Other stories in Mongabay’s series on the Maya Biosphere Reserve: Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve Communities lead the way in rainforest conservation in Guatemala Controversial park…
ambodian authorities released a leader of the Chong indigenous group from prison on March 3. Ven Vorn, imprisoned since October, was convicted of harvesting forest products without authorization and sentenced…
Two weeks ago, the activist Berta Cáceres was shot and killed while she slept in her home, in the city of La Esperanza, in western Honduras.The news of her assassination travelled around the world…
The year is ending on a grim note in Peru: yet another environmental leader that vocally opposed a dam project has been murdered in his home in the town of Yagen, in…
Another prominent environmentalist has been killed in Peru. On Thursday night, Alfredo Ernesto Vracko Neuenschwander, a woodworker who led a movement to resist forest invasions by illegal gold miners in…
Cambodian authorities have detained four activists linked to the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia. The four, all Cambodian nationals, await trial at a prison in the country's southwestern province of…
palm oil company remains at the heart of conflict in northern Guatemala, months after a mass fish die-off. A day after company operations were suspended pending further investigation into the…
It has become a political ritual: in February 2014, shortly after his election, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, Madagascar’s newest president, publicly denounced the “plague” of illegal logging and the pillage of the…
he streets of Ecuador will fill with colorful flags and footsteps again on Wednesday as indigenous organizations and other groups renew protests over government policies. The planned marches come on…
n 1997, the government of Botswana began evicting San and Bakgalagadi people from their homelands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve out of concern that the groups' hunter-gatherer way of…
Indigenous small-scale miners and traditional authorities in western Colombia are facing threats in the wake of a local leader’s murder this spring. On April 7, 2015, Fernando Salazar Calvo was…
They came at dawn. Police officers in riot gear wielding assault rifles and flanked by attack dogs took aim at protesters in the camp. Their targets, the police had been…
Sea turtle nesting grounds on Pacuare Beach, Costa Rica, where poachers attacked conservationists late last month. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd/Eva Hidalgo. Activists working to protect sea turtles have once again…
A resident of Mataquescuintla, Guatemala, at a November 2014 celebration of the second anniversary of the municipality's referendum on mining. The referendum was one of many in the region, and…
Mayan women protest hydroelectric dam projects in Santa Cruz Barillas in western Guatemala on March 16, 2014. Local opposition to the construction of dams and other natural resource projects in…
Villagers in the country's lush Black Sea region face police force, legal hurdles, and more subtle means of suppression in their fight to protect the environment. The Fol Creek Valley…
Children carry a banner commemorating two children allegedly killed in 2013 by an employee of the company that owns the Santa Rita dam. The banner reads in part "They are…
Motive not yet clear in nightclub stabbing of Indonesian environmental campaigner Slain activist Jopi Peranginangin posted this photo to his Facebook page in April. (The children are not his.) An…
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Sandra Cuffe Nickel Mine, Lead Bullets: Maya Q'eqchi' seek justice in Guatemala and Canada The Guatemalan cabinet ministers for the environment, the interior,…
Toribia Lero, an indigenous leader from the faction of the indigenous organization CONAMAQ (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu) that is not recognized by the government sits for…
Angélica Choc (left), German Chub (front) and other Maya Q'eqchi' seek justice for human rights violations linked to a Canadian mining company. Photo Credit: Rachel Schmidt German Chub faces the…
A signpost showing the U.N. road (Crescent) that passes through the forest. Photo credit: Protus Onyango. The founder of Kenya's GreenBelt Movement, Wangari Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize in…
Soy field in the Brazilian Amazon. Again this year, Brazil has the highest number of murders of environmental and land defenders. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The assassination, murder, and…
Kenya’s elephants could be among the animals harmed by harsh new laws to hamstring the programs of international environmental groups such as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and World Wide…
Yesterday, mining and environmental activist, Javier Ramírez, walked out of an Ecuadorian courtroom with his freedom. Ramírez, who has long fought against a massive state-owned massive copper mine in the…
Known for his opposition to Chinese mine project, indigenous leader found bound and buried in Ecuador Days before José Isidro Tendetza Antún was supposed to travel to the UN Climate…
New report finds that 83 percent of recent murders of environmental activists in Peru linked to police, military, or private security guards On September 1st, indigenous activist, Edwin Chota, and…
Indigenous groups call for land rights in wake of assassinations of Edwin Chota Valera and three other leaders Peruvian authorities have pulled more human remains from a remote river in…
9/9/14 update below Four Ashaninka were killed last week by illegal loggers in the Peruvian Amazon, reports El Comercio. One of those killed was Edwin Chota, the leader of the…
