Environmental Heroes, Governance, Law, Natural Resources, NGOs, Nonviolence, Protests, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The Cambodian government has defended its continued imprisonment of five environmental activists, after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared the five had been arbitrarily detained and called for their immediate release. The activists, from environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia, have since 2024 been serving prison sentences of between [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The Cambodian government has defended its continued imprisonment of five environmental activists, after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared the five had been arbitrarily detained and called for their immediate release. The activists, from environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia, have since 2024 been serving prison sentences of between six and eight years for allegedly plotting against the government. In a 16-page opinion published in February, the U.N. working group said it had found that the imprisonment of Long Kuntha, 28, Ly Chandaravuth, 26, Phuon Keoraksmey, 25, Thun Ratha, 34 and Yim Leanghy, 37, met the conditions for arbitrary detention on the grounds that there was no legal basis for the arrests. It said authorities had targeted the activists for exercising their fundamental freedoms, making the detention discriminatory and resulting in severe violations of their right to a fair trial. The opinion asked Cambodia to take immediate action on the matter in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the latter of which Cambodia ratified in 1992, and to provide evidence of having done so within six months. Contacted by Mongabay in August, six months since the working group’s findings, a government spokesperson said the activists would remain behind bars. “I have no comment on [the working group’s] rulings against us as all detentions have been made under legal and judicial proceeding,” Chan Rothona, spokesperson for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/cambodia-defies-un-call-to-free-arbitrarily-jailed-environmental-activists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327551</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New leadership initiative carries on legacy of late Indonesian environmental activist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/new-leadership-initiative-carries-on-legacy-of-late-indonesian-environmental-activist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/new-leadership-initiative-carries-on-legacy-of-late-indonesian-environmental-activist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Aug 2026 10:26:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/19101300/IMG20260814192437-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326637</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Climate Justice, Conflict, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, NGOs, Social Justice, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — It had been 648 days since Nur Hidayati, an Indonesian environmental activist fondly known as Yaya or Mbak Yaya, died of cancer. Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary-general of Indonesia’s largest Indigenous organization, AMAN, had counted every one of those days. “ It makes me sad,” she said at the launch of the Yaya Leadership Initiative [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — It had been 648 days since Nur Hidayati, an Indonesian environmental activist fondly known as Yaya or Mbak Yaya, died of cancer. Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary-general of Indonesia’s largest Indigenous organization, AMAN, had counted every one of those days. “ It makes me sad,” she said at the launch of the Yaya Leadership Initiative in Jakarta on Aug. 14, which would have been Yaya’s 53th birthday. But seeing the initiative launched in Yaya’s name gave Rukka another way to think about the loss. “Although she has gone, there are legacies, ideas and actions she left behind that we can still benefit from,” she said. The initiative, known as the YLI, brings together environmental, Indigenous, agrarian, fisher, human rights, and other movements to develop a new generation of community leaders — particularly from the ranks of women, young people, Indigenous peoples, and grassroots changemakers. Facilitated by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the country’s biggest green NGO, alongside organizations including the Indigenous alliance AMAN, the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA), and the Indonesian Union of Traditional Fisherfolk (KNTI), the YLI aims to build the capacity, networks, and support systems of people working for social and environmental justice. The initiative is built around four principles that Yaya championed throughout her career: solidarity, equality, environmentalism, and diversity. But its proponents say the YLI is more than just an effort to preserve the memory of one of Indonesia’s most prominent environmental leaders. They say it’s an attempt to carry forward a particular&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/new-leadership-initiative-carries-on-legacy-of-late-indonesian-environmental-activist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326637</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Land rights and mangroves entwine in a Brazilian quilombo’s resistance</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/land-rights-and-mangroves-entwine-in-a-brazilian-quilombos-resistance/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/land-rights-and-mangroves-entwine-in-a-brazilian-quilombos-resistance/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2026 15:29:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolina de Marchi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/11152728/20260402-PXL_20260402_191844572.PANO_-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325902</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioeconomy, Coastal Ecosystems, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Philosophy, Culture, Ecosystems, Environment, Estuaries, Freshwater, Mangroves, Marine Conservation, Protected Areas, Religions, Rivers, Social Justice, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BREJÃO DOS NEGROS, Brazil — It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. Here on Brazil’s Atlantic coast, where the São Francisco River meets the sea, waves ripple across the crystal-clear water. In the vast blue expanse, the green of islands and islets blends with fertile lands covered in Atlantic Forest remnants, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BREJÃO DOS NEGROS, Brazil — It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. Here on Brazil’s Atlantic coast, where the São Francisco River meets the sea, waves ripple across the crystal-clear water. In the vast blue expanse, the green of islands and islets blends with fertile lands covered in Atlantic Forest remnants, white dunes, small docks, marginal lagoons, and mangroves — a biological heritage that serves as a nursery for countless marine species. But this beauty has not always belonged to those who lived there. Remnants of cotton plantations and more than 20 mills tell of an era before the so-called Golden Law of 1888 abolished slavery in Brazil. This region once held the largest number of enslaved people in the lower catchment area of the São Francisco River. Because of its dense native forests, it was also an ideal refuge for those who managed to escape, which earned it the name Refúgio dos Negros. Even after abolition, the people who lived off artisanal fishing and farming here enjoyed little real freedom. The land where they had lived on and worked for generations was claimed by local landowners who, with or without legal titles, exercised uncontested dominance. According to residents of the Brejão dos Negros Quilombola Territory — a group of traditional communities, or quilombos, founded by formerly enslaved Afro-Brazilians — fences and cattle grids went up everywhere, making them feel like prisoners in their own land. “It was like this: if you harvested a field of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/land-rights-and-mangroves-entwine-in-a-brazilian-quilombos-resistance/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/land-rights-and-mangroves-entwine-in-a-brazilian-quilombos-resistance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325902</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Waste, women &#038; environmental justice: Interview with Nubian activist Malasen Hamida</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2026 18:30:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ouma Elvine Tina]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/14131540/img5-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323283</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation leadership, Culture, Environment, Fellows, Gender, Interviews, Mongabay.org, NGOs, Social Justice, and Waste]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Malasen Hamida, a Nubian Muslim woman from Kibera, in Nairobi, is an aspiring politician and an environmental activist with more than 25 years of advocacy behind her. Kibera, which was named by Nubians, meaning “land of forests,” is Kenya’s largest informal settlement and sits on land that the British colonial government allocated to the Nubian [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Malasen Hamida, a Nubian Muslim woman from Kibera, in Nairobi, is an aspiring politician and an environmental activist with more than 25 years of advocacy behind her. Kibera, which was named by Nubians, meaning “land of forests,” is Kenya’s largest informal settlement and sits on land that the British colonial government allocated to the Nubian community after their forebears served as soldiers in the King’s African Rifles. That allocation once covered 1,698 hectares (4,197 acres). Today, due to urbanization, forced evictions, land-grabbing and successive government projects, only 116 hectares (288 acres) remain under Nubian ownership, with no compensation ever offered. Through the Mazingira Women Initiative, Hamida has spent those years organizing around waste management, smart farming, land rights and women’s leadership. (“Mazingira” is a Swahili word for environment or nature.) She is also a three-time parliamentary candidate for the Kibera constituency and intends to run again in 2027. Hamida spoke with Mongabay on a cold Saturday afternoon, just as she was leaving the largest mosque in Kibera constituency. Her offices are a short walk away. As we moved toward them, several people stopped to greet her. She responded to each, “salaam aleikum,” paused to chat, and cupped a small girl’s face in her hands. She led me through a corrugated iron gate into a quiet compound of mud-walled, iron-roofed houses. The area was noticeably clean, with no stagnant water or litter in sight, unlike the typical sight in Kibera. We settled on the veranda of her home. Malasen Hamida addresses&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323283</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sea level rise is ruining coastal Bangladesh with salty water (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sea-level-rise-is-ruining-coastal-bangladesh-with-salty-water-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sea-level-rise-is-ruining-coastal-bangladesh-with-salty-water-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jul 2026 17:10:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[AL Sharia]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/01160010/Bangladesh-salt-water-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322217</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate, Climate Justice, Coastal Ecosystems, Commentary, Drinking Water, Erosion, Flooding, Health, Impact Of Climate Change, Natural Resources, Oceans, Pollution, Public Health, Sea Levels, Social Justice, Water, Water Pollution, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Every morning, before the sun has fully risen over the tidal flats of Satkhira in southwest Bangladesh, women begin walking. They walk two kilometers, sometimes five (about 1.2 to 3.1 miles) and sometimes more, carrying empty vessels that they will fill with water fit for drinking. Then they walk back. Then, some days, they walk [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Every morning, before the sun has fully risen over the tidal flats of Satkhira in southwest Bangladesh, women begin walking. They walk two kilometers, sometimes five (about 1.2 to 3.1 miles) and sometimes more, carrying empty vessels that they will fill with water fit for drinking. Then they walk back. Then, some days, they walk again. A UNDP study found that women in coastal Bangladesh spend up to six hours a day on this task alone, six hours that cannot be spent earning, learning or caring for their children, and this is not even a drought zone. This is one of the largest deltas on Earth. The women walk past rivers, channels and flooded fields. The water is everywhere, and none of it is safe. Approximately 20 million people along Bangladesh’s coast cannot safely drink the water that surrounds them. Yet, a UNDP survey found that 73% of residents in five coastal sub-districts of Satkhira consume saline water every single day. The crisis does not make the front pages of international newspapers the way droughts in East Africa or floods in Pakistan tend to. It is slow, structural and unglamorous, which is precisely why it has been allowed to continue for this long. A woman collects water from a pond about 1 km from her home in Shyamnagara, Satkhira district, Bangladesh. Image courtesy of Abu Siddique/Dialogue Earth. The intrusion of saltwater into Bangladesh’s coastal mainland is not simply a consequence of rising seas, though the seas are certainly rising. Studies&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sea-level-rise-is-ruining-coastal-bangladesh-with-salty-water-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322217</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador, an Indigenous community goes thirsty despite its two rivers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jun 2026 07:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gabriela Verdezoto Landívar]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/11163242/MUJERES-Y-NINAS-CAPIRONA-1200x800-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321009</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Crime, Drinking Water, Environment, Environmental Law, Freshwater, Global Environmental Crisis, Health, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Pollution, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Rivers, Social Justice, Water, Water Pollution, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the mining-plagued Ecuadorian Amazon, not even two rivers are enough to ensure safe water for an Indigenous community.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The man&#8217;s cheekbones are painted with achiote, a red pigment extracted from the seeds of the Bixa orellana plant. He wears a thin headband over his gray hair, and a traditional green shirt with yellow and blue trim on the collar and sleeves. In his right hand, he holds a wooden spear, 2.5 meters long, or just over 8 feet, made from the chonta palm (Bactris gasipaes). He stares at the journalist. His dark eyes widen as he laments the occurrence of several cases of community residents, including children, suffering from fungal infections. “Even two people have already died from stomach pain, and at the hospital, they said: ‘Maybe it’s the water.’” The video was first broadcast on Sept. 28, 2024, on an Ecuadorian national news program. The man recorded is Galo Villamil, one of the leaders of the Capirona community, an Indigenous Kichwa resistance enclave in the Ecuadorian Amazon. One year before, in 2023, 22-year-old Joana Ashanga and her 2-year-old nephew, Ville Ashanga, were victims of what the community considers the fatal consequence of river pollution. “Despite the complaints, official reports from the [Ecuadorian] Ministry of Health made no mention of links between the pollution and the deaths, which generated distrust and outrage,” said Linda Tapuy, president of the Capirona community, before an audience at a university auditorium in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, two years after the deaths. The victims’ death certificates said the cause of death was “unknown.” For the Indigenous group, appearing in that television news story was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321009</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Southeast Asian nations chart important new course toward environmental justice (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2026 22:57:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Knox]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/11081601/jambi_220653_2560px-768x512-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321042</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Law, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made an important commitment to environmental justice for the 680 million people who call this region home. Now comes the hard part: putting it into practice. Last October, ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made an important commitment to environmental justice for the 680 million people who call this region home. Now comes the hard part: putting it into practice. Last October, ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam — adopted a Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment. They are currently in the process of drafting a regional plan of action to give it life. The right to a healthy environment as it’s usually called is now globally accepted as a fundamental human right. ASEAN first recognized this right in 2012 in the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the right in a virtually unanimous vote: 161 governments voted in favor, none against, and only eight abstained. At the national level, more than 100 countries now include it in their constitutions. Southeast Asia enjoys a rich natural heritage, like this coral reef in the Philippines, that supports the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Image courtesy of Jett Britnell/Coral Reef Image Bank. At the same time, international tribunals and domestic courts have made strides in clarifying what the right requires. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, issued an opinion on climate change in which it said the human right to a healthy environment is inherent and essential for other human rights, including&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321042</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rights groups renew call to free jailed Cambodian environmental activists</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rights-groups-renew-call-to-free-jailed-cambodian-environmental-activists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rights-groups-renew-call-to-free-jailed-cambodian-environmental-activists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Jun 2026 02:51:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/02191933/Phuon-Keorasmey-another-prominent-figure-of-Mother-Nature-Cambodia-is-arrested-on-July-2-2024_banner-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320620</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Climate Change, Community Development, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corruption, Crime, Deforestation, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Governance, Human Rights, Land Rights, Mining, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — Seven hundred days after activists from the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia were imprisoned on charges widely regarded as retaliatory for their activism, 73 international and Cambodian civil society organizations have renewed calls for their unconditional release. After a trial lasting just over a month, 10 activists from Mother Nature Cambodia were sentenced [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — Seven hundred days after activists from the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia were imprisoned on charges widely regarded as retaliatory for their activism, 73 international and Cambodian civil society organizations have renewed calls for their unconditional release. After a trial lasting just over a month, 10 activists from Mother Nature Cambodia were sentenced on July 2, 2024, to between six and eight years in prison. Only five of the defendants attended the hearings, which saw Long Kuntha, 28, Ly Chandaravuth, 26, Phuon Keoraksmey, 25, and Thun Ratha, 34, each sentenced to six years behind bars for plotting against the government; fellow activist Yim Leanghy, 36, received an eight-year sentence for both plotting against the government and insulting the king. The five activists who did not attend the trial were sentenced in absentia. The appeals hearing for all 10 convicted activists was slated to take place on June 2, but has been postponed indefinitely by the Phnom Penh Court of Appeals. “The MNC5 are incarcerated in prisons in overcrowded and harsh living conditions, separated from each other and spread out all across Cambodia, hundreds of kilometers away from their families and legal counsel,” wrote the 73 NGOs in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Hun Manet. “The … NGOs who have signed this letter sincerely request you take immediate action to ensure the unjust convictions of these five activists are reversed either prior to or at their upcoming appeals court hearing in Phnom Penh, and that their freedom&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rights-groups-renew-call-to-free-jailed-cambodian-environmental-activists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320620</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bangladesh struggles to enforce ‘polluter pays’ principle amid legal delays</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-struggles-to-enforce-polluter-pays-principle-amid-legal-delays/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-struggles-to-enforce-polluter-pays-principle-amid-legal-delays/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Jun 2026 15:07:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sadiqur Rahman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/04144147/tanneries-pollution-in-bangladesh-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320594</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Aerosol Pollution, Air Pollution, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Industry, Law, Law Enforcement, Nutrient Pollution, Pollution, Social Justice, Waste, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The existence of the “polluter pays” principle (PPP) in Bangladesh, at least on paper, dates back to 1992, ever since the country endorsed the Rio Declaration. However, Bangladesh has made little progress in implementing the principle so far. A statement by the incumbent minister for environment, forest and climate change, Abdul Awal Mintoo, saying that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The existence of the “polluter pays” principle (PPP) in Bangladesh, at least on paper, dates back to 1992, ever since the country endorsed the Rio Declaration. However, Bangladesh has made little progress in implementing the principle so far. A statement by the incumbent minister for environment, forest and climate change, Abdul Awal Mintoo, saying that regulatory authorities recovered less than half of the total compensation imposed on polluters over the past 16 years, exposed the structural loopholes in environmental governance behind failures in implementing the principle. The minister pointed out that polluters can delay the compensation recovery by applying their right to appeal against the regulatory authorities’ orders. that Mongabay spoke to said that loopholes in the judicial system, weak evidence and economic analysis on pollution, and polluters’ influence must be addressed if the country really wants to implement the PPP. Environmentalist and Dhaka University’s zoology professor Mohammad Firoj Jaman told Mongabay, “Delays in implementation of laws against polluters aggravate environmental pollution, and the hope of reaping the benefits of environmental justice falls flat.” Shanties stand along the bank of Buriganga River in Hazaribagh, Dhaka district, Bangladesh. The area is known for tanneries, the waste from which fill the surrounding land and water. Image by Abir Abdullah/Asian Development Bank via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Compensation recovery undermines the PPP The PPP binds polluters to bear the costs of managing and remedying the harm they have done to the environment. The concept of PPP was first mentioned in the recommendations of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-struggles-to-enforce-polluter-pays-principle-amid-legal-delays/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320594</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Marine conservation suffers when the ocean is not accessible to all, especially on remote islands (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/marine-conservation-suffers-when-the-ocean-is-not-accessible-to-all-especially-on-remote-islands-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/marine-conservation-suffers-when-the-ocean-is-not-accessible-to-all-especially-on-remote-islands-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 16:54:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elsie Gabriel]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15163150/pexels-lucasandrade-20340263-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319520</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Communication, Conservation, Ecosystems, Education, Environment, Green, Marine, Marine Conservation, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The global push to protect oceans is gaining momentum, from coral reef restoration to ambitious targets under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Yet one critical dimension remains largely overlooked: accessibility. If the ocean is to be protected, it must first be experienced. Today, for millions of people, it remains fundamentally out of reach. This [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The global push to protect oceans is gaining momentum, from coral reef restoration to ambitious targets under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Yet one critical dimension remains largely overlooked: accessibility. If the ocean is to be protected, it must first be experienced. Today, for millions of people, it remains fundamentally out of reach. This is not just a social gap. It is a conservation failure. Ocean conservation depends on connection. People protect what they value, and they value what they can experience. Research shows that direct interaction with natural environments strengthens long-term environmental stewardship. Yet coastal and marine systems across much of the world remain structurally inaccessible to persons with disabilities, older populations, and marginalized communities. Workshop for residents of Lakshadweep, India, on accessible diving and ocean literacy. Image courtesy of Accessible Ocean Tourism. Beaches lack barrier-free access. Transport systems remain exclusionary. Marine experiences such as snorkeling and diving are rarely adapted. The result is a quiet but widespread exclusion from the ecosystems conservation seeks to protect. Globally, governments have committed to ensuring that no one is left behind under the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet in ocean spaces, exclusion persists. Accessibility is still treated as an afterthought, added through isolated initiatives rather than embedded into planning and conservation systems. This has direct consequences. When access to the ocean is limited, ocean literacy declines, while public understanding of marine ecosystems is a key driver of conservation outcomes. Communities that cannot engage with the ocean are less likely to participate in citizen science, conservation dialogue, or local stewardship. Conservation becomes something done for people,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/marine-conservation-suffers-when-the-ocean-is-not-accessible-to-all-especially-on-remote-islands-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319520</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Marine resource conflicts in Africa revolve mostly around access: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/marine-resource-conflicts-in-africa-revolve-mostly-around-access-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/marine-resource-conflicts-in-africa-revolve-mostly-around-access-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Apr 2026 17:54:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/28144955/16144755323_8373062a17_4k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318283</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Marine, Marine Conservation, Natural Resources, Oceans, Overfishing, Research, Resource Conflict, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Marine resource conflicts can arise when industrial vessels enter coastal waters used by small-scale fishers, a port is built on a mangrove restoration site or a shipping lane runs through a marine protected area. A new study identified more than 1,000 such conflicts in Africa over an 11-year period and found that nearly 75% were [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Marine resource conflicts can arise when industrial vessels enter coastal waters used by small-scale fishers, a port is built on a mangrove restoration site or a shipping lane runs through a marine protected area. A new study identified more than 1,000 such conflicts in Africa over an 11-year period and found that nearly 75% were disputes over access to spaces and resources. The study, published April 17 in the journal One Earth, calls for more participatory and transparent governance to reduce conflicts, warning that without such reforms, conflicts could derail African policymakers’ sustainability and equity goals. “Ensuring meaningful participation of affected groups is one of the biggest takeaways,&#8221; Elizabeth Selig, managing director at the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University in the U.S. and lead author of the study, told Mongabay. &#8220;If you embed [these groups] within decision-making processes and are conscious of [future] actions that could affect them, you are more likely to be able to avoid conflict.” Effects of an oil spill are visible at Goi Creek, Nigeria, in August 2010. Conflicts related to oil spills in Nigeria appear in a marine resource conflict database created by Stanford University researcher Elizabath Selig and her co-authors. Image by Friends of the Earth Netherlands via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). The ocean is a site of both increased conservation interest and economic activity, Selig and her co-authors write. “The compound impacts of a growing ocean economy, climate-change-associated shifts in marine resources&#8217; availability, and the expansion of spatial conservation measures&#8221; increases&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/marine-resource-conflicts-in-africa-revolve-mostly-around-access-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318283</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Ghana eyes lithium future, affected communities face uncertainty</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/as-ghana-eyes-lithium-future-affected-communities-face-uncertainty/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/as-ghana-eyes-lithium-future-affected-communities-face-uncertainty/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Apr 2026 06:55:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxine Betteridge-Moes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/28150512/Image-banniere-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318275</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Ghana, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Economics, Environment, Governance, Land Conflict, Law, Mining, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[EWOYAA, Ghana — In March, the Ghanaian parliament approved what could become the West African nation’s first lithium mine. Atlantic Lithium’s Ewoyaa project sets the stage for Ghana to become a key supplier in the critical minerals supply chain, but some experts say the rights of communities impacted by the project are at risk. Ghana’s [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[EWOYAA, Ghana — In March, the Ghanaian parliament approved what could become the West African nation’s first lithium mine. Atlantic Lithium’s Ewoyaa project sets the stage for Ghana to become a key supplier in the critical minerals supply chain, but some experts say the rights of communities impacted by the project are at risk. Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources granted the mining lease to Barari DV Ghana, a subsidiary of Australia’s Atlantic Lithium, in October 2023, following the discovery of lithium deposits in and around the village of Ewoyaa in Ghana’s Central region. The lease, situated about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, Accra, provides the company with exclusive rights to mine lithium for an initial period of 15 years. In Ghana, like many countries across the world, mineral rights rest with the state, and deals granting foreign companies access to these resources must be ratified by parliament. The Ewoyaa mine is expected to produce an estimated 3.6 million metric tons of spodumene concentrate, a mineral rich in lithium, over 12 years. The lithium will then be exported to the U.S. and further refined for use in electric vehicle batteries. At least 50% of the spodumene concentrate has already been committed to North American producer Elevra Lithium, which supplies Tesla. According to Ghanaian NGO Friends of the Nation (FON), only 1% of the project’s gross revenues are earmarked for local development initiatives. A water treatment plant donated by Atlantic Lithium. The company has already made some&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/as-ghana-eyes-lithium-future-affected-communities-face-uncertainty/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318275</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indigenous peoples’ health cannot be separated from the environment, U.N. delegates warn</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-peoples-health-cannot-be-separated-from-the-environment-un-delegates-warn/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-peoples-health-cannot-be-separated-from-the-environment-un-delegates-warn/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Apr 2026 16:37:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/22162155/Capture-decran-le-2026-04-22-a-12.21.24-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317948</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Climate Justice, Conservation, Environment, Food, Forests, Health, Indigenous Peoples, Politics, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This story is republished through the Indigenous News Alliance. On the second day of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, experts called attention to the ways Indigenous health is deeply tied to nature and highlighted how health inequalities are compounded by environmental degradation, extractive activities and climate change. The forum&#8217;s focus [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story is republished through the Indigenous News Alliance. On the second day of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, experts called attention to the ways Indigenous health is deeply tied to nature and highlighted how health inequalities are compounded by environmental degradation, extractive activities and climate change. The forum&#8217;s focus on Indigenous health comes as a new study by former permanent forum member Geoffrey Roth argues that U.N. agencies&#8217; fragmented approach — addressing health, environment, and land rights through separate mandates — has &#8220;consistently failed Indigenous Peoples.&#8221; The study, presented as the forum opened its 25th session, positions environmental degradation, climate change, and biodiversity loss not as external pressures but as &#8220;direct manifestations of injury&#8221; to Indigenous wellbeing. “For Indigenous Peoples, health is deeply tied to the health of the land,” said Roth, descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “It’s not just about access to clinics or medicine – it’s about clean water, healthy forests, traditional foods, and the ability to maintain cultural practices. When the environment is damaged – whether from mining, deforestation, pollution, or climate change – it directly affects people’s health.” An Indigenous leader from Caigua points to the ravine with the same name as his community, marked by oil pollution that damages Aguaragüe National Park. Image courtesy of Miguel Surubi. At the forum, many Indigenous leaders spoke out about how the growing environmental crises increase the urgency to address their impacts on Indigenous health. &#8220;Climate change is also another threat&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-peoples-health-cannot-be-separated-from-the-environment-un-delegates-warn/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317948</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New treaty to end the fossil fuel era is needed more than ever (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/new-treaty-to-end-the-fossil-fuel-era-is-needed-more-than-ever-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/new-treaty-to-end-the-fossil-fuel-era-is-needed-more-than-ever-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2026 23:17:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Tzeporah Berman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/23065527/solar-panels-indonesia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317876</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Commentary, Conflict, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Governance, International Trade, Mining, Social Justice, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The fog of war is pervasive, but one thing is clear as “Gulf War 3” escalates: governments around the world are counting the cost of their dependency on oil and gas. “The largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” is the International Energy Agency’s take on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The fog of war is pervasive, but one thing is clear as “Gulf War 3” escalates: governments around the world are counting the cost of their dependency on oil and gas. “The largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” is the International Energy Agency’s take on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has seen oil and gas fields bombed and shipments through the Strait of Hormuz curtailed. Oil prices are beyond $100 a barrel and inflation is picking up — even in the oil-and-gas-rich U.S. — while in Asia, governments are curtailing working days, limiting petroleum exports, and rationing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders. Beyond economic disruption, this conflict has exacted a tragic human toll, with thousands of lives lost and countless families shattered. Growth goals, job targets, food supplies and the future hopes of citizens around the world are at the mercy of traders and huge corporations that stand to benefit as prices skyrocket. The environmental toll of this petro-fueled conflict extends far beyond human casualties, too. Oil infrastructure attacks have triggered massive ecological disasters, with crude oil spills contaminating marine ecosystems in the Persian Gulf, and refinery explosions releasing toxic pollutants that threaten migratory bird routes and coastal wetlands. The war has also accelerated deforestation as nations scramble for other energy sources, like Indonesia, which is reportedly fast-tracking palm oil expansion for biofuel production. These ecological scars will persist long after the last barrel of oil is extracted from bombed wells. The Fossil Fuel&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/new-treaty-to-end-the-fossil-fuel-era-is-needed-more-than-ever-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317876</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malawi government suspends coal miner’s license over river pollution</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/malawi-government-suspends-coal-miners-license-over-river-pollution/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/malawi-government-suspends-coal-miners-license-over-river-pollution/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Apr 2026 11:20:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/20104353/3-2_Coal-mine-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317771</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Malawi, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Critical Minerals, Environment, Governance, Health, Mining, Planetary Health, Social Justice, Water, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Malawi government has suspended the mining license of a coal company for dumping mining waste into two rivers that communities rely on for water. The suspension follows an uproar by one of the communities in Malawi’s coal mining heartland in the north of the country. Community members demanded the closure of the mine for [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Malawi government has suspended the mining license of a coal company for dumping mining waste into two rivers that communities rely on for water. The suspension follows an uproar by one of the communities in Malawi’s coal mining heartland in the north of the country. Community members demanded the closure of the mine for contaminating the rivers that supply water for their domestic and agricultural needs. Preliminary investigations by government agencies responsible for water and the environment confirmed the pollution. The northern region, particularly the two districts of Karonga and Rumphi, has Malawi’s largest coal mines. The country depends on coal as a fuel for everything from tobacco curing to cement production. However, mines in the region have a track record of environmental destruction and labor violations, issues that both local rights bodies and global watchdog Human Rights Watch have exposed. In a letter dated April 8, 2026, Malawi’s Mining and Minerals Regulatory Authority (MMRA) announced the immediate suspension of the mining license for Coal &amp; Minerals Group Limited, the company operating the polluting mine. It cited the water contamination as “seriously threatening” the health and safety of the public and the environment. According to the MMRA, investigations by government regulatory agencies found evidence of coal-associated waste discharge into the two rivers, uncontrolled runoff from the mining pits and stockpiles, and poorly designed storage facilities to hold the mining waste, or tailings. The authority also noted that the company did not have critical plans such as a mining operations&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/malawi-government-suspends-coal-miners-license-over-river-pollution/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/malawi-government-suspends-coal-miners-license-over-river-pollution/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317771</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Second progress report shows little action on World Bank redress plan at Liberian plantation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/second-progress-report-shows-little-action-on-world-bank-redress-plan-at-liberian-plantation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/second-progress-report-shows-little-action-on-world-bank-redress-plan-at-liberian-plantation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2026 10:07:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/04104621/woman-sex-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317077</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Liberia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conflict, Corporate Social Responsibility, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Law, Plantations, Rubber, Social Conflict, Social Justice, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A year after the World Bank approved a plan to redress community grievances over inadequate compensation and sexual harassment at Liberia’s Salala Rubber Corporation, a progress report provides little evidence that any of its key commitments have been implemented. In February, the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, published a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A year after the World Bank approved a plan to redress community grievances over inadequate compensation and sexual harassment at Liberia’s Salala Rubber Corporation, a progress report provides little evidence that any of its key commitments have been implemented. In February, the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, published a second report on progress with the action plan. “IFC will continue to engage with key stakeholders over the coming months to explore the feasibility of MAP implementation.” But Windor Smith, from the Liberian civil society organization Alliance for Rural Democracy, which works with affected communities around the Salala plantation, told Mongabay she does not know which stakeholders the IFC is engaging with. “The situation is still the same. There is no engagement, no consultation with the communities and supporting organizations.” Luxembourg-based multinational Socfin took over the rubber plantation in 2007 and received an IFC loan of $10 million to rehabilitate and expand it. Community members started voicing grievances soon thereafter. Dissatisfied with the company’s response, they filed a complaint with the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, IFC’s independent watchdog, in 2019, alleging sexual harassment, inadequate compensation for their rubber trees and food crops lost and a flawed land acquisition process. Read more about Socfin&#8217;s plantations in Africa. Four years later, the CAO completed its investigation, concluding that many of the complaints were valid. The IFC developed an action plan, which it committed to implementing along with Socfin. In contrast to what followed many previous CAO investigations, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/second-progress-report-shows-little-action-on-world-bank-redress-plan-at-liberian-plantation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317077</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>10 years after Vietnam’s Formosa steel plant spill, justice for victims remains elusive</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/10-years-after-vietnams-formosa-steel-plant-spill-justice-for-victims-remains-elusive/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/10-years-after-vietnams-formosa-steel-plant-spill-justice-for-victims-remains-elusive/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Apr 2026 14:52:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hướng Thiện]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/06075811/Vietnamese-activists-hold-photo-of-dead-fish-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316991</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Industry, Land Rights, Law, Pollution, Protests, Social Justice, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In early 2016, a power failure shut down the waste treatment facility at Hưng Nghiệp Formosa Steel Hà Tĩnh (FSH), located off the coast of Vietnam’s Hà Tĩnh province. The power failure caused the facility to illegally release untreated water — contaminated with phenol, cyanide and iron hydroxide — into the sea. On April 6, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In early 2016, a power failure shut down the waste treatment facility at Hưng Nghiệp Formosa Steel Hà Tĩnh (FSH), located off the coast of Vietnam’s Hà Tĩnh province. The power failure caused the facility to illegally release untreated water — contaminated with phenol, cyanide and iron hydroxide — into the sea. On April 6, 2016, dead fish starting washing up on beaches across four provinces in the North Central region of Vietnam: Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên Huế. Over the following weeks, at least 100 metric tons of dead fish washed ashore. Untold numbers of people were sickened by eating contaminated fish, and divers from the region were reported to have died in the affected waters. In the aftermath of the disaster, thousands more lost their income as waters were closed, fishing operations were suspended and tourism ground to a halt. The government-approved list of victims consists of 510,000 people in 130,000 households across 730 villages and hamlets. Initially, both FSH and the Vietnamese authorities failed to acknowledge the  company&#8217;s culpability. Statements from Vietnamese authorities attributed the mass fish deaths to the natural growth of toxic algae blooms. “No (formally registered) NGO inside the country dared to conduct an investigation on site,” said a Hanoi-based independent human rights activist, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. Only after widespread protests across the country, one of Vietnam&#8217;s largest civic mobilizations in recent years, did the government name the company as the culprit behind&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/10-years-after-vietnams-formosa-steel-plant-spill-justice-for-victims-remains-elusive/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/10-years-after-vietnams-formosa-steel-plant-spill-justice-for-victims-remains-elusive/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316991</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Thai court rules gold mine liable, but villagers face uncertain justice</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/thai-court-rules-gold-mine-liable-but-villagers-face-uncertain-justice/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/thai-court-rules-gold-mine-liable-but-villagers-face-uncertain-justice/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Apr 2026 18:17:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kannikar Petchkaew]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/01173429/Manit_s-widow-at-the-same-spotpoll-and-signed-were-reinstlled-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316731</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Environmental Law, Gold Mining, Governance, Health, Mining, Politics, Pollution, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold mine, the Bangkok Civil Court ruled in their favor, holding the company liable for environmental damage and health impacts. Four days later — and four [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold mine, the Bangkok Civil Court ruled in their favor, holding the company liable for environmental damage and health impacts. Four days later — and four years after first documenting the villagers’ struggle for justice — Mongabay returned to the community still living in the shadow of Thailand’s largest gold mine. The scene in the village was hardly celebratory. Chamnian Buakam stands in Ban Khao Mo village, in Thailand&#8217;s Phichit province, on March 28, 2026. The wall of the tailings dam is visible behind her in the distance. Image by Kannikar Petchkaew for Mongabay. Thailand’s mid-summer bore down with relentless, furnace-like heat. Villagers around the gold mine retreated to the sparse shade of trees, waiting in uneasy uncertainty. The court had ordered the company to compensate nearly 400 villagers found to have elevated levels of heavy metals in their blood. It must also shut down one of the storage facilities where it keeps mining waste, or tailings, long cited as a source of contamination, and bear the full cost of environmental rehabilitation — an effort one expert estimates could reach hundreds of millions of baht. The verdict is historic, the country’s first environmental class action following a 2015 legal amendment that enabled such lawsuits. Yet, even with the support of an NGO, only 40 villagers were able to make the five-hour&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/thai-court-rules-gold-mine-liable-but-villagers-face-uncertain-justice/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316731</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Shipping’s biofuel gamble could deepen Africa’s land squeeze and food insecurity (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/shippings-biofuel-gamble-could-deepen-africas-land-squeeze-and-food-insecurity-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/shippings-biofuel-gamble-could-deepen-africas-land-squeeze-and-food-insecurity-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Mar 2026 15:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Million BelaySusan Chomba]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/07145348/container-ship-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316050</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Biofuels, Business, carbon, Climate, Climate Change, Commentary, Farming, Food, food security, International Trade, Land Rights, Mitigation, Poverty, Poverty Alleviation, Shipping, Social Justice, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Africa&#8217;s future prosperity depends on how fast we can reduce emissions, especially from large polluting sectors like shipping. But using crops as fuel to cut emissions risks causing more harm than good. As countries gather at the UN&#8217;s International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting in April to lay down the rules for future clean energy to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Africa&#8217;s future prosperity depends on how fast we can reduce emissions, especially from large polluting sectors like shipping. But using crops as fuel to cut emissions risks causing more harm than good. As countries gather at the UN&#8217;s International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting in April to lay down the rules for future clean energy to power shipping, African governments must ensure that crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. If that does happen, Africa might once again find itself paying the price for a transition from which it may not benefit. Shipping, as with other heavily polluting sectors, must decarbonize. But not all climate solutions are equal. The expansion of biofuels, often portrayed as ‘green’ in international shipping dialogues, could intensify pressures on land and food systems that are already stretched to the limit. As our work has shown, competition for land has reached a breaking point across Africa. Since 2000, hundreds of large-scale land deals have been recorded for industrial farming, carbon credits, mining, and biofuels. What is often presented as ‘unused’ or ‘marginal’ land is, in reality, the basis of livelihoods for small-scale farmers and Indigenous communities who are being displaced or stripped of control over their territories, which drives land inequality, rural poverty, and food insecurity. Biofuels for shipping risks accelerating this trajectory. Farmers at Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Image by Axel Fassio/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Shipping consumes roughly 300 million tons of fuel each year, and is responsible for 3% of global&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/shippings-biofuel-gamble-could-deepen-africas-land-squeeze-and-food-insecurity-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316050</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How foreign investor lawsuits stymie environmental protection</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Mar 2026 10:59:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/09/30133937/Jacob-Balzani_Mayuriaga-Oil-Spill-2016-WampisNation_3500px_Extra_0073-1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315928</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Crime, Energy, Energy Transition, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Land Conflict, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Protected Areas, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries in the region are facing a total of $36.6 billion in lawsuits from corporations, all through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims, which [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries in the region are facing a total of $36.6 billion in lawsuits from corporations, all through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims, which often constrain governments’ ability to implement reforms due to fear of costly punishments. The data identified 419 ISDS claims against countries in the region filed as of mid-October 2025, with Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Ecuador shouldering the highest costs. Together, they face almost two-thirds of all lawsuits, with 257 claims. Between 2014 and 2024, 212 lawsuits were registered across the region, a 133% increase from previous decades. “We are talking about close to 40 billion dollars LAC [Latin American and Caribbean] states have been ordered to pay already, and there are many cases we don’t know the amount they were asked to pay, so the number is actually higher,” Bettina Müller, an associate researcher at the Transnational Institute and author of the report, told Mongabay over email. “Imagine what could have been done with 40 billion dollars in the region and specifically in the countries which have been ordered to pay the most, like Venezuela and Argentina.” ISDS is a mechanism in international trade agreements that allows foreign investors to sue states before international tribunals when they think that national laws, regulations, legal decisions or other public measures violate their treaty protections. The mechanism&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315928</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A decade after the death of Berta Cáceres, we can no longer tolerate threats to environmental activists (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-decade-after-the-death-of-berta-caceres-we-can-no-longer-tolerate-threats-to-environmental-activists-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-decade-after-the-death-of-berta-caceres-we-can-no-longer-tolerate-threats-to-environmental-activists-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Mar 2026 14:43:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michael Sutton]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/06/28101014/8_0314-honoring-river-defenders-brazils-munduruku-people-AmazoWatch-copy-e1773674548672-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315779</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Global, Honduras, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Commentary, Conflict, Crime, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Environmental Heroes, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Organized Crime, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Environmental activist Berta Cáceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for successfully halting the Agua Zarca project, a massive hydropower development along the Gualcarque River in her native Honduras. On March 3, 2016, 10 years ago this month, gunmen hired by executives of the company building the dam assassinated her for her activism. Since [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Environmental activist Berta Cáceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for successfully halting the Agua Zarca project, a massive hydropower development along the Gualcarque River in her native Honduras. On March 3, 2016, 10 years ago this month, gunmen hired by executives of the company building the dam assassinated her for her activism. Since then, Berta has become a global symbol of courage and sacrifice in the face of greed and violence. Her legacy is powerful, but her martyrdom for simply protecting her community is unacceptable. In January, an independent group of experts appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a comprehensive report on the assassination. They found that Berta’s murder was the result of a coordinated criminal operation to defeat opposition to the Agua Zarca project. Worse, international development funds intended for the hydroelectric project were diverted to the purchase of Indigenous land, surveillance, armed incursions, and Berta’s murder. Berta’s assassination is not an isolated case. Many environmental defenders’ stories resemble David vs. Goliath, as they frequently tangle with powerful, well-funded industries and governments — and the webs of corruption that sometimes link them. According to Global Witness, 2,253 environmental activists have been killed worldwide since 2012, and many more have been victimized. In September 2025, Global Witness reported that at least 146 land and environmental defenders were killed or disappeared in 2024, with a plurality in Latin America. According to the World Economic Forum, at least 175 park rangers were killed in the line of duty across 41 countries in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-decade-after-the-death-of-berta-caceres-we-can-no-longer-tolerate-threats-to-environmental-activists-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-decade-after-the-death-of-berta-caceres-we-can-no-longer-tolerate-threats-to-environmental-activists-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315779</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Climate-resilient housing models slow to gain ground in disaster-prone Bangladesh</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-resilient-housing-models-slow-to-gain-ground-in-disaster-prone-bangladesh/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-resilient-housing-models-slow-to-gain-ground-in-disaster-prone-bangladesh/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Mar 2026 06:06:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sadiqur Rahman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/13192957/Billal-Hossain-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315738</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Community Development, Disasters, Environment, Extreme Weather, Governance, Impact Of Climate Change, Infrastructure, NGOs, Poverty Alleviation, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Bangladesh’s low-lying terrain combined with the crisscrossed river network, which is cause for recurring floods, tidal surges and river erosion, and frequent cyclones make it vulnerable to climate change-related devastations. Between 2008 and 2024, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) recorded 123 disaster events that triggered huge displacement, including about 11.3 million people who experienced [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Bangladesh’s low-lying terrain combined with the crisscrossed river network, which is cause for recurring floods, tidal surges and river erosion, and frequent cyclones make it vulnerable to climate change-related devastations. Between 2008 and 2024, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) recorded 123 disaster events that triggered huge displacement, including about 11.3 million people who experienced pre-emptive evacuations during cyclones. IDMC assessed that many such movements, however, only last for a short period of time, but every year disasters still leave tens of thousands of people without hope of returning to their homes immediately after. In such a context, safe housing is a survival need instead of merely an infrastructural demand. However, the concept of safe or sustainable housing for the disaster victims still remains a donor-funded matter, as the use of climate-and-disaster-resilient construction plans and materials are not popular in Bangladesh. “Sustainable and safe housing is the first line of defense in disaster risk reduction,” says Mohammad Abu Sadeque, executive director of Centre for Housing and Building Research (HBRC), a private sector research hub focused on creating sustainable, affordable, and climate-resilient housing solutions. Sadeque has observed that conventional housing, especially in Bangladesh’s rural and low-income areas, often lacks structural safety and durability against cyclones and tidal surges, riverbank erosion, flooding, flash floods, salinity intrusion, earthquakes and heat stress. According to the government’s disaster-related statistics of 2021, more than half of the country’s households are non-concrete. Living in fragile tin-roofed or mud-walled structures, millions of families are exposed to the mounting&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-resilient-housing-models-slow-to-gain-ground-in-disaster-prone-bangladesh/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-resilient-housing-models-slow-to-gain-ground-in-disaster-prone-bangladesh/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315738</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/emotional-and-psychological-stresses-beleaguer-conservation-professionals-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/emotional-and-psychological-stresses-beleaguer-conservation-professionals-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Mar 2026 19:22:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nerissa ChaoVik Mohan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/27125153/c.-USFWS-Pacific-Greater_sage-grouse_surveys_in_southwestern_Idaho_52848937361-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315223</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Commentary, Conservation, Environment, Gender, Health, Psychology, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Nested within the current biodiversity crisis sits an equally complex and concerning human crisis, but one that receives even less attention: the poor mental health and well-being of the conservation workforce. The scale of this problem is clearly set out in a recent Mongabay article. In a sector that has always relied on the passion [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Nested within the current biodiversity crisis sits an equally complex and concerning human crisis, but one that receives even less attention: the poor mental health and well-being of the conservation workforce. The scale of this problem is clearly set out in a recent Mongabay article. In a sector that has always relied on the passion and commitment of individuals, where one’s value is measured by selfless dedication to the cause — which can manifest as an expectation to prioritize work above all else, take on unpaid or poorly paid work, accept poor working conditions, or compromise on personal safety — staff well-being has never been a priority. This unhealthy culture of self-sacrifice provides the context within which sector-wide stressors are impacting the well-being of the workforce. The growing ecological crisis in itself is having a significant impact on well-being, and this is set out powerfully in the Mongabay article. In addition to this, the changing funding and geopolitical landscape, which is deprioritizing conservation and climate action, further increases instability and uncertainty, putting further pressure on the conservation sector. Working in conservation isn&#8217;t all rainbows. Photo illustration of a rainforest rainbow in Malaysian Borneo by Rhett Butler/Mongabay. The impact of all of these chronic stressors are emotional and psychological distress, poor mental health and burnout, increasing the risk that conservation professionals will give up on their aspirations and leave the profession. Recent research found 27% of conservationists are suffering from moderate or severe distress, and women face particular challenges as conservationists,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/emotional-and-psychological-stresses-beleaguer-conservation-professionals-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/emotional-and-psychological-stresses-beleaguer-conservation-professionals-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315223</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Amazon riverfolk warn blasting rocks for shipping route will kill fisheries</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/amazon-riverfolk-warn-blasting-rocks-for-shipping-route-will-kill-fisheries/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/amazon-riverfolk-warn-blasting-rocks-for-shipping-route-will-kill-fisheries/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Feb 2026 07:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Tiffany Higgins]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/24171114/IMG_3295-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314688</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Freshwater Fish, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, Politics, Resource Conflict, Rivers, Social Justice, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional People, and Transportation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Generations of fishers have called these rocky formations home. Now, they say Brazil is not hearing their knowledge.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[ITUPIRANGA, Brazil — Ronaldo Macena and Erlan Moraes, traditional riverfolk leaders whose families have lived for generations on the Lourenção Rocks fishery on the Amazon’s Tocantins River, were hopeful in September when a federal judge visited their villages. For several generations, Macena told the judge, the peoples of the Pedral do Lourenção riverfolk territory, as they call it, have thrived in its rocky reaches, gaining not just income and dignified livelihoods but also cultural identification from fishing its stony subaquatic canyons that reach to more than 76 meters (250 feet) deep. But as the federal government seeks to open the river as a new shipping route, their rights have been systematically violated, Macena said, by a federal government that hasn’t treated them as traditional peoples with a distinct “culture, language and traditions” — but instead lumped riverfolk in with urban peoples, leaving their traditional knowledge, fishing and even existence barely acknowledged in government records. Brazil’s federal transport agencies plan to explode the deep, rocky river territory of the Pedral do Lourenção, as riverfolk call it (formally known as Pedral do Lourenço), a first step toward a riverway on the Tocantins River meant to expand exports of grains, minerals and cattle. The project is being executed by Brazil’s infrastructure transport department (DNIT), with studies by the Brazilian engineering consulting firm DTA Engenharia. To turn the river into a shipping route, authorities decided to blow up the rocks of a 35-kilometer (21.7-mile) section of the Lourenção, which is 43-kilometers (26.7-miles) long and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/amazon-riverfolk-warn-blasting-rocks-for-shipping-route-will-kill-fisheries/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/amazon-riverfolk-warn-blasting-rocks-for-shipping-route-will-kill-fisheries/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314688</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaria outbreak among Indigenous Pirahã linked to forest loss, satellite data find</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/malaria-outbreak-among-indigenous-piraha-linked-to-forest-loss-satellite-data-find/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/malaria-outbreak-among-indigenous-piraha-linked-to-forest-loss-satellite-data-find/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Feb 2026 18:16:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/17111402/A_Piraha_family-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314338</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Diseases, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Health, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Logging, Malaria, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Social Justice, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tucked into Brazil’s Amazon forest, along the Maici River where recently contacted Pirahã people live, journalists observed a dramatic uptick in forest loss. According to data from Global Forest Watch, the Pirahã Indigenous Territory lost 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres) of tree cover in 2024, roughly the size of more than 6,000 soccer fields, representing the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Tucked into Brazil’s Amazon forest, along the Maici River where recently contacted Pirahã people live, journalists observed a dramatic uptick in forest loss. According to data from Global Forest Watch, the Pirahã Indigenous Territory lost 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres) of tree cover in 2024, roughly the size of more than 6,000 soccer fields, representing the largest spike of deforestation between 2001 and 2024. But the cause was beyond the usual culprits of deforestation in the Amazon. In fact, national authorities say, it was part of an effort to address issues vulnerable Indigenous communities face following land invasions: food insecurity and the spread of diseases. The recent spike is mostly due to land clearings to improve food security and a health crisis in the affected population, said Daniel Cangussu, coordinator of the Madeira Ethno-Environmental Protection Front (FPE Madeira-Purus), a branch of Funai, Brazil’s Indigenous agency, which specializes in monitoring and protecting isolated and recently contacted people in the southern Amazonas region. Cangussu said via WhatsApp that Funai and the Pirahã people cleared land to plant crops such as cassava for the roughly 800 people who live there. For several decades, the Pirahã Indigenous people have faced a multitude of issues, from illegal loggers and hunters to invasions by outsiders seeking to extract natural resources from their territory in Brazil’s Amazonas state. Wildlife that people would hunt have been scared away, and fish stocks also declined due to the destruction. In recent years, government officials discovered the population was suffering from a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/malaria-outbreak-among-indigenous-piraha-linked-to-forest-loss-satellite-data-find/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/malaria-outbreak-among-indigenous-piraha-linked-to-forest-loss-satellite-data-find/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314338</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Community complaints in limbo as Socfin cuts ties with Earthworm Foundation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/community-complaints-in-limbo-as-socfin-cuts-ties-with-earthworm-foundation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/community-complaints-in-limbo-as-socfin-cuts-ties-with-earthworm-foundation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Feb 2026 10:15:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka MukpoVictoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/01/16124503/Salala4-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313982</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Liberia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Law, Plantations, Rubber, Social Conflict, Social Justice, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When agribusiness giant Socfin found itself embroiled in allegations of human rights and environmental violations at its plantations in Africa and Southeast Asia in 2017, it called on the Switzerland-based sustainability consultant Earthworm Foundation for help. Earthworm’s investigations eventually substantiated many of the grievances filed by communities across Socfin’s operations, notably including complaints of sexual [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When agribusiness giant Socfin found itself embroiled in allegations of human rights and environmental violations at its plantations in Africa and Southeast Asia in 2017, it called on the Switzerland-based sustainability consultant Earthworm Foundation for help. Earthworm’s investigations eventually substantiated many of the grievances filed by communities across Socfin’s operations, notably including complaints of sexual harassment and pollution of water sources raised at Liberia’s Salala Rubber Corporation. Earthworm’s findings largely mirrored those of a four-year investigation into Socfin’s practices in Liberia by the International Finance Corporation’s independent watchdog in 2023, which Socfin had rejected. Late in 2025, Socfin and Earthworm discreetly announced that they had cut ties. In a November press release posted to its website, the Earthworm Foundation called the decision “mutual.” “We did see Socfin genuinely engaging with and implementing the recommendations,” Jotica Sehgal, a spokesperson for Earthworm, said via email. “They made a strong commitment by allowing the investigation to proceed and by agreeing to have the results shared publicly.” The Earthworm Foundation counts global agriculture commodity giants like Nestlé and Pepsi as members. These companies pay an annual fee, and Earthworm offers support in addressing their supply chain practices. Responding to Mongabay by email in January, Socfin spokesperson Ludovic Saint-Pol said, “Both organisations recognise that the collaboration has reached its natural conclusion, with the main objectives initially defined having been largely achieved.” According to Earthworm&#8217;s website, the relationship with Socfin was intended to help the company develop and implement its Responsible Management Policy, set up grievance&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/community-complaints-in-limbo-as-socfin-cuts-ties-with-earthworm-foundation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/community-complaints-in-limbo-as-socfin-cuts-ties-with-earthworm-foundation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313982</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Worries grow for Sulawesi farmers as nickel mining company plans expansion</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/worries-grow-for-sulawesi-farmers-as-nickel-mining-company-plans-expansion/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/worries-grow-for-sulawesi-farmers-as-nickel-mining-company-plans-expansion/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2026 11:02:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Richard Kent]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/29093341/Salam-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313488</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, South Sulawesi, Southeast Asia, and Sulawesi]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conflict, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Electric Cars, Environment, Environmental Law, Industry, Land Conflict, Mining, Politics, Social Justice, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LOEHA RAYA, Indonesia — The road to the headquarters of the Loeha Raya Farmers’ Cooperative is inundated from the monsoon, and a baby cayman splashes around in a puddle formed in a natural crater by the side of the road. The forests surrounding the adjacent Lake Towuti, the second-largest freshwater lake in Indonesia, are rich [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LOEHA RAYA, Indonesia — The road to the headquarters of the Loeha Raya Farmers’ Cooperative is inundated from the monsoon, and a baby cayman splashes around in a puddle formed in a natural crater by the side of the road. The forests surrounding the adjacent Lake Towuti, the second-largest freshwater lake in Indonesia, are rich in plant and animal life only found here on the island of Sulawesi. They include the crested hornbill, babirusa “deer-pig” and spectral tarsier, one of the smallest and most endangered primates on the planet. A land cruiser pulls up to the entrance of the farmhouse, and Rahman steps down to retrieve several 20-kilo (44-pound) sacks of freshly harvested produce from the trunk. Inside the sacks is one of Sulawesi’s most valuable agricultural commodities, the white peppercorn. Rahman, who is of Torajan and Padoe ethnicities, is recognized by his community as one of the main ancestral landholders in this part of Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province. Rahman’s land and the surrounding forest of Loeha Raya, a group of five villages to the east of Lake Towuti, sit within the longest-operating nickel mining concession in Indonesia, the Sorowako Block, operated by PT Vale Indonesia. The onsite smelter and processing facilities were inaugurated in 1968 by then-President Suharto. Today, the block sprawls over 70,566 hectares (174,000 acres) of rainforest and farmland on the lake’s shores. In 2024, Indonesia extended PT Vale Indonesia’s license until 2035. Now the company is looking to expand its operations within the concession, amid an&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/worries-grow-for-sulawesi-farmers-as-nickel-mining-company-plans-expansion/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/worries-grow-for-sulawesi-farmers-as-nickel-mining-company-plans-expansion/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313488</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>World Bank carbon program risks further infringing upon rights of Indonesian Indigenous community (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/world-bank-carbon-program-risks-further-infringing-upon-rights-of-indonesian-indigenous-community-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/world-bank-carbon-program-risks-further-infringing-upon-rights-of-indonesian-indigenous-community-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Jan 2026 00:22:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anna Christi SuwardiFuat Edi KurniawanSadar Ginting]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/27155741/c6e3108f-c040-4581-a22b-14f4f1d66a0a-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313404</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, carbon, Carbon Credits, Carbon Market, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, climate finance, Commentary, Culture, Finance, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Rainforests, Social Justice, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the upper reaches of the Mahakam River, inside one of the last intact rainforest corridors of Borneo, the Dayak Bahau community of Long Isun has been fighting a long, layered battle for justice. Their history on the land predates the Indonesian state, yet on official maps their existence is reduced to an administrative code [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the upper reaches of the Mahakam River, inside one of the last intact rainforest corridors of Borneo, the Dayak Bahau community of Long Isun has been fighting a long, layered battle for justice. Their history on the land predates the Indonesian state, yet on official maps their existence is reduced to an administrative code printed on a sheet of paper, with no record of the rivers they follow like family, the sacred groves where their elders are buried, the hills that hold ancestral stories. In the documents that decide the fate of their territory, their cosmology disappears beneath lines drawn to serve other interests. Erasure becomes technical: their land is not seen, so their rights are not acknowledged. The consequence is real. When companies arrive with permits approved in distant government offices, those papers speak louder than generations of lived governance. And now, international climate finance mechanisms have entered this same forest, treating the landscape as a source of carbon emission reductions while the people who protected it have yet to see their rights recognized. In November 2025, representatives from Long Isun filed a formal grievance against the World Bank’s Emission Reduction (ER) Program in East Kalimantan province, arguing that the project infringed upon their rights, ignored unresolved territorial conflicts, and failed to uphold a meaningful process of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The complaint is not a sudden reaction, but is the culmination of more than a decade of resistance, from daily patrols and adat (customary laws&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/world-bank-carbon-program-risks-further-infringing-upon-rights-of-indonesian-indigenous-community-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/world-bank-carbon-program-risks-further-infringing-upon-rights-of-indonesian-indigenous-community-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313404</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservation’s unfinished business</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 00:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/08/25184643/header-Felipe-Rodriguez-105-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312841</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Colonialism, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Philosophy, Environment, Governance, Green, Human Rights, Human-wildlife Conflict, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Protected Areas, Social Justice, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing misses something fundamental. Many of the field’s most persistent failures, the authors contend, cannot be understood without confronting how race, power, and historical exclusion continue [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing misses something fundamental. Many of the field’s most persistent failures, the authors contend, cannot be understood without confronting how race, power, and historical exclusion continue to shape conservation practice today. The paper, A Framework for Addressing Racial and Related Inequities in Conservation, does not claim that conservation is uniquely flawed, nor that injustice is universal across all projects. Its argument is narrower and more pointed. Modern conservation, it says, emerged from a colonial context that treated land as empty and people as obstacles. Those assumptions were never fully dismantled. They survive in subtler forms, influencing whose knowledge counts, who bears the costs of protection, and who decides what success looks like. A Purko elder collecting medicinal plants in the Loita Hills Forest, Kenya. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. The authors, led by Moreangels Mbizah of Wildlife Conservation Action in Zimbabwe, trace conservation’s institutional roots to the late nineteenth century, when protected areas were established across colonized landscapes through forced removals and restrictions on customary land use. Indigenous peoples and rural communities were often excluded in the name of preserving “pristine” nature. Although conservation has evolved since then, the paper argues that these early patterns still shape present-day practice through what it calls “path dependencies”: inherited norms that continue to privilege outside expertise and centralized control. One consequence, according to the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312841</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fishing ‘modernization’ leaves Tanzania’s small-scale crews struggling to stay afloat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fishing-modernization-leaves-tanzanias-small-scale-crews-struggling-to-stay-afloat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fishing-modernization-leaves-tanzanias-small-scale-crews-struggling-to-stay-afloat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Dec 2025 00:15:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/29170441/28787589160_8cfa4dc2b8_6k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312236</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Development, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KILWA, Tanzania — For some fishers in Tanzania’s Kilwa district who were among the first to receive fishing boats under a government-sponsored program, the vessels are proving to be a costly burden. The initiative, launched in November 2023 by the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries under President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s administration, was designed to transform [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[KILWA, Tanzania — For some fishers in Tanzania’s Kilwa district who were among the first to receive fishing boats under a government-sponsored program, the vessels are proving to be a costly burden. The initiative, launched in November 2023 by the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries under President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s administration, was designed to transform the fishing sector by replacing outdated wooden boats with modern vessels. When Hassan visited Kilwa two months earlier, she pledged that small-scale fishers would receive the boats through low-interest loans. The promise generated excitement among fishing communities long constrained by aging vessels and with limited access to capital to buy new boats. To finance the initiative, the government partnered with the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), which provides concessional loans to fishing groups. The loans come with very low interest rates, offer long repayment periods, and include a grace period of about five to 10 years before repayment begins. “We publish a national announcement when boats become available,” said Mohammed Sheikh, director of fisheries at Tanzania&#8217;s Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries. “Interested cooperatives apply, and once approved, they receive boats that are fully insured and ready for operation.” Each boat’s value depends on its size (typically 5-14 meters, or 16-46 feet), with an average cost of around 80 million shillings ($32,200). The program promised to boost productivity, create jobs and discourage destructive fishing practices, such as the use of dynamite and undersized netting. The latter captures small juvenile fish that haven’t had a chance to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fishing-modernization-leaves-tanzanias-small-scale-crews-struggling-to-stay-afloat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312236</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fights against development projects marks 2025 for Nepal’s Indigenous people</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fights-against-development-projects-marks-2025-for-nepals-indigenous-people/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fights-against-development-projects-marks-2025-for-nepals-indigenous-people/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Dec 2025 10:22:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/21145030/VI-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312172</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Development, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Rights, Politics, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As Indigenous peoples and local communities globally struggle to safeguard their rights over their land and forests, Nepal hasn’t been an exception. In the face of socioeconomic and environmental threats, from infrastructure development projects including hydropower, cable car and mining, Nepal’s communities protested and took corporations to court to uphold their rights. At COP30 in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[As Indigenous peoples and local communities globally struggle to safeguard their rights over their land and forests, Nepal hasn’t been an exception. In the face of socioeconomic and environmental threats, from infrastructure development projects including hydropower, cable car and mining, Nepal’s communities protested and took corporations to court to uphold their rights. At COP30 in Belém this year, although Nepal’s Indigenous participation was minimal, the country’s delegation pushed for negotiations on climate finance for adaptation and secured inclusion of language surrounding mountain ecosystems in the Global Mutirão, the main outcome document of COP30. Indigenous peoples (IPs) and local communities (LCs) in Nepal faced realities of infrastructure development and energy transition with growing cable car and hydropower projects that manifested in environmental harm, displacement, loss of ancestral lands and disturbance to sacred ties with nature. Here are some of the stories from the communities that Mongabay covered in 2025. Nepal Indigenous leaders refile writ petition against hydropower project Indigenous Bhote-Lhomi Singsa people refiled a writ petition in November at Nepal’s highest court against a hydropower project that has allegedly submitted a flawed EIA. Community leaders initially filed a lawsuit in 2024 against the project which, according to the EIA, would directly impact Indigenous lands and communities in Chyamtang, Ridak and Thudam villages that depend on subsistence agriculture, yak herding and herbal medicine trade for their livelihoods. While the hydropower company has continued the construction work since the project started in 2021, felling more trees than cited in the EIA, communities revisited&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/fights-against-development-projects-marks-2025-for-nepals-indigenous-people/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312172</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Africa mulls gap in climate adaptation finance for agriculture</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/africa-mulls-gap-in-climate-adaptation-finance-for-agriculture/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/africa-mulls-gap-in-climate-adaptation-finance-for-agriculture/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Dec 2025 18:30:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimable Twahirwa]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/19220131/In_the_mud-e1766773466835-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312085</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation, Adaptation To Climate Change, Agriculture, Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Climate Justice, Environment, Farming, Finance, Funding, Governance, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The agriculture sector’s adaptation to climate change in Africa remains severely underfunded, say stakeholders after the U.N. climate talks came to a conclusion in November 2025. Despite an increase in financial pledges for adaptation at the climate conference, on the ground, there’s a gap of approximately $365 billion through 2035, and skepticism that international institutions [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[The agriculture sector’s adaptation to climate change in Africa remains severely underfunded, say stakeholders after the U.N. climate talks came to a conclusion in November 2025. Despite an increase in financial pledges for adaptation at the climate conference, on the ground, there’s a gap of approximately $365 billion through 2035, and skepticism that international institutions will help fill the shortfall. “We need to keep reminding the world that this is a matter of urgency. The longer we wait to address issues, the more exponentially the costs rise,” Jiwoh Abdulai, the environment minister of Sierra Leone, told Mongabay. “We say this because we understand governments around the world are tightening their budgets, they&#8217;re reducing overseas development assistance.” According to latest estimates by the Global Center on Adaptation, at current funding levels, Africa will have $195 billion for overall adaptation by 2035, falling short of the more than $1.6 trillion researchers say may be needed. Agriculture remains the major recipient of current climate adaptation finance, receiving around 26% (or $3.4 billion) per year. “The current gap in climate adaptation finance for African agriculture is not just a funding shortfall — it is a continuation of an unequal global economic order where those who did the least to cause the crisis carry its heaviest burdens,” said Samuel Ogallah, head of the climate change unit at the African Union. African governments provide almost as much adaptation finance in the form of grants as multilateral and bilateral financiers. In Tishimale Village, Ethiopia, Belachew and 147&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/africa-mulls-gap-in-climate-adaptation-finance-for-agriculture/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312085</doi>				</item>
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