LA GUAJIRA, Colombia — “It was beautiful here,” said Mariella. “There were crops, flowers, animals. There was life.” Mariella is an indigenous Wayuu from the community of Wasimo in the dusty desert…
Read the other stories in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Maubere’s revival of tara bandu: Timor-Leste: Maubere tribes revive customary law to protect the ocean Timor-Leste: With sacrifice and ceremony,…
Read the other stories in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Maubere’s revival of tara bandu: Timor-Leste: Q&A with a Maubere fisherman on reviving depleted fisheries Timor-Leste: With sacrifice and ceremony,…
ISINUTA, Bolivia — After being held for five hours by members of the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR), a commission from the International Rights of Nature Tribunal abandoned an…
This is the third story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA, read the others here: Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats and here: Watching…
This is the second story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats Women’s work in…
This is the main story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Watching the wildlife return: Q&A with a rural Senegalese river monitor Women’s work in…
NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya — Caroline Chepkoeh looked around her idyllic property, perched on a hilltop surrounded by green maize fields as far as the eye can see. A storm front…
KILIFI COUNTY, Kenya — Dressed in blue and white traditional regalia, elders walked barefoot along a narrow footpath heading to the Kaya Kauma. The kaya, a sacred ancestral village surrounded…
EMBOBUT FOREST, Kenya — One morning in May, David Kisang, 50, sat outside his tiny dome-shaped hut, with its walls made of sticks and black polythene for a roof, sipping…
After the Seko indigenous peoples of Indonesia rejected a plan to build a hydropower plant on their traditional lands in the province of South Sulawesi, the company behind the plant…
JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia – On Jan. 1, 2014, fishermen near Kampong Pok, a village on Malaysia’s southern shore, were alarmed to find a fleet of barges and dredgers dumping sand…
DENPASAR, Indonesia — Hundreds of people in Bali are celebrating a key victory against a multi-billion-dollar land reclamation project that would have destroyed vast swaths of mangroves on the resort…
As the world continues to watch the high-stakes diplomacy that is unfolding between North Korea, South Korea, and their key allies, there’s been wide speculation about the many outcomes that…
JAKARTA — Locals and activists have denounced plans to build tourism infrastructure in Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, a string of sun-kissed islands best known for their resident giant lizards. Developers…
“When oil palm was given out by the district head I didn’t accept it. I am still angry at the oil palm companies,” says Monica Mensea. At 83, Mensea is…
KUALA LUMPUR — Before the May 9 election that swept Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional coalition from power, the then prime minister of Malaysia presided over one of the…
In many ways, 2018 is the year of the refugee. At U.S. borders, Mediterranean shores and Asian cities, millions are fleeing war, hunger and persecution in search of safety and…
Reaching the village of Wae Rebo on Indonesia’s Flores Island requires a seven-hour drive down rugged jungle roads from the port town of Labuan Bajo. At the edge of the…
LOMA DE BÁCUM, Mexico — October 21, 2016, is a date that the Yaqui community in the town of Loma de Bácum will never forget. That’s when the community’s inhabitants,…
A recent article in Science reports that, while the portion of the world’s terrestrial surface allocated to protected areas has grown to around one-sixth of the area available, a significant…
Spring Energy is the just the sort of homegrown, super successful, keenly entrepreneurial company that developing nations across the world crave. Based in a tidy three-story building not far from…
A new study makes a significant contribution to the growing body of research showing that recognizing the land rights of and partnering with indigenous peoples can greatly benefit conservation efforts.…
Over the past decade, Norway has spent $3 billion to support efforts to keep forests standing in all of the world’s major rainforest countries, helping to elevate forest protection as…
JAKARTA — Environmental officials have warned of the potentially catastrophic impact of a planned gold mine in a conservation zone in eastern Indonesia, amid mixed signals from the district chief…
In 2008, when a consortium led by ExxonMobil was drumming up support for a $19 billion natural gas extraction and processing project in Papua New Guinea, proponents of the development…
Rising concentrations of climate-altering carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have little to do with surging forest cover in some countries, according to a new study. “Weather observations confirm indisputably that…
The surge in armed conflicts across the Sahara Desert and the band of dry savanna to its south called the Sahel is devastating the region’s wildlife, according to recent findings…
Even as scientists introduced the world to a new species of orangutan in 2017 — one of only seven non-human great apes alive today — they were already working to…
Even as scientists introduced the world to a new species of orangutan in 2017 — one of only seven non-human great apes alive today — they were already working to…
