Community Forests News

It was in Michoacán state in central-western Mexico where the so-called war against drugs began in December 2006. The state fell apart, and in the meantime, the forests were simultaneously…

As July begins, the rains become an integral part of the landscape of Santiago Papasquiaro, in the northern Mexican state of Durango. For the residents of the region, this indicates…

NEW YORK — On an early December morning last year in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, half a dozen members of the Indigenous Guajajara people packed their bags with food,…

The Cameroon prime minister’s office recently announced it was suspending plans to log Ebo Forest, a large intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon that spans 200,000 hectares (about 500,000 acres),…

In some Indigenous languages, two words are just not enough to convey everything encompassed by the phrase “climate change.” Alejo López, who speaks one of the varieties of Chinantec that…

MANILA — Forty-three land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines in 2019, according to a new report from the watchdog group Global Witness. The tally marks out the…

Companies and governments are pushing for the privatization of land around the world as a way to get at economically valuable resources, according to a recent report from the Oakland…

Mexico’s General Law on Sustainable Forest Development is once again in the spotlight. Despite being a recent law, approved on June 5, 2018, and applauded at the time for its…

This year, the Easter holidays didn’t bring tourists to the Presa del Llano ecotourism park in Mexico. There was none of the usual noise of kayak paddles splashing in the…

Two Māori iwi, or tribal groups, are campaigning for a portion of the New Zealand government’s new COVID-19 economic stimulus package to help save their treasured, ancestral Raukūmara Forest from…

TRIBUGÁ, Colombia — Aida Leides Palacios Moreno strolls through the narrow dirt streets in the Colombian town of Tribugá surrounded by palm and plantain trees rustling in the seaside breeze.…

In the midst of a national lockdown in Colombia, a dramatic video showing dozens of indigenous Emberá fleeing gunfire and heavy fighting by canoe in the country’s northwest emerged on…

What do countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Nepal and Namibia have in common? All four are home to rich repositories of biodiversity. But each country has also developed models for community…

KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…

The Naga tribes inhabit the hills in the northwestern corner of Myanmar and northeast India. They had long been isolated from outside culture, dwelling in independent village republics. This protected…

PUCARÁ ALTO, Ecuador — Bellowing winds thrashed the farmers’ corn stocks and the wild patches of eucalyptus cropping up the largest hill in Pucará Alto. Then there was a crack,…

José Ramírez Talango is a retired teacher and beekeeper. When he was a child he used to walk through the jungle to reach Laguna Chakanbakán in the southeastern Mexican state…

Leticia Merino graduated from college with a degree in social psychology. But her plans to continue her studies in that field were thrown into doubt after she encountered a community…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. In late 2013, during a hearing convened by the local legislature of Indonesia’s Maluku province, a…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. When the politician in charge of Indonesia’s Aru Islands signed permits for a vast sugar plantation,…

Prinson Daimari is overwhelmed with pride every time he visits the lush green forest with birds’ nests perched on the treetops inside the Bhairabkunda reserve forest in Udalguri district of…

In eastern Liberia, efforts are underway to formally demarcate the boundaries of Sapo National Park, the largest tract of protected rainforest in the country and one of the most important…

This is the first article in a two-part series on the Kaliwa Dam project. GENERAL NAKAR, Philippines — In the barangay, or village, of Lumutan, the Dumagat-Remontados tribe speaks of…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  This month Mongabay and The Gecko Project published “Saving Aru,” an article chronicling how the people of Indonesia’s Aru Islands thwarted a…

This story was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) I. The movement begins Late one rainy night in August 2013, a…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

LAGOS, NIGERIA -- Surrounded by smoke-capped dense forest thick with tall, evergreen trees and wildlife, the Ekuri people in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River state treasure the forest near their homes.…

SAN GABÁN, Peru — "We have to sit down and talk," says Julián* as he shakes off his rain-soaked cape and looks for a dry spot among the scattered stones…

OKUNI, Nigeria — The bulldozers returned to the forests of Cross River state in southeastern Nigeria in January. Their metal blades resumed tearing down rainforest, rubber and cocoa plantations, homes…

In Whāingaroa/Raglan on New Zealand’s (NZ’s) west coast, trapping for introduced mammals that prey on endangered native birds is something of a competitive sport. Karioi Project, a local conservation NGO…