Encroachment News

JAMBI, Indonesia — The lunchtime rush is well underway as customers file into a lively Padang-style restaurant here in the city of Jambi on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. A clutch of…

DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the early hours of July 19, a herd of wild elephants came down from the hills to a crop field located in Rangunia, in Bangladesh’s Chattogram…

Much of Bangladesh lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin, where the three rivers meet in the world’s largest delta before washing out in the Bay of Bengal. The Meghna Basin covers…

Since October 2020, Thailand's national parks authority has demolished or ordered the demolition of more than 20 luxury mansions, resorts and tourist hotels illegally built in national parks throughout the…

JAKARTA — An upgrade to a road that cuts through one of Southeast Asia’s last great swaths of intact rainforest is driving deeper encroachment by humans into blocks of forest…

JAYAPURA, Indonesia — Paving of a dirt road linking two cities in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region could spark the destruction of a wildlife reserve whose isolation has made it a…

Everyone’s lives have been upended by coronavirus, but perhaps nowhere have the impacts been as devastating as in Mesoamerica’s indigenous territories. In March, just before the pandemic really hit the…

SIDAMA, Ethiopia — For Lidya Ashango and 14 million other Ethiopians, the false banana plant widely known as enset is a staple food and, on many occasions, a supplementary source…

Monarch butterfly populations are at a critical low, according to the annual Western Monarch Count in California. In the fall and winter, western monarchs (Danaus plexippus plexippus) stop to roost…

Homero Gómez González took a circuitous path to becoming an advocate for butterflies. After strongly opposing the creation of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, he became one of its most…

As the world races to meet the goal of protecting 17 percent of Earth’s land surface, a new study looks at how effective protected areas are at reducing human pressures…

The rainforests that once carpeted Indonesia's Sumatra Island are among the world's most biodiverse ecosystems, home to iconic species like the Sumatran tiger, rhino and orangutan. They are also among…

JAYAPURA/JAKARTA — Rain-triggered flash floods and landslides that struck Indonesia’s easternmost province this past weekend have killed nearly 90 people and driven thousands from their homes. The country’s disaster mitigation…

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…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has unveiled an ambitious plan to restore a heavily degraded national park that is one of the last remaining habitats on Earth for the critically…

ANOSY REGION, Madagascar — The land in the Mandrare River Basin, in southeastern Madagascar, does not seem like the kind of place that could support an economy based on wood.…

New oil palm plantation in the GSK landscape. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. An important reserve that contains a block of fast-dwindling lowland swamp forest in Riau Province is facing…

Red shows deforestation. Pink shows the zone of protected area that has had its status removed. Green shows the remaining protected area. Western Pará. Areas that have had their protected…

Gaysay Grasslands in Bale Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). There is a place in the world where wolves live almost entirely off mountain rodents,…

Motorbikes carrying coffee bags out of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Photo courtesy of Patrice Levang. Sumatra's Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park—home to the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, and…