Indonesian President Joko Widodo addressed a contingent of indigenous leaders in Jakarta on Wednesday, reassuring them of his commitment to their civil rights movement in a Muslim-majority archipelago nation of…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki was the object of a forceful gesture yesterday when a Papuan man approached the stage on which he was sitting…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Abdon Nababan, head of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, was telling reporters today why it had supported Joko Widodo’s bid for the nation’s top job in…
It’s no secret that natural wealth in many African countries often sparks conflict and precipitates decades of the suffering of local populations. Liberia’s ‘resource curse’ is no different. With more…
Located on the Siretsy river delta in Papua’s Asmat district is the picturesque hamlet of Yepem, the 655 residents of this coastal enclave on the shore of the Arafura Sea…
The morning after a rainy night, mist enshrouds the lush canopy of the forest at Bawan village. This 1,453-hectare hillock packed with high-value timber sits on the edge of the…
KALAODI, Indonesia — August through September is clove harvest season here in this corner of the Maluku Islands. The scent of clove flowers pierces the air over the winding, precipitous…
For weeks, the primatologists had followed a group of Grauer’s gorillas over rugged terrain — hacking through dense rainforest; following knife-edged ravines; and crossing a nearly impenetrable mountainous landscape in…
On a cloudless September morning in the Central Javan hamlet of Pandansari, the coastal air drips with mist and the clamor of cawing seagulls. Forty-five-year-old Mashadi, who like many Indonesians…
On the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, verdant bamboo groves and thickets of tall mahogany and teak trees today carpet once bare hills. The young forest is the handiwork of…
The Lebialem Highlands, located in Cameroon’s southwest, is a global biodiversity hotspot, a place long protected from development by its ruggedness and small human populations, though that is no longer…
Great apes need intact, safe habitat to thrive. But deforestation and hunting have imperiled that safety, with four out of six species now Critically Endangered, including Eastern and Western gorillas,…
For the first time, Indonesia’s central government has recognized the rights of nine indigenous communities to the forests they call home, a milestone for a national indigenous peoples movement that is…
IWOKRAMA, Guyana - It’s late afternoon in Fairview village, an indigenous Amerindian community in the heart of Guyana’s tropical rainforest. School is over for the day and children are playing…
“To most people on earth — even biodiversity scientists — the Salween Basin is like the dark side of the moon." So begins a 2008 study of the flora and…
Uaxactún, Guatemala - Research has shown that indigenous peoples and local communities play a key role in biodiversity and forest conservation in Central America and Mexico. Drawing on case studies…
MONROVIA, Liberia - Reaching the remote Garwin chiefdom in central Liberia isn’t an easy feat. Only about an hour and a half of the journey takes place on a paved…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — The road from this inland provincial capital in southern Borneo to the delta city of Banjarmasin is littered with degraded forests and peat swamps, hallmarks of a…
U Ye Aung spent most of his adult life in a war zone. For over 60 years his village of Kalaikyi served as the frontline in one of Myanmar’s longest…
ven with two grades to go before completing high school, Vincent Kiptum has already figured out how to deal with a problem troubling his village in Kenya’s Rift Valley: truancy…
ndonesia’s Ogan Komering Ilir was an epicenter of last year’s disastrous forest and peatland fires. It is one of four districts in which the newly created Peatland Restoration Agency is…
Community Forest Management (CFM) is an increasingly popular approach to conserving forests worldwide, due to the fact that involving the local community that uses and lives within the forests helps…
Last week, some 500 members from governments, corporations, and NGOs from 47 countries convened in Norway to discuss tropical forest conservation at the Oslo REDD Exchange (REDDX). The event concluded…
n May 2013, the journal Conservation Biology published an editorial describing 10 conservation methods that emerged since the late 1970's as fads, “approaches that are embraced enthusiastically and then abandoned.”…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve…
In May, the Indonesian government announced that nearly half of the peatlands protected under a 2011 forestry moratorium have actually been damaged or converted. Last week, the forestry ministry said…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Communities lead the way in rainforest conservation in Guatemala…
t age 70 Ngai Mutuoboro may not possess the vibrancy of his youthful days, but he can still pack a punch when it comes to environmental conservation. The elder from…
A landmark decision by Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen could see almost a million hectares of forest reclassified as protected areas in a country with one of the highest deforestation…