Sitting in the doorway of his house, Isaac Zacharías Klassen, the patriarch of a Mennonite colony that has settled in Masisea, in Peru’s Amazonian department of Ucayali, says he was…
COLOMBO — With its blends of soft red, pink and yellow, the fragrant cannonball flower (Couroupita guianensis) is a favorite of Sri Lanka’s Buddhists when making floral offerings during religious…
Ricardo Lopes Dias, an anthropologist and Christian Evangelical pastor, appointed to head Brazil’s isolated indigenous tribes department, has been removed due to a “conflict of interest”
Some 600 indigenous people have seen their crops die due to the expansion of agribusiness in the state of Pará, Brazil. The streams used by the Munduruku have also been damaged, if not dried up.
Created by an indigenous anthropologist, the Centro de Medicina Indígena Bahserikowi offers residents of the Brazilian Amazonian city of Manaus traditional healing and protective treatments by shamans from the Dessana, Tuyuka and Tukano ethnicities.
Christian fundamentalist Andrew Tonkin is allegedly planning to contact and convert isolated Brazilian Amazon indigenous people, according to Marubo and Mayoruna indigenous leaders.
A supposed COVID-19 test for a possibly infected Marubo indigenous man in Atalaia do Norte — gateway to the vast Javari Valley Indigenous Territory — was never analyzed; so results remain unknown.
Ethnos360 missionaries have purchased a helicopter as part of a plan to contact and convert isolated Amazon indigenous groups, putting them at grave risk of deadly infectious disease.
AMBON, Indonesia — Activists in Indonesia have called on police to drop criminal charges against two indigenous men who took part in a confrontation against a company accused of illegally…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Activists have deplored the recent jailing of two indigenous community members in Sumatra in a land conflict involving an affiliate of pulp and paper giant Royal Golden…
Attacks on indigenous Kaiowá communities in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul at the start of the year have highlighted a long-running campaign of persecution and growing violence against the group.
‘Multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth,’ warned Pope Francis, urging conservation of the rapidly vanishing Amazon — but the world’s media barely took notice.
Legislation would open indigenous reserves in Amazon and across Brazil to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, ranching, agribusiness, new dams and tourism.
Indigenous group entered Brazilian museum and retrieved sacred funeral urns that courts said were rightly theirs, but which dam construction firm and authorities kept from them.
Even as delegates to COP25, the Madrid climate summit, sidestep the environmental and human rights goals of the Paris Agreement, a godly 71-year-old woman steps up.
SANTARÉM, Brazil, and BERLIN — I got off the mototaxi, a means of transportation that is part of everyday life in several cities in the Amazon, took off the helmet…
Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.
During Climate Week, starting September 22 at the UN in New York City, interfaith leaders will unveil the Faiths for Forests Declaration, with a call to political action by global congregations.
Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…
An upcoming Amazon Synod at which Catholic clergy from nine Amazon nations will discuss ecological, indigenous and climate issues is seen by Brazil as international interference.
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…
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…
MEDELLIN, Colombia — An alliance of scientists, development experts, indigenous peoples and religious leaders met late last month in Colombia to determine how church leaders can help drive environmental public…
Around 18 kilometers southeast of Tibet's Lake Mansarovar, a sacred lake for both Hindus and Buddhists, there lies yet another pilgrimage site, albeit of a different nature: The Limi Valley,…
RAMALLAH — Anton Khalilieh is the premier Palestinian birdwatcher in the West Bank. The 37-year-old from Bethlehem has all the traits of a great birder: an encyclopedic knowledge of bird…
As development in Thailand is increasing, so is deforestation. Acres of forests are cleared for contract farming, habitats are torn down to make room for new factories, and soil is…
What if the moral and spiritual influence of the world’s religious communities and their leaders were directed towards protecting rainforests and their indigenous guardians? Is this an appropriate role for…
In China, where most rivers are deprived of large mammals due to habitat destruction and over-exploitation, a healthy population of Eurasian otters (Lutra lutra) was recently found to thrive right…
KAMBIYAIN, Indonesia — The village of Kambiyain lies deep within the forests of Indonesian Borneo, well off the national grid, and the nights here are typically dark and silent, save…
Visit by Pope Francis to Peru brought needed attention to Amazon deforestation and indigenous suffering due to illegal mining, but will the pontiff’s words be a game changer?
