INTAG VALLEY, Ecuador — In Ecuador's lush tropical Andes, Silvia Vetancourt multitasks, her hands maneuvering crochet needles with swift precision as she navigates the rocky path to the old town…
All three legacy-oil pipelines in the Andean Amazon system are old. The Oleoducto Transandino Colombiano (OTC) has been operating for 53 years, followed by the Sistema de Oleoducto Transecuatoriano (SOTE)…
JAKARTA — Civil society advocates representing more than 2,000 customary communities in Indonesia have initiated last-ditch legal challenges over parliament’s failure to pass an Indigenous rights bill during the 10-year…
For months, residents in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand have been fighting for the introduction of land laws that would prevent agricultural land from being sold to people from outside…
When around 70,000 Indigenous Maasai were expelled from their lands in northern Tanzania in 2022, it didn’t happen in a vacuum. For years, the Tanzanian government has systematically attacked Maasai…
Living deep in the Peruvian Amazon, the Kukama Kukamiria Indigenous community have spent generations with their feet in the Marañón, the river emerging from the Andes that provides the main…
No one on the Colombian island of Providencia was prepared for what happened on the night of Nov. 16, 2020. Not even Josefina Huffington, who had survived four hurricanes. That…
There’s “this myth [of] perfection within activism and I think that's something that sort of barricades lots of people, whether they consider themselves activists or not, from even engaging in…
This story is part of a Mongabay series on female environmental defenders in the Amazon. Read about the lives and work of Soraida Chindoy, Maydany Salcedo, and Etelvina Ramos. “Don’t…
Carlos Zorrilla is a leader in what locals say is the longest continuous resistance movement against mining in Latin America. Zorrilla’s family fled from Cuba to the U.S. in 1962…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has sentenced environmental activist Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan to seven months in prison for his online criticism of illegal shrimp farms inside a marine national…
While wind turbines and solar panels multiply across the Brazilian dry forests, Tião Alves insists on tin windmills and PET bottle-based heaters. "Backcountry technology," as he defines it, arguing that…
JAKARTA — Greenpeace has condemned mounting legal actions taken by Indonesian authorities against four activists for protesting illegal shrimp farms damaging a marine park off the island of Java. The…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — Chris Malgan sits in his outrigger canoe, singing and shaking a ring of coconut shells in the water next to the boat. The inky skies…
SIDOARJO, Indonesia — On the eve of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, a group of people from across the country gathered at an impromptu art exhibition by the side…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — News of apparent renewed interest in deep-sea mining came as a shock to Jonathan Mesulam in late 2022. Looking out over the Bismarck Sea that…
Pro-democracy activists have urged the Australian government to crack down on domestic companies involved in Myanmar's mines, saying these firms are funding human rights abuses and environmental destruction carried out…
Activists demand corporate and government accountability after a massive landslide struck a mining town in the southern Philippines on Feb. 6, claiming nearly 100 lives and affecting more than 7,000…
JAKARTA — Indonesians are set to vote in presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 14 in a landmark moment for the world’s largest archipelagic country. But maritime observers say none…
The government in Ecuador is looking for ways to keep open a controversial oil block in the Amazon Rainforest, defying the results of a referendum to close the operation due…
BUÍQUE, Pernambuco, Brazil — In the Brazilian backlands, the jurema is a most willful tree: When you think it's dead, it sprouts again. You can cut it, tear it down,…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s freedom-of-information clearinghouse has ordered state-owned electricity utility PLN to disclose emissions data for some of the country’s biggest coal-fired power plants. The decision by the…
"Hope is the last to die. We are apprehensive about what happened, but we will fight." These are the words of Indigenous leader Jose Antônio Parava Ramos, a member of…
Yuly Velásquez grew up on the banks of the Magdalena River near the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja, an area surrounded by a large network of swamps, lagoons and tropical forests.…
Possible plans to develop large-scale agriculture in Suriname have sparked backlash from Indigenous communities, conservation groups and some members of parliament, who are concerned about deforestation of the Amazon and…
Thailand’s government began deliberations last week on a new Clean Air Act to address the nation’s annual haze crisis that chokes the country during the dry season months, typically between…
After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According…
A recent report from U.K.- and U.S.-based nonprofit Global Witness captures the details of how a new mining rush driven by demand for “clean energy” minerals can go wrong, reproducing…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…
JAKARTA — Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was a rare breed of Indonesian bureaucrat: a visionary policy leader with a love for nature, someone who for decades built bridges between environmentalists and Indigenous…