Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
“We couldn’t see the sun for a whole month because of the clouds of smoke. For an entire month, between October and November (2022), we didn’t see the sun,” said…
Expansion of Mennonite farmland in Bolivia encroaches on Indigenous land
Life goes at its own pace in the town of Chihuahua, where the modern mixes with Mennonite traditions. To one side, horse-drawn carts pull up at a plot of land…
Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — In the middle of the Paraguayan portion of the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest, a paved road leads to the Mbya Indigenous community of Pindo’i. Roads in the…
Paraguay weighs natural gas drilling in Médanos del Chaco National Park
Paraguay is considering opening up mining and natural gas drilling in one of its national parks in the Gran Chaco, despite widespread outcry that development could compromise the fragile savannah…
Scientists map nearly 10 billion trees, stored carbon, in Africa’s drylands
For the first time ever, researchers have plotted out the locations and tabulated the carbon stocks of more than 9.9 billion individual trees spread across the dry belt of land…
Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show
On Aug. 28, 2022, NASA satellites picked up a small, isolated cluster of fire alerts in the southwestern corner of Bolivia’s Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. By Sept. 5, the…
Zero-deforestation commitments can push agriculture to other rich biomes, study warns
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…
Bolivian protected areas hit hard by forest fires
ROBORÉ, Bolivia — Tucabaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve comprises around 2,644 square kilometers (1,021 square miles) of semi-arid forest and scrubland in the heart of southern Bolivia’s Chiquitania region. But…
The protected area that isn’t: Bolivia’s Ñembi Guasu beset by fires, farms, roads
This report is part of a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam, La Región and Red Ambiental de Información. ROBORÉ, Bolivia—The Ñembi Guasu region is referred to as the “great refuge”…
Forests & Finance: Sit-ins, seeds over seedlings, and fuel-saving cookstoves
Liberian forest communities were supposed to get a cut of logging fees. They say they got a sliver MONROVIA, Liberia — On Sept. 29, several Liberian communities affected by logging…
In Indonesia’s forest fire capital, the dry season brings yet more burning
JAKARTA — Fires are flaring up in Indonesia’s Riau province, the perennial epicenter of the burning season in Sumatra, as the dry season sets in. At the end of March,…
Mennonite colony builds bridge, clears forest in Bolivian protected areas
CUARIRENDA, Bolivia — In October 2020, residents of a Mennonite colony began clearing a road through the forest in the Cordillera province of the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz. By…
Common goals ensure forest restoration success in northern Thailand
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Chotgun Prapatsit takes a handful of topsoil and deftly sprinkles it into a small cylindrical potting bag containing a tiny tree seedling. The spindly stem sports…
Wild release marks return of giant forest tortoises to Bangladesh hills
Bangladesh’s population of one of the world’s largest tortoise species received a boost last month when researchers and villagers released 10 captive-bred juveniles into the evergreen forests of the Chattogram…
‘Unprecedented’ fires in Madagascar national park threaten livelihoods and lemurs
Historically, the dry forests of western Madagascar did not receive as much interest from conservationists as the country’s eastern rainforests. One study published in 2015 in International Forestry Review found…
2019 fires in Indonesia were twice as bad as the government claimed, study shows
JAKARTA — In 2019, fires raged through Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands, sparked by the deliberate burning of land for agriculture, and fanned by an El Niño system bringing drier-than-usual weather…
Forests for sale: How land traffickers profit by slicing up Bolivia’s protected areas
SAN IGNACIO DE VELASCO, Bolivia — On Feb. 12, 2021, Bolivian conservationists joyfully celebrated the creation of the Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area. Located in the municipality of San Ignacio…
Indigenous groups call for gov’t intervention as land grabbers invade Bolivian protected area
This article is part of a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam and El Deber, a Bolivian news source. On Feb. 15, three days after the creation of Bajo Paraguá…
Forests falling for cashew monocultures: A ‘repeated mistake’ in Côte d’Ivoire (commentary)
Farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire are full of praise for cashew, the Brazilian nut tree introduced in the 1960s – ironically, it turns out – to combat deforestation. They rhapsodize…
Timmermans vs. Bolsonaro: Will the EU get deforestation off our dinner plates? (commentary)
Europe is one of the largest drivers of tropical deforestation in the world, second only to China. That’s why the European Commission is drafting a plan to break the link…
Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region
Two years ago, fire ravaged the Tucavaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve in the heart of Bolivia’s Chiquitania region, wiping out thousands of square kilometers of habitat. Now this threat has…
Half of burned forests across Latin America don’t survive, study finds
The fragility of Latin American forests has been demonstrated by a pioneering study published in the journal Science Advances, which reveals an alarming finding: half of the region's forests would…
Green peafowl flourish in Thailand’s northern forests, but conflict looms
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Once widespread across Southeast Asia, from Java to southern China, green peafowl (Pavo muticus) have vanished from much of the region over the past few decades,…
The secret bears of Bolivia’s lost dry forests
EL PALMAR, Bolivia — It was worth the journey. After sweating across the scrubby Bolivian mountainsides, stepping into the forest was like entering a different world. Twisted pino de monte…
Rallying the public to save Bolivia’s forests: Q&A with Gina Méndez
After Brazil, the South American country that lost the greatest area of primary forest over the past twenty years is Bolivia. The land-locked nation has seen its diverse forests rapidly…
‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
There’s a tree-planting frenzy everywhere you look. In August 2019, the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India announced that more than a million Indians had planted 220 million trees…
Can ‘Slow Food’ save Brazil’s fast-vanishing Cerrado savanna?
Experts see sustainable small-scale cultivation of endemic fruits, nuts and vegetables by traditional communities as a way to value and save Cerrado ecosystems, while also supporting some of the biome’s best defenders.
The Kalunga digitally map traditional lands to save Cerrado way of life
The Kalunga — 39 quilombola communities, the descendants of runaway slaves — have united with international funders to use high-tech georeferencing to catalog their traditional lands and natural resources in Brazil.
Cat corridors between protected areas is key to survival of Cerrado’s jaguars
With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its…
Industrial agriculture threatens a wetland oasis in Bolivia
It was August 26, 2020. Dirlene Mejía, a park ranger who works in the area around Concepción Lake, a protected area located in eastern Bolivia, had just left for her…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
- In a Bolivian protected area torn up for gold, focus is on limiting damage
Oceans
- As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
- Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
- Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
- Illegal trawling ravages Tunisian seagrass meadows crucial for fish
Amazon Conservation
- Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
- World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
Land rights and extractives
- Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
- Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- From scarcity to abundance: The secret of the ‘peace farmers’ of Colombia
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
