The fishing boat flew a Singaporean flag as it sailed toward Batam Island in Indonesia. But when Indonesian Navy officers intercepted the vessel and boarded it in February 2018, they…
Between the cacao fields of northwest Madagascar and the vanilla of the northeast, a chain of rainforests bob along the highland interior. Tsaratanana Reserve, home to the country’s highest peak,…
ATALAYA, Peru — Pascual cuts the motor and our dugout canoe glides below a massive tree trunk suspended a few feet above the river. I motion to the bank. “We…
Powerful drug-traffickers and landless farmers continue to push cattle ranching and illegal logging operations deeper into the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in eastern Honduras. The…
On June 23, three police officers in Peru were arrested and now stand accused of providing security and information to narco-traffickers who are part of an international criminal organization. The…
Colombian authorities have announced they will investigate 33 gas stations for allegedly selling an estimated 70 million gallons (265 million liters) of gasoline to cocaine producers in rural regions of…
A patrol of eleven men is hiking along a rough jungle trail spotted with the blackened foliage of several small brush fires. Nearby trees, smoke-stained at their bottoms but still…
Rafael Orjuela, a community leader in Cartagena de Chairá, Colombia, moved to the Amazonian department of Caquetá in 1979 to escape severe economic hardship in the interior Andes region. At…
More than 2,000 illegal mining sites in the Amazon, a wetland in Chile threatened by a highway extension, and a possible new monkey species in Peru were among the top…
The burned forest and coca crops that have dominated the landscape along the road for the past two hours are gradually being transformed into coffee plantations. These are the last…
While many people from Atlantida, Honduras, are attempting to escape desperate poverty and deepening political violence by traveling some 3,000 miles to reach the border of the U.S., a few…
LIMA, Peru — A joint operation by law enforcement agencies in Peru managed to seize 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of cocaine from a plane intercepted in Bahuaja-Sonene National Park last…
The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, followed a new green-eyed shark species in Belize, salmon farms in Patagonia, blast fishing in Peru, a cocaine-laden plane in…
The most popular stories last week from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, followed farmed salmon escapes in Chile, a new biosphere reserve in Ecuador, and high-tech forest monitoring in Peru. Patagonia’s…
"Territories are like books: they can be in front of you, but if you do not read them you will never understand them," said Juan Carlos Clavijo about Tinigua National…
Augusto Sangama confesses that, twenty years ago, his life was worth nothing. He believes others in the community of Huicungo in the San Martín region in northern Peru felt the…
PUNO REGION, Peru – “Life isn’t tranquil here anymore. Not long ago, my neighbor came running, frightened. [She said] a group of drug traffickers came to her house, put a…
The last thing on the minds of those who conduct their business on Mexico’s border with Guatemala is that cattle may be driving the destruction of the Lacandon Jungle, which…
Mexican conservationists are alarmed over Trump's wall, with the loss of connectivity threatening already stressed bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bears and other animals.
As Colombia seeks peace with FARC rebels, Trump wants to cut funds for urgently needed social and rural development programs, with a return to aerial spraying and militaristic War on Drugs.
MAGDALENA MEDIO, Colombia – It is a usual hot and humid day at one of the oil palm plantations in Magdalena Medio, Colombia. Beneath the two-story canopy of the plantation,…
(This article is a collaboration between Mongabay-Latam and Colombia’s Semana Sostenible) One cow per hectare. This equivalence summarizes Caquetá’s cattle ranching model, but at the same time defines the dynamics…
MIRAFLORES, Colombia – “We can’t move like we used to,” said Joaquin Dajada, a twenty-something displaced member of the Nukak indigenous community, the last contacted nomadic group in Colombia. “The…
The Guatemalan government declared a 30-day, nationwide state of emergency Tuesday to facilitate efforts to combat and control forest fires. The Maya Biosphere Reserve covering the northernmost fifth of the…
The Guatemalan government issued a red alert for the Peten department Tuesday due to forest fires in national parks inside the Maya Biosphere Reserve. The biosphere reserve covers the northernmost…
The illicit cultivation of coca leaf in Colombia grew by 39 percent between 2014 and 2015, from 69,000 to 96,000 hectares. That’s according to the country’s National Forest and Carbon…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve…
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm Communities lead the way in rainforest conservation in Guatemala…
A new airstrip recently identified in a national park in Peru indicates that deforestation stemming from the country’s coca cultivation is continuing to take a serious toll on the area’s primary forest.
