Activism News

For thousands of years, Romania’s forests have played a central role in shaping its dramatic history. Over the centuries, large swathes of this precious ecosystem have made way for empires,…

Mileva "Gara" Jovanović's family has been taking cattle up to graze in Montenegro’s Sinjajevina Highlands for more than 140 summers. The mountain pastures of the Sinjajevina-Durmitor Massif are the largest…

Srongpol Chantharueang remembers his parents telling him as a boy always to protect the local wetland forest when he grew up. They told him that the ecosystem would be important…

Bogotá — As the world became fixated on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the situation for environmental defenders across the globe has only become more precarious. In 2019, 212 environmental…

Books have provided a welcome refuge in 2020. The global pandemic has, in many cases, turned even routine travel into a risk not worth taking, and it has left many…

In September 2020, more than a million households in Malaysia's densely populated Klang Valley suffered extended water cuts after illegal chemical dumping debilitated the region's aging water purification systems. In…

Editor's note: Widodo died of COVID-19 on December 24, 2020. BOGOR, Indonesia — Indonesian biologist Widodo Sukohadi Ramono is one of the longest-standing and most influential figures in the country’s…

María Clemencia Herrera Nemerayema did not get a diploma when she finished primary school at the Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús boarding school in the municipality of La Chorrera, in…

There was a time when Noemí Gualinga, a leader of the Indigenous Kichwa Sarayaku people of the Ecuadoran Amazon, used to sit out on the stoop of her old house…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Read parts one and two of the series, and watch the film here.  It’s cloudy when my plane lands at the airport…

Six grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in a virtual ceremony this year. Dubbed the “Green Nobel Prize,” this award is given annually to environmental heroes…

When Benjamín Rodríguez Grandez, an Indigenous leader in the Putumayo region of the Amazon in northern Peru, became sick with apparent COVID-19 symptoms in July, he was evacuated to Iquitos,…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Read parts one and three of the series, and watch the film here.  It's raining, windy, and misty as I head toward…

Four clay panthers look at visitors through glass shields. The first two, black, are the guardians of memory. The ones at the back, on pedestals, are jaguars — but they…

This article was co-produced with The Gecko Project. Read parts two and three of the series, and watch the film here. Serene, prosperous, fertile. These words come to mind as…

Noormala Anwar’s frustration comes through in an Aug. 4 video she posted on Facebook. She swings her phone’s camera back and forth, revealing a bulldozer sitting right next to her…

PANADURA, Sri Lanka — Volunteers in Sri Lanka defied the ongoing COVID-19 second wave to join a mammoth overnight rescue effort to push more than 100 stranded pilot whales back…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is trying to downplay the potential environmental fallout from a recently passed slate of deregulation, prompting criticism from experts. Foreign investors have joined domestic groups…

This story is a journalistic collaboration between El Colombiano Medellin and Mongabay Latam. CAJAMARCA, Colombia — Jimmy's face lights up when he remembers César. A man who drew people to…

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we’re shining a spotlight once again on women who are leading Amazon conservation — as well as a new international treaty that would…

On Oct. 22, four gunmen shot and killed anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase in her home in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. The murder points to escalating pressure on communities across South…

JAKARTA — When Indonesia’s parliament passed a new slate of deregulation that, among other things, drastically strips back environmental protections against coal mining, critics and protesters denounced it as catering…

MANILA — State-run Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) will be cleaning up its widely criticized overseas coal energy investments, putting in limbo two projects in the pipeline in the Philippines…

"Sumatra is like a fossil relic of rare species...a giant, rhino horn-shaped island blanketed in the richest rainforest you can imagine...there's just nothing like it," biologist Greg McCann says on…

Earlier this month, Madagascar’s government suspended a controversial gold-mining operation in Vohilava commune in the country’s southeast. Many local people welcomed the news, which comes after years of tension over…

JAKARTA — When Indonesian lawmakers passed a hugely controversial deregulation bill on the evening of Oct. 5, Sulaiman was with his fellow fishermen who had just returned home from the…

A year ago, Bali’s environmentalist community was cautiously celebrating the cancellation of a massive land reclamation project planned for Benoa Bay. The permit for the 30 trillion rupiah ($2 billion)…

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at how women are leading the charge to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world. Listen…

JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists have welcomed the cancellation of an oil palm plantation permit on Indigenous land in Indonesia’s Papua region. They say the case is a prime example…

While COVID-19 caught most of the world off guard, Indigenous environmental leader Levi Sucre Romero says he foresaw the potential for a pandemic all along. “There is an understanding with…