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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=human-rights&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/human-rights/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Thu, 12 Nov 2026 20:45:40 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Human Rights</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/human-rights/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Smallholder farmers struggle on El Niño frontline; will the world help?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/smallholder-farmers-struggle-on-el-nino-frontline-will-the-world-help/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/smallholder-farmers-struggle-on-el-nino-frontline-will-the-world-help/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Nov 2026 16:35:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/11/12085614/Farmers3_tend_cropland_Mozambique_Leopoldino_Jeronimo_Kepa-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=335745</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central America, Colombia, Global, Guatemala, Latin America, Mozambique, North America, South America, Southern Africa, Sudan, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Agriculture, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Coffee, Conservation, Development, Diseases, Drought, Earth Science, El Nino, Environment, Extreme Weather, Farming, Flooding, Food, food security, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Health, Heatwave, Human Rights, Hunger, Impact Of Climate Change, Law, Planetary Boundaries, Planetary Health, Poverty, Research, Rice, Science, and Weather]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Smallholder farmers across the globe are bracing for, or already feeling, the effects of a historically strong El Niño. This event — forecast to peak in December with lasting impacts deep into 2027 — has brought warnings of shocks to global food prices and food security. The record-breaking 2026-2027 El Niño could drive an additional [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Smallholder farmers across the globe are bracing for, or already feeling, the effects of a historically strong El Niño. This event — forecast to peak in December with lasting impacts deep into 2027 — has brought warnings of shocks to global food prices and food security. The record-breaking 2026-2027 El Niño could drive an additional 49 million people into acute hunger, according to the United Nations, with southern Africa and Central America likely hardest hit. Expectations are that supplies of key staples such as rice and corn and commodities like cocoa, coffee and palm oil will be deeply reduced. Millions of smallholder farmers who grow the food we consume are on the frontline of these impacts, experts say. Palm oil suppliers in Indonesia, for example, are already reporting losses due to a prolonged El Niño-linked drought, while in Sudan long delayed rains are raising risk of widespread famine. In Central America, Guatemalan farmers are seeing sharp reductions in crops meant for home food consumption. The governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Panama have all issued El Niño emergency declarations, as have Bolivia and Peru in South America. “Fairtrade producers that we&#8217;re talking to are already seeing impacts,” Amanda Archila, CEO of Fairtrade America, told Mongabay in a video interview. “You’re already seeing clear signs of a dramatic increase in the number of food insecure smallholders.” Key cash crops could be far more deeply impacted over the coming months. The current El Niño is exposing a fundamental weakness in global food&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/smallholder-farmers-struggle-on-el-nino-frontline-will-the-world-help/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/smallholder-farmers-struggle-on-el-nino-frontline-will-the-world-help/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-335745</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>US brand StarKist suspends tuna sourcing from vessels accused of exploiting Indonesian fishers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/us-brand-starkist-suspends-tuna-sourcing-from-vessels-accused-of-exploiting-indonesian-fishers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/us-brand-starkist-suspends-tuna-sourcing-from-vessels-accused-of-exploiting-indonesian-fishers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2026 12:39:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Yenni Kwok]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/11/11101724/49449442138_68e63d7eff_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=335544</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, Indonesia, North America, South Korea, Taiwan, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Certification, Conflict, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Food, Food Industry, Forced labor, Human Rights, Industry, Marine, Marine Conservation, Natural Resources, Oceans, Saltwater Fish, Slavery, Sustainability, and Tuna]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[U.S. tuna brand StarKist has announced a halt on purchases from fishing vessels linked to forced labor practices in a recent report. It also says it has hired an outside firm to investigate after an Indonesian migrant fishers’ union demanded a binding labor agreement with the company. In a statement sent to Mongabay on Nov. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[U.S. tuna brand StarKist has announced a halt on purchases from fishing vessels linked to forced labor practices in a recent report. It also says it has hired an outside firm to investigate after an Indonesian migrant fishers’ union demanded a binding labor agreement with the company. In a statement sent to Mongabay on Nov. 10, StarKist said it has “zero tolerance” for forced labor and human rights violations throughout its supply chain. “We take all allegations of labor and human rights violations seriously, including those recently raised by FOSPI and Global Labor Justice (GLJ),” Matthew Hall, StarKist’s head of global sustainability, said in the statement. The statement was issued nearly two months after U.S.-based GLJ published a report as part of a campaign with the Taiwan-based Indonesian migrant fishers’ union, FOSPI-PMFU. The report, “On the Hook: Forced Labor in StarKist’s Supply Chain,” said it found indications of forced labor among Indonesian migrant fishers working on board Taiwanese vessels in StarKist’s Pacific albacore tuna supply chain. Taiwanese fishers unload albacore from a tuna longliner. Image courtesy of NOAA Central Library Historical Fisheries Collection. StarKist, owned by South Korean seafood giant Dongwon Industries, sells Pacific albacore tuna in the United States. The brand accounts for 42% of the U.S. market share of processed tuna imports, “making its sourcing practices significant for the wider industry,” GLJ said. In the StarKist statement, Hall said the company had appointed an independent third-party firm, Key Traceability, to conduct a probe and had opened its internal&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/us-brand-starkist-suspends-tuna-sourcing-from-vessels-accused-of-exploiting-indonesian-fishers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/us-brand-starkist-suspends-tuna-sourcing-from-vessels-accused-of-exploiting-indonesian-fishers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-335544</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;Stringing me along&#8217;: After 7 years, trial in Indigenous forest guardian killing delayed again</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/stringing-me-along-after-7-years-trial-in-indigenous-forest-guardian-killing-delayed-again/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/stringing-me-along-after-7-years-trial-in-indigenous-forest-guardian-killing-delayed-again/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Nov 2026 15:41:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Karla Mendes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Nandithachandraprakash]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/11/06154106/Paulo-2_Screenshot-2026-11-06-123923-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=335132</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conflict, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, Law Enforcement, Murdered Activists, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Why hasn&#8217;t the trial for the 2019 killing of forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Láercio Guajajara, in the Brazilian Amazon, taken place yet? &#8220;[T]here are no available slots on the court’s hearing calendar,&#8221; the advisory staff to the judge in the case told Mongabay in an emailed statement, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Why hasn&#8217;t the trial for the 2019 killing of forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Láercio Guajajara, in the Brazilian Amazon, taken place yet? &#8220;[T]here are no available slots on the court’s hearing calendar,&#8221; the advisory staff to the judge in the case told Mongabay in an emailed statement, one year after claiming lack of time for it to be held in 2025, sparking outrage among Guajajara Indigenous, activists and authorities. &#8220;They’re just stringing me along. Because if they actually intended to resolve this, they would have done it by now,&#8221; Paulo Guajajara’s father, José Maria Paulino Guajajara, told Mongabay by phone. &#8220;This is taking way too long — it’s been seven years already! That’s exactly why I’m here, feeling pretty fed up, to say the least.&#8221; &#8220;It’s as if we aren’t seen as human beings, right? When someone kills an Indigenous person, it’s as if it’s nothing at all — just the same as killing any animal,&#8221; Laércio Guajajara told Mongabay by phone. &#8220;We have a lot of negative thoughts about the justice system regarding this case.&#8221; On Nov. 1, 2019, Paulo Guajajara and Laércio Guajajara were fired upon in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, in northeastern Maranhão state. In August 2025, a long-awaited anthropological report of the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes was concluded and attached to the court case, bringing hope to the Guajajara people, activists and the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/stringing-me-along-after-7-years-trial-in-indigenous-forest-guardian-killing-delayed-again/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/stringing-me-along-after-7-years-trial-in-indigenous-forest-guardian-killing-delayed-again/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-335132</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ranchers in Brazil ordered to leave home of Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/ranchers-in-brazil-ordered-to-leave-home-of-indigenous-people-living-in-voluntary-isolation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/ranchers-in-brazil-ordered-to-leave-home-of-indigenous-people-living-in-voluntary-isolation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Nov 2026 18:25:39 +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/20/2026/11/02141949/cattle-rancher-mato-grosso-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334652</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Conservation, Culture, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Law, Law Enforcement, Protected Areas, Tropical Deforestation, and Uncontacted Tribes]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A federal judge in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state has ordered individuals, along with their employees, animals, machinery, equipment and movable property, to leave the Piripkura Indigenous Territory within 120 days. The Oct. 7 ruling reverses an earlier, contentious decision that allowed certain people to remain in the territory until the conclusion of the demarcation process. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A federal judge in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state has ordered individuals, along with their employees, animals, machinery, equipment and movable property, to leave the Piripkura Indigenous Territory within 120 days. The Oct. 7 ruling reverses an earlier, contentious decision that allowed certain people to remain in the territory until the conclusion of the demarcation process. The new ruling comes after Funai, Brazil&#8217;s Indigenous affairs agency, and Brazil’s environmental protection agency (IBAMA) discovered clandestine airstrips for drug trafficking and new deforestation associated with cattle ranching inside the territory. A judge has set a daily fine of 500 Brazilian reais (about $93) for those who remain after 120 days. Since 2008, the area has been under a special protection regime to prevent outsiders from entering the land, though a 2025 court decision provisionally allowed some ranchers to remain. This decision was based on a provision of the contentious Marco Temporal law which stated that, until an Indigenous territory’s demarcation is completed and compensation for improvements made in good faith has been paid, non-Indigenous occupants retain certain rights to possess and use the land. In Dec. 2025, Brazil’s Supreme Court struck down the Marco Temporal Law, declaring it unconstitutional. The territory is home to at least two Indigenous Piripkura people who live in voluntary isolation. Funai has not yet ruled out the possibility that more isolated people live there. The new ruling “represents a very important step forward for the protection of the Piripkura, both for its practical effects and for the recognition&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/ranchers-in-brazil-ordered-to-leave-home-of-indigenous-people-living-in-voluntary-isolation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/ranchers-in-brazil-ordered-to-leave-home-of-indigenous-people-living-in-voluntary-isolation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334652</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cyanide ponds from illegal mining threaten Amazon Indigenous territory</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/cyanide-ponds-from-illegal-mining-threaten-amazon-indigenous-territory/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/cyanide-ponds-from-illegal-mining-threaten-amazon-indigenous-territory/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Nov 2026 14:12:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Oliveira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/20111822/Ibama-2026_03_25_Op_Xapiri_capa-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333213</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Conflict, Conservation, Crime, Culture, Degraded Lands, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, extractives, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Gold Mining, Governance, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Health, Human Rights, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Grabbing, Law, Law Enforcement, Mercury, Mining, Natural Resources, Pollution, Protected Areas, Public Health, Rainforests, Resource Conflict, Water, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With mercury increasingly hard to get, illegal gold miners have turned to a cheaper, deadlier alternative.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Cyanide use in illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon is posing a new threat to people and animals in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory. The territory, in the state of Roraima, has been invaded by illegal miners who use cyanide to dissolve gold out of crushed ore, leaving behind ponds of cyanide-contaminated water. In July, the Federal Police arrested two men and seized from them approximately 375 kilograms (827 pounds) of a “chemical compound with characteristics consistent with cyanide,” as well as 1,250 kg (2,756 lb) of activated charcoal — another substance used in gold processing in Roraima. According to the police, the seizures are linked to illegal gold mining in the Indigenous territory. A year earlier, in July 2025, the Federal Police closed down an illegal laboratory in Boa Vista, the state capital, where rocks thought to have come from gold mining and areas of water contaminated with cyanide were found. According to the G1 news outlet, the rocks reportedly came from Raposa Serra do Sol, with miners sending them to the capital for the gold-washing and separation process. Traditionally, illegal miners extract gold from ore using mercury — a toxic substance whose trade is illegal in Brazil. With intensified environmental raids, mercury availability on the informal market has fallen dramatically, according to Brazil’s environmental agency, IBAMA. Because no companies are authorized to legally sell mercury in the country, the product has become significantly more expensive on the black market, where a 1.5-liter (50-ounce) bottle can&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/cyanide-ponds-from-illegal-mining-threaten-amazon-indigenous-territory/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/cyanide-ponds-from-illegal-mining-threaten-amazon-indigenous-territory/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333213</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Suriname’s Amazon, the Wayana community struggling to keep gold miners at bay</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-surinames-amazon-the-wayana-community-struggling-to-keep-gold-miners-at-bay/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-surinames-amazon-the-wayana-community-struggling-to-keep-gold-miners-at-bay/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2026 18:47:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/29181238/IMG_3302-JPEG-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334444</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, French Guiana, Global, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Crime, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Education, Environment, Forest Loss, Forests, Gold Mining, Governance, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Law, Mining, Natural Resources, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KAWEMHAKAN, Suriname — Beneath thousands of square kilometers of rainforest here lie vast deposits of gold and other minerals. Around a million ounces are extracted legally every year, but much more remains buried throughout the Amazon. In some of the farthest-flung parts of the rainforest, such as these small villages along the border with French [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KAWEMHAKAN, Suriname — Beneath thousands of square kilometers of rainforest here lie vast deposits of gold and other minerals. Around a million ounces are extracted legally every year, but much more remains buried throughout the Amazon. In some of the farthest-flung parts of the rainforest, such as these small villages along the border with French Guiana, the government hasn’t stopped locals — joined by Brazilian miners and Chinese traders — from clearing the forest in search of gold. Moving up and down the Lawa River and its tributaries, these criminals establish mining camps and trading posts far beyond the reach of most law enforcement, where robberies, extortion and other violent crimes happen out of sight. Many Indigenous Wayana families live on both sides of the Lawa River — which also marks the border with French Guiana — and face a growing list of challenges, including health issues from mercury use on their land and dwindling wildlife populations they’ve long relied on for food. Indigenous Wayana communities have lived in the area for generations but still lack an official land title that might offer some protection. The only airstrip for kilometers around, and the primary practical connection to the capital, Paramaribo, sits in the middle of one of the Indigenous villages, giving leadership some leverage with miners and traders: Unless they want to travel for days by river to get back and forth from the city, it’s important to be on good terms with the community, residents said. These delicate relationships&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-surinames-amazon-the-wayana-community-struggling-to-keep-gold-miners-at-bay/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-surinames-amazon-the-wayana-community-struggling-to-keep-gold-miners-at-bay/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334444</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Design conservation with those who will live with it’: 30 by 30 in Africa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2026 08:58:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sasha Nunneley]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/29083339/DSC05020_AdrianPonsardWCS-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334316</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, Liberia, Namibia, Southern Africa, Tanzania, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Policy, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Rights, Oceans, Politics, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Perhaps the best-known target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is what’s commonly known as “30 by 30,” the aim to bring at least 30% of the world&#8217;s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems into effective conservation and equitable management by the year 2030. According to Skytruth’s tracker, which combines multiple databases to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Perhaps the best-known target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is what’s commonly known as “30 by 30,” the aim to bring at least 30% of the world&#8217;s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems into effective conservation and equitable management by the year 2030. According to Skytruth’s tracker, which combines multiple databases to provide a ready overview, as of October 2026, African countries had secured 19.9% of terrestrial and 17.2% of marine areas, a tick above the global coverage of 18.7% of land, and 10% of marine landscapes. As delegates from around the world gather in the ancient city of Yerevan, Armenia, for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity from Oct. 19 to 30, it seems unlikely that the 30 by30 target will be met. Since the GBF was agreed in 2022, diverse observers have argued that we should also be turning our attention to what lies beneath these numbers. “The objective is not simply to reach 30% on paper by 2030,” says Daniel Marnewick, a conservation expert with the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. “It is to secure biodiversity, strengthen ecological resilience, and build conservation approaches that are socially legitimate, locally grounded, and sustainable over the long term.” Beneath the headline figures, Marnewick says, “land and natural resources are under increasing pressure from competing demands, including agriculture, infrastructure, energy, mining, and other forms of economic development.” One obvious obstacle across the African continent arises from governments&#8217; own conflicting priorities.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334316</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Suriname&#8217;s rich archaeological history may hold keys to conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/surinames-rich-archaeological-history-may-hold-keys-to-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/surinames-rich-archaeological-history-may-hold-keys-to-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Oct 2026 18:37:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Peter Speetjens]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/27170358/h-watercolor-by-the-Indigenous-Wayana-banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332904</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Latin America, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Anthropology, Archeology, Conservation, Culture, Ecology, Ecosystems, Education, Environment, Forests, History, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Pollution, Research, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Suriname pledges to save its forests but neglects the ancient human history hidden within them, experts say.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2004, archaeological anthropologist Renzo Duin joined an expedition into the mountainous tri-border area where Brazil, Suriname and Guyana meet alongside French botanists and ecologists. While the scientific team focused on mapping the biodiversity of what appeared to be untouched vegetation, Duin noticed that the ground told a very different story, rich with traces of pre-Columbian human occupation. “While they investigated what they perceived as pristine rainforest, I found the area dotted with fragments of pottery and other archaeological indications, including a site surrounded by a ditch,” Duin told Mongabay in a video call from The Hague, Netherlands. The evidence uncovered by Duin was one of many showing that the Amazon rainforest of Suriname and the Guianas region has been shaped and inhabited by people for millennia. Over the years, the researcher returned regularly to the region, making him one of the leading Amazon archaeologists, reshaping the knowledge about human occupation in the rainforest. “In the last three decades, archaeological knowledge of the Amazon has made a great stride forward in Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia,” Duin said. &#8220;In Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, the picture of the past has improved along the coast and major rivers. Yet, in the inland-uplands we have barely scratched the surface regarding the long-time histories of the Indigenous peoples.&#8221; Renzo Duin in the Tumuc-Humac Mountains. Image by © 2004, Renzo Duin /AMIK. As elsewhere in the Amazon, archaeological research in the region has unveiled a wealth of ancient rock art sites, stone tools, pottery and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/surinames-rich-archaeological-history-may-hold-keys-to-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332904</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;A proper seat at the table&#8217;: Lucy Mulenkei on Indigenous decision-making at the COP17 biodiversity summit</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/a-proper-seat-at-the-table-lucy-mulenkei-on-indigenous-decision-making-at-the-cop17-biodiversity-summit/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/a-proper-seat-at-the-table-lucy-mulenkei-on-indigenous-decision-making-at-the-cop17-biodiversity-summit/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Oct 2026 13:41:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mark Hillsdon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/28133853/WhatsApp-Image-2026-10-24-at-16.57.46-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334199</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Two years ago at the 2024 U.N. biodiversity conference (COP 16) in Cali, Colombia, a meeting room packed with people representing some of the world’s thousands of Indigenous Peoples, erupted into cheering and applause. After three decades of hard work and negotiations, a seemingly obscure group within the Convention on Biological Diversity [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Two years ago at the 2024 U.N. biodiversity conference (COP 16) in Cali, Colombia, a meeting room packed with people representing some of the world’s thousands of Indigenous Peoples, erupted into cheering and applause. After three decades of hard work and negotiations, a seemingly obscure group within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Subsidiary Body on Article 8j, had finally been adopted — forming a body that would significantly boost the voice and decision-making of Indigenous peoples and local communities at future biodiversity COPs. Now, at October’s U.N. biodiversity conference (COP 17) in Armenia, Indigenous representatives are deep in discussions to finalize how it will operate, its governance and the modus operandi of this body — how the permanent body will function day-to-day. This includes establishing co-chairs, advancing 12 tasks under a programme of work and addressing funding mechanisms. &#8220;It gives us a proper seat at the table … [but] it’s taken too long,&#8221; said Lucy Mulenke, co-chair of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity. Mulenkei was among those who had worked to get the new body over the line. A Masai leader from Kenya, Mulenkei is also executive director of the Indigenous Information Network. A former broadcast journalist, she spent 17 years reporting on environmental issues in East Africa. She eventually switched roles to become an activist focusing on the traditional skills and knowledge of Indigenous nomadic pastoralists and hunter-gathers. Negotiations are going in force, she told Mongabay, though barriers exist. Cristiane Pankararu, an Indigenous&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/a-proper-seat-at-the-table-lucy-mulenkei-on-indigenous-decision-making-at-the-cop17-biodiversity-summit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/a-proper-seat-at-the-table-lucy-mulenkei-on-indigenous-decision-making-at-the-cop17-biodiversity-summit/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334199</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Canadian-backed potash mine in Brazil has dried up sacred Amazon springs, say residents</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/canadian-backed-potash-mine-in-brazil-has-dried-up-sacred-amazon-springs-say-residents/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/canadian-backed-potash-mine-in-brazil-has-dried-up-sacred-amazon-springs-say-residents/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Oct 2026 20:28:16 +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/20/2026/10/26133313/AP25066522713919-Mura-Amazonas-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333876</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, North America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Environmental Law, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Industry, Law, Law Enforcement, Mining, Natural Resources, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The construction of an access road for a potash mining project in Autazes, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, has caused at least two sacred springs to dry up, according to the Indigenous Mura people. It is the latest in a series of controversies spanning a decade that has plagued the Potássio Autazes project. “There is a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The construction of an access road for a potash mining project in Autazes, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, has caused at least two sacred springs to dry up, according to the Indigenous Mura people. It is the latest in a series of controversies spanning a decade that has plagued the Potássio Autazes project. “There is a profound sense of loss,” Filipe Mura, chief of the affected Lago do Soares village, told Mongabay via WhatsApp. “We realize we may be losing what belongs to us — our territory, our culture, and, above all, the very life that exists in this place.” In Mura traditional cosmology, all springs, rivers, lakes and forests have a guardian, or owner, who must be treated with respect, residents tell Mongabay. “If a spring dries up, it means its keeper has departed — and when the keeper leaves, they take with them the animals, the fertility of the soil, and all the blessings of that region,” Willian Rodrigues Filgueira, a professor from the Mura Baixo Madeira Indigenous territory, which neighbors the affected Lago do Soares/Urucurituba territory, and member of the Organization of Mura Indigenous Leaders of Careiro da Várzea (OLIMCV), told Mongabay via WhatsApp. The loss of a spring, therefore, disrupts the spiritual balance that sustains life in the territory. Residents also said that the company behind the project has begun to clear-cut the area — the process of cutting down all trees in a section of forest at the same time — where it intends to build&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/canadian-backed-potash-mine-in-brazil-has-dried-up-sacred-amazon-springs-say-residents/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333876</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Amazon communities lose water as mining and deforestation reshape rivers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/amazon-communities-lose-water-as-mining-and-deforestation-reshape-rivers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/amazon-communities-lose-water-as-mining-and-deforestation-reshape-rivers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Oct 2026 18:15:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Vanessa Romo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexa]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/23193910/Arazaire_community_bisected_by_Inambari_River_Vico_Mendez-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333623</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Colombia, Global, Latin America, Peru, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Conservation, Culture, Deforestation, Drinking Water, Earth Science, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Freshwater, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Health, Human Rights, Impact Of Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Law, Livestock, Mapping, Natural Resources, Pollution, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Research, Rivers, Science, Technology, Tropical Forests, Water, Water Pollution, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“People think that because we live in the forest we have plenty of water, but this is the reality,” Erick Tijé, an Indigenous Harakmbut resident of the southern Peruvian Amazon, says in a tone of disappointment, pointing to the murky water flowing down the Inambari River. That river isn’t what it was five years ago, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“People think that because we live in the forest we have plenty of water, but this is the reality,” Erick Tijé, an Indigenous Harakmbut resident of the southern Peruvian Amazon, says in a tone of disappointment, pointing to the murky water flowing down the Inambari River. That river isn’t what it was five years ago, when fishing and life along its banks were very different for residents of the Arazaire Indigenous community. Illegal mining stole their water, only to return it to them polluted. Today, they have to buy the water they drink. On the other side of the Peruvian border, in the Colombian Amazon, Lázaro Ibañez, an elder of the Coreguaje people who live in the Jácome Indigenous Reserve, blames cattle ranching and climate change for reducing water availability around their territory. “The cattle have been destroying everything, and now all you can see is pastureland; there are hardly any trees left,” he says, having witnessed how deforestation to create grazing for cattle has gone hand in hand with the drying up of their water sources. Inhabitants of parts of the world’s greatest rainforest face a paradox: they’re surrounded by water, but can’t use it. For Indigenous peoples, it’s also the loss of the spirits that guard their water sources, driven away by the advance of logging and cattle ranching. Reporters from Mongabay, Colombian news outlet El Espectador, and Venezuela’s El Correo del Caroní, in partnership with scientists from Brazil’s Serrapilheira Institute, analyzed more than two decades of satellite&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/amazon-communities-lose-water-as-mining-and-deforestation-reshape-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-333623</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ahead of landmark climate trial in Canada, Indigenous youth eye impacts in the North</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/ahead-of-landmark-climate-trial-in-canada-indigenous-youth-eye-impacts-in-the-north/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/ahead-of-landmark-climate-trial-in-canada-indigenous-youth-eye-impacts-in-the-north/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Oct 2026 07:00:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Rusch]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/22224309/Leandrea-smiling-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333591</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Impact Of Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Law, and Law Enforcement]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, one of Leandrea Taylor Reeves’s best friends fell ill with a cold. “Maybe you need to go gather some Labrador,” said Reeves’ grandmother, observing the friend. For as long as Reeves could remember, her community, part of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in Yukon, Canada, gathered and steeped the leaves and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, one of Leandrea Taylor Reeves’s best friends fell ill with a cold. “Maybe you need to go gather some Labrador,” said Reeves’ grandmother, observing the friend. For as long as Reeves could remember, her community, part of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in Yukon, Canada, gathered and steeped the leaves and flowers from the evergreen shrub in hot water to make a medicinal tea that treats coughs and colds. Reeves, 22, told Mongabay she had plenty of experience harvesting Labrador (Rhododendron groenlandicum) and knew what to look for and where. But as she searched along the edge of the boreal forest, she couldn’t find much. After coming across a short Labrador bush and plucking a tiny harvest, she handed her grandmother a huge Ziplock bag with only the very bottom filled. “Nana,” Reeves said. “There are none there.” The decline in Labrador near her community is one of a myriad of climate change impacts Reeves worries is affecting Canada’s North. Reeves is part of a group of plaintiffs comprising 14 other youth across the country. They are suing Canada and the attorney general of Canada for its continued support of fossil fuels, a net-zero emissions plan that allows an increase in emissions, and actions on climate change that infringes on their rights to life, liberty and security under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The five-week trial of La Rose v. His Majesty the King beginning on Oct. 26, 2026, in Vancouver,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/ahead-of-landmark-climate-trial-in-canada-indigenous-youth-eye-impacts-in-the-north/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333591</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Extractive industries threaten global goal to protect 30% of nature by 2030, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/extractive-industries-threaten-global-goal-to-protect-30-of-nature-by-2030-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/extractive-industries-threaten-global-goal-to-protect-30-of-nature-by-2030-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Oct 2026 19:50:55 +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/20/2026/10/21144245/alain-bonnardeaux-CeaBZ2F49x4-unsplash-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333467</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, extractives, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Reform, Land Rights, Law, Mining, Natural Resources, Protected Areas, Tropical Forests, and Tropics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new report by Earth Insight finds more than 61.5 million hectares (151.9 million acres) of protected and conserved areas — an area roughly 2.5 times the size of the United Kingdom — overlap with ongoing and planned oil and gas blocks across the tropical countries. Another 42.7 million hectares (105.5 million acres) of protected [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new report by Earth Insight finds more than 61.5 million hectares (151.9 million acres) of protected and conserved areas — an area roughly 2.5 times the size of the United Kingdom — overlap with ongoing and planned oil and gas blocks across the tropical countries. Another 42.7 million hectares (105.5 million acres) of protected lands overlap with mining blocks or concessions. “[The] analysis reveals a major gap between conservation commitments and the industrial pressures facing areas already counted as protected and conserved,” Florencia Librizzi, deputy director at Earth Insight and author of the report, told Mongabay over email. Released on Oct. 8, the report arrived less than two weeks before delegates from around the world gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP17) from Oct. 19 – 30. The findings show that expanding protected areas is not enough, according to the report. At COP15 in 2022, 196 nations pledged to conserve at least 30% of the world’s land, inland waters and coastal and marine areas by 2030 (known as “30&#215;30”) under Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This year, delegates will assess global progress toward the 30&#215;30 goal. But instead, the report says governments should evaluate which ecosystems are being preserved, ensure enforcement is effective and prevent industrial activities from undermining conservation efforts. A coalition of NGOs, including Earth Insight, the World Commission on Protected Areas, the KBA Secretariat, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) and others analyzed extractive pressures from a host&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/extractive-industries-threaten-global-goal-to-protect-30-of-nature-by-2030-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333467</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil election puts unprecedented Indigenous ministry at risk if Flávio Bolsonaro wins</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/brazil-election-puts-unprecedented-indigenous-ministry-at-risk-if-flavio-bolsonaro-wins/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/brazil-election-puts-unprecedented-indigenous-ministry-at-risk-if-flavio-bolsonaro-wins/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Oct 2026 14:11:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Karla Mendes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/20133906/Eloy-Terena_IMG_3801-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333282</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Culture, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Law, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A quick stroke of a pen could erase years of achievements of the country's Indigenous peoples.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&#8220;With a single stroke of a pen, he can undo all the achievements we have accomplished in these almost four years,&#8221; said the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Eloy Terena, regarding a possible victory of the far-right candidate, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, for Brazil&#8217;s Presidency. &#8220;We are very concerned.&#8221; With 47.03% of the vote, Flávio topped the first round of the presidential election on Oct. 4, despite voting polls showing current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the favorite for reelection. &#8220;If elected, one of the first ministries that will be abolished is the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples,&#8221; Terena told Mongabay by phone. &#8220;For us, this is a given, because it&#8217;s a government that has no commitment to Indigenous peoples.&#8221; The candidates face a runoff on Sunday, Oct. 25. The unprecedented Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) was created by Lula in January 2023, fulfilling a promise to native peoples who supported his candidacy. Sonia Guajajara was appointed minister, the first time an Indigenous person led a ministry. &#8220;The creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples has a very great symbolic, but also effective, power, because it is a government that comes precisely after a period in which Indigenous peoples were extremely attacked during Bolsonaro’s administration,&#8221; said Terena, who took office in March when Sonia left the ministry to run for reelection as a federal deputy for São Paulo. The unprecedented Ministry of Indigenous Peoples was created by President Lula in January 2023. Sonia Guajajara was appointed minister, marking the first time&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/brazil-election-puts-unprecedented-indigenous-ministry-at-risk-if-flavio-bolsonaro-wins/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/brazil-election-puts-unprecedented-indigenous-ministry-at-risk-if-flavio-bolsonaro-wins/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333282</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Finance and Indigenous rights top Africans’ agenda as biodiversity summit opens in Yerevan</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2026 20:23:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka MukpoJohn CannonLatoya AbuluTerna Gyuse]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/06/17140534/maasai-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333161</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Madagascar, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environmental Policy, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, and Indigenous Rights]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity&#8217;s 17th summit opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on Oct. 19, what’s at stake for Africa? In 2022, parties signed the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, agreeing to maintain, restore, and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems and end human-induced extinction of threatened species; to sustainable use of biodiversity; to fair [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity&#8217;s 17th summit opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on Oct. 19, what’s at stake for Africa? In 2022, parties signed the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, agreeing to maintain, restore, and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems and end human-induced extinction of threatened species; to sustainable use of biodiversity; to fair and equitable sharing of both monetary and non-monetary benefits derived from genetic resources; and to establish adequate means to implement the framework — including finance, scientific cooperation and building capacity of all parties. The summit, which runs through Oct. 30, marks the halfway point to the deadlines for a first set of 23 action-oriented global targets. The progress report is not encouraging: Fewer than half of countries say they are on track to meet their self-designed biodiversity targets. “The report shows that many of the critical elements of progress, including finance, capacity, cooperation and data — are still missing in action,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a press release accompanying the organization’s State of Biodiversity Action report. Three of the world&#8217;s &#8220;megadiverse&#8221; countries are in Africa: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and South Africa make the list of 17 countries that are each home to at least 5,000 of the world&#8217;s plant species that are endemic. None of the three met the initial 2024 deadline for a national biodiversity strategy as set out under Kunming — South Africa still hasn’t submitted an action plan. The headline goal — to see 30% of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333161</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Anatomy of a land grab: the law, likes, and legislator behind an Indigenous land invasion in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/anatomy-of-a-land-grab-the-law-likes-and-legislator-behind-an-indigenous-land-invasion-in-brazil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/anatomy-of-a-land-grab-the-law-likes-and-legislator-behind-an-indigenous-land-invasion-in-brazil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2026 19:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee GabayElisângela Mendonça]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/16132711/73_tunaItata_03_Black_03-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332839</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Global, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Beef, Business, Cattle, Commodity agriculture, Conflict, Conservation, Corruption, data, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Farming, forest degradation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Habitat Loss, Human Rights, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Law, Livestock, Natural Resources, Politics, Primary Forests, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Ranching, Resource Conflict, Satellite Imagery, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, and Uncontacted Tribes]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The polished leather of Francisco “Torrinho” Torres’ shoes gleamed as he walked toward the lectern in the plenary chamber of the Pará state legislature in the Brazilian Amazon. The 57-year-old rancher-turned-politician moved unhurriedly as he prepared to deliver a speech that would set in motion a series of events leading to new invasions of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The polished leather of Francisco “Torrinho” Torres’ shoes gleamed as he walked toward the lectern in the plenary chamber of the Pará state legislature in the Brazilian Amazon. The 57-year-old rancher-turned-politician moved unhurriedly as he prepared to deliver a speech that would set in motion a series of events leading to new invasions of the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Territory. It was June 30, 2026, in what seemed to be a routine session for the state representative from one of Brazil’s largest Amazonian states. Behind his sharp suit and the supportive nods of his agribusiness allies was a track record of environmental fines, a corruption investigation, and land disputes. In a brief speech, Torres defended a bill he’d authored to create a new state-run environmental protection area, APA Bacajaí. He presented the measure as a solution for families struggling to farm and rural families in need of land regulation. Three other state representatives took the stand to support the proposal. They spoke of farmers who had waited decades for land titles, of families unable to access credit without them, and of the uncertainty created by the possibility of an Indigenous land claim. It only took 24 minutes for the chamber to pass the bill into law unanimously. There were no objections and no requests for technical notes — even though it was known that the new 142,400-hectare (about 351,900-acre) reserve would overlap entirely with the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Territory. The area has been under a land-use protection order since 2011 to safeguard the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/anatomy-of-a-land-grab-the-law-likes-and-legislator-behind-an-indigenous-land-invasion-in-brazil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/anatomy-of-a-land-grab-the-law-likes-and-legislator-behind-an-indigenous-land-invasion-in-brazil/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332839</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Enclosed river:’ Women shellfish gatherers fight for access to mangroves in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/enclosed-river-women-shellfish-gatherers-fight-for-access-to-mangroves-in-brazil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/enclosed-river-women-shellfish-gatherers-fight-for-access-to-mangroves-in-brazil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Oct 2026 15:38:23 +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/20/2026/10/16152749/adriana_cata_ostras-1800x1012-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332916</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Coastal Ecosystems, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Culture, Development, Environment, Food, Gender, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, Mangroves, Natural Resources, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Adriana Hora dos Santos stands waist-deep in the water. Her dark hair is tied in a single braid; her arms and torso covered by a pink Lycra shirt. The thick mangrove mud reaches her thighs. Using a machete just over 40-centimeters (16-inches) long, she pries dozens of oysters from the twisted roots with a steady [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Adriana Hora dos Santos stands waist-deep in the water. Her dark hair is tied in a single braid; her arms and torso covered by a pink Lycra shirt. The thick mangrove mud reaches her thighs. Using a machete just over 40-centimeters (16-inches) long, she pries dozens of oysters from the twisted roots with a steady cadence: Not too fast, not too slow. Across the Vaza-Barris river, the buildings of Sergipe’s state capital Aracaju seem otherworldly. Here, one hears the lapping of the water, the strike of the blade and Santos’s voice: “I am, I am a shellfish gatherer / Queen of the mangrove, I am a warrior! / I am, I am a shellfish gatherer / A fighting woman, a striver / It’s the wind that gives it to me / It’s the river, it’s the mangrove, it’s the sea / My chest aches, enclosed river / My chest aches with no fish caught / Come, woman, fight, emancipate yourself / We are Sergipe’s shellfish gatherers!” This is the anthem of the Movement of Women Shellfish Gatherers of Sergipe (MMS), a grassroots collective that has resisted continuous environmental degradation and cultural erasure for decades. Acting as guardians of the mangrove, they do environmental protection work while facing pressures that put their own survival at risk. To hear one of these women is to hear many: Their verbs almost always come in the plural. “We are always in a flock,” Santos says. And it was as a flock that they introduced&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/enclosed-river-women-shellfish-gatherers-fight-for-access-to-mangroves-in-brazil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/enclosed-river-women-shellfish-gatherers-fight-for-access-to-mangroves-in-brazil/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332916</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New tool reveals siege on Indigenous lands in Bolivia’s Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/new-tool-reveals-siege-on-indigenous-lands-in-bolivias-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/new-tool-reveals-siege-on-indigenous-lands-in-bolivias-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Oct 2026 13:30:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nelfi Fernández Reyes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/15073726/Foto-Principal-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331568</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, data, Deforestation, Deforestation Alert System, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Law, Monitoring, Protected Areas, and Technology]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For most Indigenous peoples in the Bolivian Amazon, the forest is far more than a collection of trees. It is the casa grande, Spanish for “the main house”, where communities, rivers, wildlife, spiritual beings and ancestral memories coexist. For them, conserving the forest means conserving life itself. Yet data analyzed by Amazonía Traficada (Trafficked Amazon) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For most Indigenous peoples in the Bolivian Amazon, the forest is far more than a collection of trees. It is the casa grande, Spanish for “the main house”, where communities, rivers, wildlife, spiritual beings and ancestral memories coexist. For them, conserving the forest means conserving life itself. Yet data analyzed by Amazonía Traficada (Trafficked Amazon) — a journalistic collaboration backed by the Pulitzer Center in partnership with Mongabay, Bolivian independent environmental journalism platform RAI Bolivia and the multiplatform newsroom Asuntos Centrales — show that this casa grande is now under siege. According to the analysis, between 2003 and 2023, more than 186,500 hectares (460,900 acres) of forest were cleared across the 48 Indigenous territories of the Bolivian Amazon basin — an area nearly three times the size of Madrid. Of that total, the Bolivian Authority for the Supervision and Social Control of Forests and Land (ABT) authorized only 10%; the remaining 90%, or 168,670 hectares (416,800 acres), was cleared illegally. For Rivelino Segundo, leader of Isoso — the Bolivian Indigenous territory with the largest area of illegal forest clearing, more than 43,000 hectares (106,000 acres) — the deforestation eating into ancestral lands is directly tied to land invasions and an expanding agricultural frontier. Those occupying the land illegally seek to convert forest into farmland, he told Mobgabay: “We are not the ones clearing the land. It is the invaders. [In Isoso], they do it to plant large-scale soy. We, as the Guaraní Indigenous people, coexist with nature.” These findings stem&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/new-tool-reveals-siege-on-indigenous-lands-in-bolivias-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/new-tool-reveals-siege-on-indigenous-lands-in-bolivias-amazon/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331568</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Chinese squid tied to labor abuses finds an easy route into Western markets</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/chinese-squid-tied-to-labor-abuses-finds-an-easy-route-into-western-markets/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/chinese-squid-tied-to-labor-abuses-finds-an-easy-route-into-western-markets/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Oct 2026 07:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Francesco De Augustinis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/12143406/1-fishers-with-squid-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332241</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, East Asia, and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Fisheries, Fishing, Food, Food Industry, Forced labor, Governance, Human Rights, Illegal Fishing, Law, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Natural Resources, Oceans, and Supply Chain]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In recent years, a series of high-profile investigations implicated the Chinese fleets targeting squid in international waters in illegal fishing practices, environmental violations, and poor working conditions, including forced labor and deaths at sea. They’ve also identified abusive working conditions in Chinese squid-processing factories. The revelations received widespread public attention, including from elected officials in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In recent years, a series of high-profile investigations implicated the Chinese fleets targeting squid in international waters in illegal fishing practices, environmental violations, and poor working conditions, including forced labor and deaths at sea. They’ve also identified abusive working conditions in Chinese squid-processing factories. The revelations received widespread public attention, including from elected officials in the U.S. and Europe. Yet a Mongabay analysis shows that Western markets have continued to import Chinese squid products in large quantities. The findings raise concerns about regulatory gaps, lack of transparency and consumer awareness, and the difficulty of adopting effective measures to prevent products linked to abuses from entering the market. “For us, the main problem is that the product, in this case from the Chinese fleet, enters the European market and is difficult to distinguish,” Edelmiro Ulloa, director of the Vigo Shipowners&#8217; Cooperative in Spain, told Mongabay. According to Ulloa, the Spanish fleet, which is based in Vigo and fishes for squid primarily in international waters off Argentina, faces unfair competition. “On Chinese vessels, the working conditions are not only poor, but truly worrying,” he said. According to Ulloa, differences in production standards, including lower labor costs, result in Chinese squid prices being as much as 40% lower than Spanish squid prices. In 2025, China was the world’s leading exporter of frozen squid and cuttlefish products, which represent the vast majority of international trade in these species, with a total export value of $1.6 billion, according to data from ITC Trade Map, a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/chinese-squid-tied-to-labor-abuses-finds-an-easy-route-into-western-markets/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332241</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indigenous women bring leadership, creativity &#038; joy to clean water action (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indigenous-women-bring-leadership-creativity-joy-to-clean-water-action-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indigenous-women-bring-leadership-creativity-joy-to-clean-water-action-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Oct 2026 16:23:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justine Apodaca]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/12160042/Indigenous-woman-and-daughter-with-water-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332259</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Commentary, Culture, Drinking Water, Environment, Freshwater, Gender, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Natural Resources, Water, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On Indigenous Peoples Day, let’s honor the leadership and contributions of Indigenous women in water. Women – and particularly Indigenous women – are underrepresented in the water workforce and make up less than one in three voices in water governance. Yet, the water sector has much to learn from women&#8217;s leadership. Women have always led, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On Indigenous Peoples Day, let’s honor the leadership and contributions of Indigenous women in water. Women – and particularly Indigenous women – are underrepresented in the water workforce and make up less than one in three voices in water governance. Yet, the water sector has much to learn from women&#8217;s leadership. Women have always led, and women get things done. Across the water community, women bring people together, build partnerships, solve problems, and move important work forward every day. Their leadership takes many forms. Some lead through community engagement and relationship building. Others advance technical solutions, policy, research, infrastructure, public health, or education. Many do all of these things at once. Different perspectives help turn vision into action. Women lead in complementary ways, and that collaboration often drives meaningful progress. Indigenous women and girls gather stones to make water filters to provide their community with safe water in Ecuador. Image courtesy of Yachana Foundation. In working alongside Indigenous leaders such as Emma Robbins and Crystal Tulley-Cordova, I have seen how community knowledge, technical expertise, and relationship-building complement one another. Throughout this work, women continue to champion Indigenous knowledge, environmental stewardship, water justice, and community resilience. They advance conversations about water rights, water hauling, universal access to clean water, public health, policy, research, and infrastructure. They also recognize that solving water challenges requires more than technical expertise: Real progress happens when communities, researchers, educators, advocates, and decision-makers come together around shared goals. Women play a leading role in creating and sustaining&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indigenous-women-bring-leadership-creativity-joy-to-clean-water-action-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-332259</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia says it no longer needs forests for rice. What happens to projects underway?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indonesia-says-it-no-longer-needs-forests-for-rice-what-happens-to-projects-underway/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indonesia-says-it-no-longer-needs-forests-for-rice-what-happens-to-projects-underway/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Oct 2026 12:12:07 +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/20/2026/10/12120446/Tractors-and-Excavators-of-PT-Global-Papua-Abadi-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332229</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Papua, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Avoided Deforestation, Deforestation, Degraded Lands, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Food, Food Industry, Food Vs Forests Debate, forest degradation, Forest Fragmentation, Forest Loss, Forestry, Forests, Grasslands, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Savannas, Tropical Deforestation, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia says it no longer needs to expand rice cultivation into forest areas, but it has yet to explain what the announcement means for large-scale food and energy projects already underway in Papua and Kalimantan. Presidential Special Envoy for Climate and Energy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said Oct. 6 that Indonesia had achieved rice self-sufficiency [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia says it no longer needs to expand rice cultivation into forest areas, but it has yet to explain what the announcement means for large-scale food and energy projects already underway in Papua and Kalimantan. Presidential Special Envoy for Climate and Energy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said Oct. 6 that Indonesia had achieved rice self-sufficiency three years ahead of schedule and no longer needed the previously announced 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) for food production. “The government sees no further need for expanding rice cultivation areas in the so-called forest areas and forest zones that were announced a few years ago,” Hashim said in Jakarta. At the same event, President’s Special Envoy for Multilateralism and International Trade Mari Pangestu said future food and biofuel production would instead be directed toward degraded land. The announcement appears to mark a shift from a government push that environmentalists have described as one of the world’s largest deforestation projects, involving vast rice and sugarcane plantations in southern Papua. But less than two weeks before Hashim’s announcement, the Ministry of Forestry designated about 5.67 million hectares (14 million acres) of forest through its 2026 Forest Utilization Direction Map, or PAPH, as areas that could be proposed for forest-utilization permits, including for food security and energy, as well as forest rehabilitation. “This means there is an inconsistency between the statements issued by public officials,” Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) campaigner for essential ecosystems Musdalifah Jamal told Mongabay by phone. “This contradiction shows us that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/indonesia-says-it-no-longer-needs-forests-for-rice-what-happens-to-projects-underway/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332229</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador, Indigenous youth turn to rap music to defend the Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-ecuador-indigenous-youth-turn-to-rap-music-to-defend-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-ecuador-indigenous-youth-turn-to-rap-music-to-defend-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Oct 2026 16:32:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabel Alarcón]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/09141132/Raperos-1-Willan-Gualinga-Taki-Supay-Ecuador-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332134</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Arts, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Willan Gualinga first stepped onto a stage in his home community of Sarayaku, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the province of Pastaza. He recalls his hands sweating, his body trembling, and his mouth freezing up as words crowded his mind. Three years after that debut, he performed the same song at the Rizoma 2026 Festival [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Willan Gualinga first stepped onto a stage in his home community of Sarayaku, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the province of Pastaza. He recalls his hands sweating, his body trembling, and his mouth freezing up as words crowded his mind. Three years after that debut, he performed the same song at the Rizoma 2026 Festival in the Amazonian city of Puyo. This time, he was no longer in front of dozens of people. He was seeing thousands chanting his lyrics in his Indigenous Kichwa language. On this occasion, his body moved with the rhythm and with the strength his message demanded: “Allpamanda kawsay manda jatarishun,” or “Let us rise up for the land and for life.” That was the title of his first track and the phrase he shouted at the top of his lungs throughout his performance. The song draws on elders’ stories about the origins of Sarayaku (his traditional territory) and, like his other compositions, spotlights the threats facing his people. “Through music we can transmit the knowledge of our ancestors and, above all, defend the territory,” said Gualinga, a 23-year-old artist known on stage as “Taki Supay.” Like him, a new generation of Amazonian artists is using rap to bring attention to the threats facing Indigenous peoples and nationalities across the Ecuadorian Amazon — and to show why the rainforest must be protected. “Rap is talking about what you feel, what is happening, and our struggle,” Misael Elías Criollo Grefa, better known as Misa17, said. He is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/in-ecuador-indigenous-youth-turn-to-rap-music-to-defend-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332134</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>South Korea strengthens migrant fisher protections. Advocates are not impressed</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/south-korea-strengthens-migrant-fisher-protections-advocates-are-not-impressed/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/south-korea-strengthens-migrant-fisher-protections-advocates-are-not-impressed/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Oct 2026 14:47:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Andrew Jeong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Yenni Kwok]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/05/31010214/farisbobero3_Nelayan-Bajo-Sankuang-abk-bagan-ikan-saat-menarik-jangkar-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331941</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Asia, and South Korea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conflict, Crime, Culture, Environment, Environmental Law, Fisheries, Fishing, Food Industry, Forced labor, Governance, Human Rights, Industry, Law, Law Enforcement, Oceans, Regulations, Slavery, and trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SEOUL — At 2 a.m. one night, two Indonesian fishers were gripping a flimsy, makeshift rope, hanging on for dear life. The precarious rope dangled from the eighth-floor window of a motel room overlooking a dark alley in the South Korean port city of Busan, swinging left and right with the wind. The men had [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SEOUL — At 2 a.m. one night, two Indonesian fishers were gripping a flimsy, makeshift rope, hanging on for dear life. The precarious rope dangled from the eighth-floor window of a motel room overlooking a dark alley in the South Korean port city of Busan, swinging left and right with the wind. The men had been locked up in that room for nearly 24 hours, and they were trying to make their escape. But the crude rope, made out of tied bed sheets, unraveled, sending the men plunging. One fell to his death, hitting the pavement headfirst. The other survived with a broken leg, according to Lee Han-sook, director of the Migration and Human Rights Institute, a Busan-based civic group. She was briefed on the July 21 incident by the survivor, whom she declined to name. According to activists, the incident served as one of the last straws that prompted the government to boost efforts to crack down on human trafficking, especially abuses against migrant workers in the country’s $7.5 billion fishing industry. On Sept. 2, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced they had amended national guidelines on human trafficking to make it easier for law enforcement officials to spot and stop forced labor and other abuses in the fishing industry. The new guidelines outline specific situations in which the likelihood of human rights abuse is high, such as seeing workers who have physical injuries being left untreated, workers who have&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/south-korea-strengthens-migrant-fisher-protections-advocates-are-not-impressed/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331941</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>International pledge to fund forest rights exceeds target, but direct funding remains low</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/international-pledge-to-fund-forest-rights-exceeds-target-but-direct-funding-remains-low/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/international-pledge-to-fund-forest-rights-exceeds-target-but-direct-funding-remains-low/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Oct 2026 17:23:29 +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/20/2026/10/07154220/AP24302739182917-Jayapura-Papua-province-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331812</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Justice, Community Development, Community Forests, Conservation, Culture, Deforestation, Environment, Finance, Funding, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Law, Politics, Protected Areas, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Funders of the $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights, announced at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, say they have exceeded the target by 35%, delivering $2.35 billion between 2021 and 2025. According to the final report of the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG), in 2025 alone, donors [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Funders of the $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights, announced at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, say they have exceeded the target by 35%, delivering $2.35 billion between 2021 and 2025. According to the final report of the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG), in 2025 alone, donors provided about $486 million. Sources say the five-year pledge was a major accomplishment, but problems around direct access, regional inequality, funding for women and youth and aid sustainability persist. In 2025, only 7.2% went directly to Indigenous and local community organizations, the latest report found, while the vast majority still flowed through intermediaries, such as NGOs, consultancies and development banks. According to recently updated data in the report, the share of direct funding has increased over the five-year period, from 2.9% of the $351 million provided by donors in 2021, decreasing to 2.1% of the $514 million in 2022. By 2023, this number had risen to 10.6% of the $533 million provided that year, and in 2024, 7.6% of the $467 million provided went directly to these groups. “The pledge was good news, but the figure of the result doesn&#8217;t tell us how much actually reached the territories,” Myrna Cunningham Kain, of the Indigenous Miskito community of Waspam and chair of the Guiding Committee at the Pawanka Fund, told Mongabay over email. The Pawanka Fund is a global organization led by Indigenous people that channels financial and technical resources directly to Indigenous peoples and other&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/international-pledge-to-fund-forest-rights-exceeds-target-but-direct-funding-remains-low/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331812</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Hong Kong heats up, calls grow for tougher rules to protect outdoor workers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/as-hong-kong-heats-up-calls-grow-for-tougher-rules-to-protect-outdoor-workers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/as-hong-kong-heats-up-calls-grow-for-tougher-rules-to-protect-outdoor-workers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Oct 2026 12:07:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[June Wong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Yenni Kwok]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/02090849/apartment-demolition-and-remodeling-worker-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331482</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, East Asia, and Hong Kong]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cities, Climate, El Nino, Environment, Environmental Law, Extreme Weather, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Heatwave, Human Rights, Law, Temperatures, and Weather]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HONG KONG — On a mid-September day, Wong Ping-kuong, 74, and his colleagues worked quickly to spray clean an outdoor staircase and elevator landing. It was only mid-morning, but already hot. The temperature later rose to 31°Celsius (87.8°Fahrenheit). Wong has felt the impact of climate change in the half-century that he has worked as a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HONG KONG — On a mid-September day, Wong Ping-kuong, 74, and his colleagues worked quickly to spray clean an outdoor staircase and elevator landing. It was only mid-morning, but already hot. The temperature later rose to 31°Celsius (87.8°Fahrenheit). Wong has felt the impact of climate change in the half-century that he has worked as a construction worker and later an outdoor cleaner. “It’s gotten hotter. Before, I didn’t sweat; now my back is often covered with sweat,” he told Mongabay. Wong and his colleagues consider themselves lucky. They say when temperatures are high, they can go inside their truck, turn on the AC, and cool down a little. However, heatstroke can occur quickly, setting in within 10-15 minutes. Outdoor workers like Wong are exposed to increasing risks of heat-stress-related health problems, such as dizziness, headache, nausea, heatstroke, or acutely worsening pre-existing chronic conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Like many places around the world, Hong Kong is suffering from extreme temperatures. Official figures show it is warming by nearly half a degree Celsius per decade. The city also experiences longer and hotter summer months, with the number of “very hot days” quadrupling since the 2000s, data from the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) shows. On Aug. 9, HKO logged 36.9°C (98.4°F), the highest temperature at its main monitoring station since record-keeping began in 1884. In the outskirts of Hong Kong, the weather service measured even higher temperatures that day: 39.8°C (103.6°F) — another record. Unlike other developed economies, Hong Kong&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/as-hong-kong-heats-up-calls-grow-for-tougher-rules-to-protect-outdoor-workers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331482</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Gabon, home to the medicinal plant behind ibogaine, wants a fairer share of its global boom</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/gabon-home-to-the-medicinal-plant-behind-ibogaine-wants-a-fairer-share-of-its-global-boom/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/gabon-home-to-the-medicinal-plant-behind-ibogaine-wants-a-fairer-share-of-its-global-boom/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Oct 2026 15:21:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Molly Helfend]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/01131032/DSC01601-djeje-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331394</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Gabon]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Culture, Education, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Health, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industry, Law, Medicinal Plants, Medicine, Natural Resources, Planetary Health, Plants, Research, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Medicine, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LIBREVILLE — In the traditional-medicine corner of La Peyrie Market in Libreville, iboga comes in a repurposed clear rum bottle packed to the neck with pale bark powder, set among tinctures in old plastic bottles. Two men appeared within a minute on this day in July, and once they heard they were talking to a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LIBREVILLE — In the traditional-medicine corner of La Peyrie Market in Libreville, iboga comes in a repurposed clear rum bottle packed to the neck with pale bark powder, set among tinctures in old plastic bottles. Two men appeared within a minute on this day in July, and once they heard they were talking to a journalist, went half-giddy. They were happy to say where the root goes: overseas, to clinics, some of it ground into capsules. “Do the buyers pay well?” “They pay well,” one said. And all of it, he insisted, was legal. Iboga, Tabernanthe iboga, is a plant native to the wet forests of West-Central Africa. And here in Gabon, its root bark plays a central role in several Bwiti (or Bwété) traditions. It is also the original source of ibogaine, an alkaloid extracted from the root, now drawing intense interest as an experimental treatment for addiction and other mental-health conditions. The sellers at the market called the money good. But, further down the value chain, ibogaine treatment can cost thousands of dollars per patient. That gap, Gabonese practitioners and officials say, is at the heart of the dispute: the plant and the knowledge are theirs — and are threatened with overexploitation — while a lot of the money is made abroad. A 2023 Interpol analysis also found much of the trade was illicit, identifying that online resellers nearly quadrupled between 2021 and 2023. And the market for the plant may only get bigger, officials speculate. An unidentified&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/gabon-home-to-the-medicinal-plant-behind-ibogaine-wants-a-fairer-share-of-its-global-boom/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331394</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia passes agrarian reform law amid concerns over land protections</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesia-passes-agrarian-reform-law-amid-concerns-over-land-protections/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesia-passes-agrarian-reform-law-amid-concerns-over-land-protections/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Sep 2026 13:18:01 +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/20/2023/09/21161207/IMG-20230907-WA0029-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=331043</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conflict, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Reform, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Law, Resource Conflict, and Social Conflict]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s parliament has passed a law intended to resolve long-running land conflicts and curb land concentration, but civil society groups say provisions in the final draft could limit redistribution, leave state-controlled land difficult to challenge and expose some land occupants to criminal charges. The House of Representatives, known as the DPR, approved the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s parliament has passed a law intended to resolve long-running land conflicts and curb land concentration, but civil society groups say provisions in the final draft could limit redistribution, leave state-controlled land difficult to challenge and expose some land occupants to criminal charges. The House of Representatives, known as the DPR, approved the Agrarian Reform Regulation Law on Sept. 22, after lawmakers and the government agreed on the bill the previous day. The law establishes a framework for resolving structural conflicts over agrarian land ownership, restoring land rights and redistributing land, among other aims. The final enacted text has not yet been made publicly available, leaving some details of how the law will operate unclear. The debate over the efficacy and the implementation of the law comes amid a long-standing pattern of land disputes in Indonesia. The Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), an advocacy group, reportedly recorded 3,234 agrarian conflicts affecting 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) and 1.8 million households between 2015 and 2024. KPA and other advocates have argued that many conflicts arise from overlapping government authority, land allocations and competing claims involving communities, companies and state institutions. Indigenous communities, farmers and fisherfolk can be affected when their customary or livelihood areas overlap with concessions, state-designated land or infrastructure projects. The new law is intended to address what lawmakers describe as fragmented authority and regulations that have complicated conflict resolution. The parliament said the bill’s provisions include land-use planning and controls, mechanisms for resolving conflicts and restoring&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesia-passes-agrarian-reform-law-amid-concerns-over-land-protections/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331043</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Singapore&#8217;s plan to merge several islands could wipe out coral reefs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/singapores-plan-to-merge-several-islands-could-wipe-out-coral-reefs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/singapores-plan-to-merge-several-islands-could-wipe-out-coral-reefs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Sep 2026 08:49:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Robin Hicks]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/09/28012336/aa.-Bluespotted-ribbontail-ray-Pulau-Hantu-2017-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330946</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Singapore, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Culture, Development, Ecosystems, Environment, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Islands, Law, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Traditional People, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SINGAPORE — “For seven thousand years, Singapore has changed around these reefs,” says Debby Ng, a Singaporean biologist who studies the city-state’s shrinking coastal and marine habitats. “They are still here.” Despite colonization, war, shipping and industrialization, reefs a few kilometers south of Singapore’s gleaming shoreline have endured. “It would be a tragedy if we [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SINGAPORE — “For seven thousand years, Singapore has changed around these reefs,” says Debby Ng, a Singaporean biologist who studies the city-state’s shrinking coastal and marine habitats. “They are still here.” Despite colonization, war, shipping and industrialization, reefs a few kilometers south of Singapore’s gleaming shoreline have endured. “It would be a tragedy if we were to lose them now — in peacetime, at the height of our prosperity, when we possess more knowledge and capacity to protect them than any generation before us,” Ng tells Mongabay. At a National Day rally on Aug. 23, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced plans to merge a cluster of islands sprawled across a few thousand hectares of seascape into a new “western island” for advanced manufacturing, energy and defense. No timeline for the western island project was given. Wong said reclamation would take place “over the coming decades” and that plans were being studied carefully. But the announcement has alarmed Singapore’s marine conservation community, which says the project could affect some of the country’s most biodiverse waters. The islands include Pulau Semakau, which houses Singapore’s offshore landfill, and Pulau Bukom, home to an oil refinery, as well as Pulau Sudong and smaller islands including Pulau Hantu, Pulau Jong and Pulau Sebarok. The area is estimated to contain some 590 hectares (1,460 acres) of coral reefs — about 60% of the total in Singapore — along with 22% of the city-state’s seagrass meadows and 5% of its mangroves. Black sun coral (Tubastraea micranthus), Singapore.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/singapores-plan-to-merge-several-islands-could-wipe-out-coral-reefs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330946</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps become increasingly vulnerable to landslides</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/bangladeshs-rohingya-refugee-camps-become-increasingly-vulnerable-to-landslides/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/bangladeshs-rohingya-refugee-camps-become-increasingly-vulnerable-to-landslides/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2026 12:10:34 +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/20/2026/09/25114122/rohingya-camp-in-monsoon-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330815</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Disasters, Environment, Extreme Weather, Governance, Human Rights, Landslides, and Law]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[According to a report by the Bangladeshi government, released on Sept. 16, more than 150,000 Rohingya people fleeing persecution in Myanmar have entered the country’s 33 Rohingya camps in Teknaf and Ukhiya areas of Cox’s Bazar in the last few months. The camps, spread across roughly 24 square kilometers (9.2 square miles), officially host 1,170,978 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[According to a report by the Bangladeshi government, released on Sept. 16, more than 150,000 Rohingya people fleeing persecution in Myanmar have entered the country’s 33 Rohingya camps in Teknaf and Ukhiya areas of Cox’s Bazar in the last few months. The camps, spread across roughly 24 square kilometers (9.2 square miles), officially host 1,170,978 dwellers — more than (more than 124,300 people per square mile) — making the densely packed settlements increasingly congested and vulnerable to collapse as new arrivals continue to enter the limited space, according to the report by the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC). Several studies show that the camps, built on sandy hill slopes after large areas of reserved forest were cleared, are also highly vulnerable to natural disasters. Every year, heavy monsoon downpours trigger landslides in Rohingya camps. This year, between July 4 and 19, more than 200 landslides occurred in the Rohingya camps, killing at least 15 people, including five adolescent girls. Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhiya, Cox&#8217;s Bazar. Amid recurring landslides, growing numbers of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are being forced to adapt to increasingly limited camp space. Image by Md shameem ul islam via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, told Mongabay on Sept. 8, “The refugee community demands camp expansion with continued influx from Myanmar. But any expansion means destruction of new forests and hills, and Bangladesh cannot afford it anymore.” The Rohingya influx in 2017 initially caused&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/bangladeshs-rohingya-refugee-camps-become-increasingly-vulnerable-to-landslides/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330815</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia&#8217;s geothermal push runs into local fears at Mount Ungaran</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesias-geothermal-push-runs-into-local-fears-at-mount-ungaran/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesias-geothermal-push-runs-into-local-fears-at-mount-ungaran/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Sep 2026 13:00:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Triyo Handoko]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/09/24124550/7488ea4d-a47b-4173-8648-2d577f41d37a-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330698</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central Java, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Alternative Energy, Conflict, Conservation, Energy, Energy Security, Energy Transition, Environment, Geothermal Energy, Human Rights, Natural Resources, Protests, and Renewable Energy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Communities living near Mount Ungaran in Indonesia’s Central Java province have slammed plans to revive a geothermal power project there, saying it could threaten water supplies and farming livelihoods. The latest opposition follows a decision in August by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources allowing the state-owned electricity utility, PLN, to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Communities living near Mount Ungaran in Indonesia’s Central Java province have slammed plans to revive a geothermal power project there, saying it could threaten water supplies and farming livelihoods. The latest opposition follows a decision in August by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources allowing the state-owned electricity utility, PLN, to conduct geothermal exploration and development at Mount Ungaran. Local opposition to the plans began in 2008, shortly after the ministry first designated Ungaran, an active volcano, as a geothermal working area. The latest decision has revived the long-running dispute between the government and local communities. Rahman, coordinator of the Semarang Menggugat Alliance (ASM), said communities around Mount Ungaran depended on farming and local water sources, and feared the project could affect both. “We can already make a living from farming,” Rahman, a resident of Bawen subdistrict, said in early September. “If geothermal development goes ahead, we are concerned that our water sources could decline or become polluted, affecting agriculture.” Mount Ungaran’s peak as seen from the Tanggul Lawang hiking trail. Image by Triyo Handoko/Mongabay Indonesia. Indonesia sits in one of the most seismically active zones in the world, which gives it massive potential to generate electricity from geothermal energy: an estimated 23.2 gigawatts, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. The ministry describes Indonesia as having the world’s largest geothermal resource potential, ahead of countries including the United States and the Philippines. But the country’s total installed geothermal capacity&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indonesias-geothermal-push-runs-into-local-fears-at-mount-ungaran/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330698</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Planned US tech hub in Philippines hit over environmental and Indigenous land concerns</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/planned-us-tech-hub-in-philippines-hit-over-environmental-and-indigenous-land-concerns/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/planned-us-tech-hub-in-philippines-hit-over-environmental-and-indigenous-land-concerns/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2026 22:04:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michael Beltran]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/09/23152143/Protest-at-grand-hyatt-and-clashes-with-police-21-of-25-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330602</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Conflict, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industry, Land Conflict, Law, Protests, and Resource Conflict]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrived at the Grand Hyatt Manila on Sept. 10 to address hundreds of foreign business representatives assembled for the Luzon Economic Corridor investors’ forum. Outside the hotel, hundreds of demonstrators had also gathered, carrying signs that read “No to Pax Silica!” The scene reflected both the government’s ambitious [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrived at the Grand Hyatt Manila on Sept. 10 to address hundreds of foreign business representatives assembled for the Luzon Economic Corridor investors’ forum. Outside the hotel, hundreds of demonstrators had also gathered, carrying signs that read “No to Pax Silica!” The scene reflected both the government’s ambitious plans to ride the artificial intelligence wave, and deep ambivalence in civil society. Police confronted the crowd, shoving them with riot shields and batons on the street outside the hotel lobby. Activists say police injured at least 27 protesters and arrested five. Police, meanwhile, reported minor cuts and injuries to 16 personnel. Protester Jona Yang, from the activist-scientist group AGHAM, said she was negotiating with the police to cool tensions when they arrested her. “We want the Marcos government and investors to see the outrage all of this has caused,” Yang told Mongabay. “They’re taking away our resources and our lands.” Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Luzon Economic Corridor (LEC) investors’ forum on Sept. 10. Image by Michael Beltran for Mongabay. Pax Silica The Luzon Economic Corridor, or LEC, is an economic initiative focused on the Philippines’ biggest island, begun in 2024. Pax Silica, the U.S.-led global pact for an AI and semiconductor supply chain not reliant on China, includes the LEC. In April 2026, Washington and Manila announced plans to build a 1,620-hectare (4,000-acre) high-tech manufacturing hub in the Central Luzon region. Pax Silica has become a lightning rod for political and environmental&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/planned-us-tech-hub-in-philippines-hit-over-environmental-and-indigenous-land-concerns/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330602</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Logging still threatens Bornean forest once envisioned as an Indigenous-led peace park</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/logging-still-threatens-bornean-forest-once-envisioned-as-an-indigenous-led-peace-park/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/logging-still-threatens-bornean-forest-once-envisioned-as-an-indigenous-led-peace-park/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2026 16:52:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Danielle Keeton-Olsen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/26192853/20230826_085717-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330551</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Sarawak, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Business, Conservation, Forest Products, Forestry, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, Logging, Protected Areas, and Timber]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A conservation park that Indigenous communities from the Malaysian state of Sarawak believed they could co-manage and self-govern has been transformed into a timber concession and stripped of critical tree cover, according to a recently published report. A group of civil society organizations based in Malaysia and abroad launched the report, “Plundering the Baram Peace [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A conservation park that Indigenous communities from the Malaysian state of Sarawak believed they could co-manage and self-govern has been transformed into a timber concession and stripped of critical tree cover, according to a recently published report. A group of civil society organizations based in Malaysia and abroad launched the report, “Plundering the Baram Peace Park,” with a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 27, calling on other NGOs and the Malaysian government to recognize the logging of primary forest as well as alleged irregularities in the process of granting the concession and informing affected communities. The report, led by Swiss-based nonprofit Bruno Manser Fonds with participation from other NGOs, also raises concern that the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an international organization that aims to promote sustainable use of forests, has continued funding projects in the region, even after the 2024 collapse of a coalition between Indigenous community members, the Sarawak government, and civil society. A fragile coalition The Upper Baram Forest Area was initially proposed as a community-led conservation project, an idea going back more than 15 years. From 2009 to 2024, the area was proposed to be conserved as the Baram Peace Park, with Indigenous villages and the Sarawak forest department working together to protect the forest. The project gained steam in 2021 after the forest department submitted a project proposal to the ITTO and raised a total of $1.4 million to develop a park program in cooperation with 32 Indigenous Penan, Kenyah, Kelabit, and Saban&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/logging-still-threatens-bornean-forest-once-envisioned-as-an-indigenous-led-peace-park/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330551</doi>				</item>
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