Traditional people and communities are vital to conserving biodiversity, but many are still absent from official maps. A new report highlights progress made in making them visible.
The Brazilian Amazon has been transformed by fires and deforestation into a net emitter of carbon dioxide, rather than a sink absorbing the greenhouse gas, with dangerous implications for global…
The EU and the forestry industry say burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral and cleaner than coal. But critics say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews the evidence on both sides.
Amid soaring deforestation and growing criticism due to lack of transparency and persistent attempts to weaken environmental policies, the Brazilian government is now facing a new controversy regarding forest fires,…
The biomass industry says that burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral. Environmentalists say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews independent scientific evidence on both sides.
Sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record for this time of year, while new studies find Arctic coastal ice may be receding 70-110% faster than thought, winter ice is failing to regrow fully, and last multi-year ice refuge is under assault.
The Pacific island nation of Nauru has stated its intention to start deep-sea mining in two years’ time, despite the fact that the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-mandated body…
It was not easy for Munduruku Indigenous leaders to leave their reserve in Jacareacanga, in northern Pará state, and get to Brazil's federal capital, Brasília, to join a huge protest…
Soybean farming accounts for most of the agrochemicals used in Brazil, and the farming activity concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso is now seeing those chemicals washing downstream to the Pantanal wetlands.
As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fighting off attacks and threats by…
MEDAN, Indonesia — A recent clash between Indigenous community members in Sumatra and workers from a pulpwood plantation company has marred ongoing efforts to resolve a decades-long land conflict. At…
In lead up to EU forest biomass “carbon neutrality” decision, European Commission Exec. VP Frans Timmermans argues in favor of forest conservation, while also favoring burning wood to make “transition” energy.
Ricardo Salles publicly sided with suspected illegal loggers following a record timber seizure, but claims his interference in the police operation wasn’t a crime
After a week of violent clashes with illegal gold miners in Roraima state, the Yanomami people’s calls for federal help have remained unanswered. The government will incur daily fines of 1 million reais ($189,000) if the delay exceeds June 5.
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
A week after Brazil’s Lower House of Congress approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has been named in a probe for alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber, following a Federal Supreme Court ruling on May 19.
While Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state, Brazil’s Lower House approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, further endangering the country’s ecosystems and traditional communities.
During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
An unprecedented lawsuit by an Indigenous group that was once nearly wiped out seeks $8.2 million in damages for continued invasions and destruction of their territory
At least two top Indigenous leaders in Brazil, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Suruí, were recently summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of slander against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
The US, China, UK, EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada and others upped their climate ambitions at Joe Biden’s Earth Day Leaders Summit on Climate, but activists pointed to duplicitous policies on forest biomass, coal, and more.
Last fall, the ruling New Democratic Party promised to defer cutting BC’s last old-growth, but the NDP has so far failed to act and may be embracing the province’s old policy: forestry first; nature and planet a distant second.
A recent Mongabay investigation into Brazil’s palm oil supply chain will be included in up to two legal actions targeting Biopalma, whose use of pesticides led to water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
New research finds that ice in both polar regions, and especially sea ice, is disappearing at a quickening rate, while in the Arctic the last stronghold of multiyear ice is under assault from warming.
A Portuguese language version of this report is published on Mongabay Brasil TOMÉ-AÇU, Brazil — Guided by an Indigenous leader, we drove down dusty roads in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve, a…
The Netherlands has voted to stop issuing new subsidies for the burning of forests to generate heat. Though a small win for critics who say biomass is not carbon neutral, the vote could influence a June EU biomass review.
IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has reversed itself, allowing Norte Energia, operator of the mega-dam, to divert water flow to turbines, potentially wrecking the river’s Big Bend Indigenous and traditional fishery.
KALINGA, Philippines — On Nov. 12, 2020, Typhoon Vamco cut across the northern Philippines, flooding more than 60 cities and towns in the Cagayan Valley. Millions of dollars’ worth of…
Scientists warn that we are approaching the Amazon biome tipping point, but proposed solutions in Brazil appear stillborn, politically impractical or lack sufficient scale and/or funding.
