KALIBIRU, Indonesia — For years, Parjan hoped his community might one day gain title to the Menoreh Hills. The green valley northwest of the Javan city of Yogyakarta was tilled…
SUNGAI NIBUNG, Indonesia — The phone signal comes and goes and the electricity grid has yet to reach this patch of jungle on the west coast of Borneo. The quickest…
Himmatrao Kanjra Pawar stood in the grassland and whistled different bird calls, starting with a female rain quail. Soon, we saw a male running towards Himmatrao. “How many bird calls…
DENPASAR/JAKARTA — In November 2017, when locals spotted 10 sperm whales stranded on a beach on the island of Sumatra, they had no idea what to do. Stuck in shallow…
PUERTO GALILEA, Peru — In 2009, special decrees signed by then-president Alan García opened up vast swaths of Peruvian indigenous territory to resource exploitation. Indigenous groups in the northern portion of…
PENGOTAN, Indonesia — Hundreds of top-heavy bamboo stalks stretch up from the ground and lean under their own weight over a road in Pengotan, a village on the island of…
The cause of conservation is advanced more assuredly when more women are included among the groups making land management decisions, new research finds. The study, led by researchers at the…
When then-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila hoisted himself into a tractor to celebrate the first harvest of the Bukanga Lonzo agro-industrial park on March 5, 2015,…
Park rangers at Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, home to the iconic greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), receive a tip-off from one of their informants. Within a few hours, they’re ready…
LEBAK, Indonesia — “This forest is no longer a state forest.” The sign is one of the first things you see when you reach the Karang customary forest area in…
A new marine protected area (MPA) has been founded in the Philippines within what are considered some of the most biologically diverse waters on Earth. The new MPA, which has…
LA GLORIA, Guatemala — The sun was still rising when Ovidio Yat Sacul set out, machete in hand, in search of a waterfall near the top of the mountain overlooking…
KANYANG, Nigeria — Former bushmeat hunter Jacob Osang says poverty and lack of options drove him to the trade. “There were no jobs, no opportunity anywhere,” Osang says. In 1985,…
OLKIRIMATIAN, Kenya — As night falls on the Olkirimatian Group Ranch, in south-central Kenya, a cacophony of whistles and cowbells fills the air. Herders are hurrying cattle, sheep and goats…
TSUMKWE, Namibia — Just south of Tsumkwe, an isolated San settlement in northeastern Namibia, a sun-shredded sign indicated the Nyae Nyae cultural activity center was 10 kilometers (6 miles) away…
The Philippines was highly forested about a century ago. But today, forests cover less than a third of the country, due to logging, agriculture, fuelwood extraction and mining. To tackle forest depletion,…
MANGUNAN, Indonesia — Not long ago, people would come to Mangunan only to tap the giant trunks of reddish pine for sap, used as everything from antiseptic to glue. But…
Links to other stories in this three-part profile of the Concepción Chiquirichapa community’s stewardship of its sacred cloud forest will appear here once they are published: How a Mayan town restored…
The legal rights to manage local forests, recently awarded to communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have the potential to improve lives and protect the country’s block of…
QUITO — The world is losing its tropical forests at an alarming rate, despite increased efforts to save them. A recent study now shows that the best way to tackle…
