This story was written in partnership with Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto. Leaving the headquarters of the Wayuú Women’s Force, Mülo’u took the first taxi she saw. It was…
In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the…
Earlier this month, six young activists associated with advocacy group Mother Nature Cambodia were released on bail after spending up to 14 months in prison. Although nominally at liberty, their…
A court in Peru has formally dismissed a defamation case filed by an agribusiness company against Mongabay Latam journalist Yvette Sierra Praeli. On Monday, the Fourth Criminal Chamber of Lima…
Today we’re taking a closer look at the important role of Indigenous peoples in biodiversity conservation with two key players. Listen here: We’re at something of an inflection point in…
The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar is a beautiful and rich expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where we still have wild tigers and elephants, and where the forest provides…
In the wake of the Feb. 1 military coup, Myanmar’s new regime leaders escalated their forceful crackdown on nationwide protests with sweeping restrictions on the media, severely curtailing independent journalism…
“They may kill one, two, three of us, but others will come to defend the forest, they will not exterminate us,” says Marisol García Apagüeño, an Indigenous Kichwa leader from…
This article is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay’s Latin America (Latam) team and Colombian digital news website Rutas del Conflicto. Ana Villa has traveled dozens of times on the highways…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — More than a month has passed since the Cambodia branch of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it would be ending its assistance…
The alleged mastermind of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of homicide by a Honduran court on Monday. Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the…
Three young environmental activists in Cambodia face between five and 10 years in prison and fines of up to 10 million riels ($2,500) on charges of conspiracy and insulting the…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In a move that has prompted outrage in Cambodia and beyond, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on May 5 sentenced five activists from the environmental group…
Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known…
Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary sprawls across a vast expanse of Cambodia’s eastern reach. But much of what used to be covered in lush rainforest has been laid barren by deforestation.…
Firings, threats, thefts, gag orders, attempted kidnappings and other intimidation against environmental researchers and civil servants appear to be on the rise; many blame an incendiary Bolsonaro government.
“It was the same court, the same actors, the same script — it was just like the sequel,” laughed Ouch Leng as he recounted what is now his second arrest…
“One of the good things about living here is that it is — or at least it was, before the pandemic — possible to coexist and share ideas, sips of…
Impunity still reigns when it comes to the murders of human rights defenders around the world, according to the Front Line Defenders organization, in its global analysis of 2020. The…
When Jair Bolsonaro took office as president of Brazil at the start of 2019, he ushered in a climate of hostility toward rural activists — Indigenous peoples, environmentalists, advocates for…
AKLAN, Philippines — At dawn on Dec. 30, 2020, police officers raided Indigenous villages within a military reservation camp in the central Philippines in search of alleged members of the…
Update: The five activists were released on February 8 after they "signed an agreement not to enter restricted areas without permission," as Reuters reported. On Friday afternoon Kratie provincial environment…
MANILA — Indigenous youths harboring from a military-led counterinsurgency in the Philippines may soon lose the only safe space they have known for the past two years. Under a nearly…
The old adage of "money talks" is being given a modern data analysis stress test and applied to the assassinations of civil society activists in the global mining sector. In…
For our first episode of 2021, we’re taking the opportunity to look at some of the most important trends and issues that will be affecting rainforest conservation over the next…
Bogotá — As the world became fixated on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the situation for environmental defenders across the globe has only become more precarious. In 2019, 212 environmental…
2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay's year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what's in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch.…
It is impossible to capture all of 2020's losses between the global pandemic, the impacts of natural disasters often exacerbated by human activities, and the atrocities committed against environmental defenders.…
“This is a country that has a forestry vocation,” says José Miguel Orozco, professor of forest governance and policy at Bogotá’s Francisco José de Caldas District University. High-altitude Andean forests,…
Osvalinda Alves Pereira is the first Brazilian to win the prestigious Edelstam Prize. As a civil rights defender, and at great risk to herself, Osvalinda is resisting criminals illegally harvesting Amazon timber.