JAKARTA — The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, two of the world’s largest palm oil producers, have intensified their criticisms against European Union trade policies, which they deem to be…
“They bought new land and they are cutting wood where our ancestors were,” says a source in Meta, Colombia. “Us Mbya live from the forest, but here there’s barely anything…
Last July, as the Ukraine war raged, the EU barred all Russian woody biomass imports; even as South Korea took in Russia’s supply. Illicit woody biomass may also still be flowing to the EU from Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
His goal is to transform the heart of the Amazon into a cutting-edge science production hub by connecting technical expertise and Native peoples’ knowledge. If he were not the project’s…
BATAM, Indonesia — “There’s no more fish,” says Abdul Ganip, holding up a mostly empty flask containing a few prawns. “It's a quiet catch.” For decades, the 57-year-old has lived…
Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu region, in Pará; project foresees the extraction of 74 tons of gold in 20 years of operation.
Residents of a landless worker’s settlement in Anapu, Pará state in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the Federal Government of favoring large landowners, land grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
JAKARTA — New palm oil regulations being adopted by the European Union and the U.K. could put even more pressure on independent small farmers in Indonesia who are already struggling…
Home to the world's third-largest expanse of tropical forest, the world's fourth-biggest population, and frequently ranked among the world's top 10 greenhouse gas emitters, Indonesia is a country where what…
Dom Roque Paloschi, president of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and archbishop of Porto Velho in the state of Roraima, Brazil, has been under attack because he denounced Indigenous people’s rights violations. In 2021, 355 attacks against Indigenous people were reported in Brazil — the most since 2013, according to a CIMI report.
The protected swathes of primary Amazon Rainforest in the Paru State Forest in the north of Brazil became the fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, official data show. Illegal land-grabbing…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — “The right of those who used to live here to access the cemetery is in the [Brazilian] Constitution. … The cemetery is a sacred place,” sociologist…
Current zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) may have the unintended consequence of pushing agriculture to other biodiversity-rich biomes, a new study led by the University of York shows. Published in Nature Ecology…
Six months ago, more than 100 Indigenous people from five different ethnic groups entered the Itaquaí River, close to the city of Atalaia do Norte, in the Javari Valley, in…
A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.
An existing regulation designating the burning of forests to make energy as being renewable has been reversed in Australia. That decision seems unlikely to alter the EU’s heavy commitment to biomass burning.
Agriculture is gradually killing forests, and yet up to half of tropical forestland in Africa, Latin America and Asia cleared for agriculture remains idle, according to research published in the…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — In November 2021, I went to Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, to investigate claims of land grabbing in traditional territories, leveled against one of Brazil's…
DAK DOA, Vietnam — At the end of the rainy season, the hillsides in Dak Doa district, in central Vietnam's Gia Lai province, turn pink as the Cỏ Hồng grass…
KOH S’DACH, Cambodia — Bristling with coral reefs, marine life and palm trees, the islands dotting Cambodia’s western and southwestern coasts have long lured tourists and investors alike with white…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — With trembling hands, Raimundo Serrão lights candles for his grandmother at the Livramento Cemetery's cross on the Day of the Dead because he couldn't find her…
BONTHE, Sierra Leone — As the sun rises over Bonthe, a small city on the coastline of Sierra Leone’s remote Sherbro Island, echoes of a not-so-distant colonial past bathe in…
Policymakers could finalize revisions to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive by year end, even as forest activists offer new evidence denouncing wood pellets as an energy source, and calling for an end to subsidies.
KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy…
A biomass industry insider tells Mongabay in exclusive interviews that Enviva, the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy, is disingenuous in its green, eco-friendly claims to the public and stockholders.
At the recently concluded COP27 climate summit in Egypt, 14 major agricultural commodity companies, including Cargill, ADM and JBS, released a plan to end deforestation associated with the production of…
Artisanal gold mining is driving the global demand for mercury, with 2,058 metric tons of the toxic metal contaminating water, land and air every year, according to a recent report…
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes office at the start of 2023 as president of Brazil, his third term in the post, he faces the difficult task of making…
African cocoa plantations have seen massive growth in recent years on its path to help feed the world’s veracious appetite for a popular delicacy – chocolate. The Ivory Coast, the…
Since proclaiming independence in 1945, Indonesia's leaders have not been shy about their ambitions to transform the county into an economic powerhouse. For decades, economic plans relied heavily on extracting…
