UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka — Earlier this month, more than 300 people gathered near the borders of the Dahaiyagala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka’s Uva province armed with axes,…
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.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s decision to categorize the palm oil industry’s solid waste as non-hazardous has triggered environmental concerns. The industry uses huge volumes of a powdered clay called…
Mongabay caught up with Igarapé Institute co-founder Robert Muggah this week to discuss Ecocrime, a new data visualization platform that combines visual storytelling with access to raw data on environmental crime…
The science journal Biological Conservation published a special issue this month with a series of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on biodiversity. Among the articles selected is one by…
Three Guarani men were assaulted last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state allegedly over an ongoing land dispute between ranchers and Indigenous people; one expert accuses the Bolsonaro government of “restriction of the rights of Indigenous peoples.”
The Kadiwéu Indigenous group, living where the Cerrado and Pantanal biomes meet, has resisted annihilation since the colonial era. Their secret weapon: the creative arts that help define their identity.
In a new report, Greenpeace has linked major Brazilian meat processors JBS, Marfrig and Minerva to cattle ranchers that satellite data indicate were responsible for setting fires in Brazil’s Pantanal…
The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
After drugs and arms trafficking, illegal fishing is the third most lucrative illegal activity in the world. It is estimated that around 26 million tons of fish and other marine…
“How to pass the custom?” “You need to bribe someone. We do not bribe the custom, but the police officer, with higher level…” “By container?” “Yes. Possible.” “Have you tried?”…
In mid-June 2012, a few months after she started monitoring the jaguars inside Brownsberg Nature Park in Suriname, biologist Vanessa Kadosoe saw Amalia for the first time. Through the pictures…
Monitoring the ongoing deforestation of the Cerrado, the vast savanna scrubland that abuts the Amazon in Brazil, has become increasingly essential in recent decades. This biome, the most biodiverse savanna…
JAKARTA — A coal-slurry spill into a river in Indonesian Borneo has killed hundreds of fish and forced authorities to shut off water lines to households. The waste-management facility at…
Between April and November last year, the government of the Brazilian state of Bahia authorized agribusinesses to collect nearly 2 billion liters (528 million gallons) of water a day.
JAKARTA — Illegal loggers in Indonesia’s remote Papua region have largely evaded any meaningful kind of punishment and continue to operate unimpeded, in what a new report calls a failure…
Environmental monitoring and firefighting saw budgets cut by over a third in two years; agencies endured massive deregulation, with nearly 600 rule changes aimed at undermining conservation, say critics.
The Roraima state bill legalizing garimpo prospecting, if signed into law by the governor, could put the Yanomami reserve and other Indigenous territories at greater risk of invasion and COVID-19 infection.
Editor's note (1/29/21): Due to a threat against a party mentioned in this story, this piece has been withdrawn from the site at their request.
A local court in Peru today reversed a ruling against employees of a company charged with illegal deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, effectively absolving them of crimes associated with converting…
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.
December 3, 2020 was a fateful day for the defense of the environment in Colombia. Javier Francisco Parra Cubillos, an official from regional environmental authority Cormacarena in the department of Meta…
JAKARTA — The arrest of Indonesia’s fisheries minister on bribery charges has prompted a freeze on exports of lobster larvae, but a top official has indicated this is unlikely to…
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested the country’s fisheries minister on charges of corruption related to a controversial policy to resume exports of baby lobsters. Agents from the Corruption…
Their territory is suffering the ravages of COVID-19, invasion by 20,000 illegal miners, mercury pollution, severe deforestation, and “genocidal” government apathy, say the Yanomami people.
On November 5, 2015 an iron ore mine tailings dam owned by Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton, two of the world’s largest mining firms, collapsed in Mariana, Brazil. Life along Rio Doce has not been the same since.
JAKARTA — Eighty-eight Indonesian sailors have recently been repatriated from a notorious Chinese fishing fleet where six of their compatriots died under harsh working conditions. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry announced…
Some of the world’s biggest banks have invested US$153.2 billion in forest-risk companies in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2016.
Another Indonesian crew member has died aboard the Long Xing 629, a Chinese vessel alleged to have used forced labor to engage in illegal fishing, including shark finning, Mongabay has…
Amazon fires are burning this year within the protected lands inhabited by isolated uncontacted Indigenous peoples. The fires, largely illegal and intentionally set by land grabbers, ranchers and farmers, are…
