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…
For Ecuador, 2019 was a critical year for court decisions regarding environmental and social issues. At the end of 2018, the courts set precedent by ruling in favor of the…
In Colombia, a year of crucial environmental decisions ended with a national strike that began on Nov. 21, 2019. Various social sectors say they are dissatisfied with President Iván Duque…
[UPDATE] 1/31/2020 - Philip Jacobson was deported from Indonesia today, with the original charge against him dismissed. Read more here. Philip Jacobson, an award-winning editor for the environmental science news outlet…
Toward the end of 2014, Tanya Rosen, a former New York-based international lawyer, found herself being followed by a car while walking back to her apartment in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.…
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, the only known habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), has proven to be a precarious place for the ape. Just 800 individuals survive…
The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time,…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Madagascar’s natural resources are under threat. Local people use some for food, fuel and shelter, but foreign capital drives the most intense exploitation. Gem dealers oversee the destruction…
Three indigenous Guajajara were killed in the last six days in the Amazonian state of Maranhão, making 2019 the country’s deadliest years for indigenous leaders in two decades. In total, 10 indigenous people were murdered so far this year; seven of them were leaders.
MANILA — Named the most dangerous country in the world for land and environmental defenders, the Philippines has become an even deadlier place for activists in 2019, with 46 recorded…
MANILA — Environment and land rights leaders were among the activists rounded up in a new wave of arrests in the Philippines as part of the government’s extensive counter-insurgency campaign…
MANILA — The Philippine government has condemned the killing of an environmental official by unknown assailants last month — the fifth such incident this year, all of them related to…
An indigenous Guajajara leader was reported murdered by loggers Friday, adding to rising violence occurring against forest protectors under the Jair Bolsonaro government.
Snaking its way through Colombia’s northwestern department of Choco, for centuries the Atrato River has been the lifeblood for Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities living along its banks. But decades of…
MINDANAO, Philippines — In September 2006, Victor Danyan looked out over the corporate coffee plantation that had taken over his tribe’s land in the village of Ned, on the southern…
In the Caño La Sal reservation in central Colombia, the Jiw indigenous community lives on a shrinking amount of land. Several armed groups have begun taking over their territory to…
MANILA — Development banks and other investors are fueling the violence against people in the Philippines who are protecting their land and environment from destructive industries, eco-watchdog Global Witness reveals…
MANILA — On his public social media account, forest ranger Bienvinido “Toto” Veguilla Jr. used to post the results of his team’s patrols on a monthly basis: the illegal loggers…
It isn’t unusual for those who defend the environment to be threatened, but sometimes their commitment to nature puts their lives directly at risk. According to a recently published Global…
The last time the Peruvian government swooped in to eradicate coca crops in its northern Amazonian border region near Colombia and Brazil was in 2015. For the indigenous people of…
An invasion of the Macuya Forest has claimed its first victim. Julio Crisanto López was the last person keeping watch at the Macuya Forestry Investigation and Training Center (Centro de…
In her kitchen, Ana* was lost in thought as she watched the passage of cars on the Interoceanic Highway toward La Pampa, a territory in Peru’s Madre de Dios region…
BOGOTA - Renowned environmental activist and Goldman Prize winner Francia Márquez has survived an attack against a meeting of Afro-Colombian human rights defenders by unknown gunmen in southwest Colombia. During…
QUITO, Ecuador — The indigenous Waorani community in Ecuador won a historic lawsuit against the government late last month, when a three-judge panel ruled that a consultation process conducted with…
One person has reportedly died and another was injured after police in Colombia cracked down on a protest by indigenous groups demanding a meeting with the country’s president over land…
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. DARIÉN GAP, Panama — There is a land at the center of the Americas that is said to remain in…
LIMA, Peru — In February, Peruvian authorities evicted thousands of illegal gold miners from Amazon lands they were deforesting and poisoning with mercury. The government announced plans to set up military…
Few people realize that Iran is home to cheetahs. Once found from the Arabian Peninsula to India, the Asiatic cheetah — genetically and ecologically distinct from its African counterpart —…
A pair of “French spies” had infiltrated India by sea to commit a “treasonous conspiracy,” an Indian minister claimed in late November. In reality, they were two visiting journalists, and…