KUCHING, Malaysia — For more than a decade, June Mary Rubis has worked on orangutan conservation in Borneo. The critically endangered apes face a bleak future there, hammered by habitat…
JAKARTA — International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was marked on Aug. 9 in Jakarta by musical performances and traditional cuisine. But the festive mood was tempered by news…
Papua New Guinea’s timber industry is plagued by illegality, including lax enforcement of forestry laws, the misuse of logging licenses and the sidelining of local communities, according to a new…
Local forestry groups have reported increased illegal logging in the weeks before Cambodia’s July 29 election, according to reporting by the Phnom Penh Post. “[Our] community is very worried about the…
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has put a new community forest strategy in place, a move that proponents say could help provide Congolese with the chance to have a…
JAKARTA — At least six illegal logging camps have sprung up in a peat forest in Indonesian Borneo that the government had declared off-limits last year, a Greenpeace investigation has…
On today’s episode, a special report on the community-based conservation and agroforestry operations known as ejidos in Mexico. Listen here: I traveled to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in February to…
WEST POKOT, Kenya — The Cherangani people, an indigenous community in Kenya’s Rift Valley, have always called the Cherangani Hills Forest their ancestral home. Also known locally as the Sengwer,…
The consequences of today’s destruction of nature will mainly affect future generations. This is the premise behind the Colombian supreme court’s recent historic environmental decision: to accept the ideas presented…
Some strategies for protecting forests and wildlife, such as protected areas and community forestry, have become immensely popular around the world. But do these conservation strategies truly achieve the objectives…
Ejidos are part of a land tenure system in Mexico by which land is communally managed by local villages. Many ejidos, such as Ejido Caoba in the state of Quintana…
CAQUETÁ DEPARTMENT, Colombia — The Amazon is one of the first victims of peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As predicted, the process of disarmament has caused…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government looks poised to derail a long-awaited bill on the rights of the country’s indigenous groups, calling it “not a necessity” and saying it will only…
The Indian government has initiated the process of revamping its national forest policy, but the new draft has critics on edge. The current National Forest Policy 1988 (NFP-1988) was announced 30…
The call goes out over the radio: An unknown car has entered Ejido Cruz de Ocote, a community-managed forestry operation in the state of Puebla, Mexico. A short time later,…
The camera follows the men through the forest as they arrive at the splintered stump of what looks to have been a massive tree. “For me, the forest is a…
Most conservation projects today must answer a key question: How does the project affect the local people? But high-quality studies that measure the impacts of conservation projects on people’s well-being remain…
JAKARTA — Of the nearly 3,000 villages located within peatlands throughout Indonesia, only one is permitted to manage the forest — a glaring omission that the government has been slow…
JAYAPURA, Indonesia — On a sunny afternoon in early August, two tribal chiefs in northern Papua province, at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, met to formalize the system…
PUNAN ADIU, Indonesia — It’s no ordinary day here in the tiny village of Punan Adiu, tucked away in the northeastern corner of Indonesian Borneo. Devit, 9, is rushing off…
