Earlier this month, Madagascar’s government suspended a controversial gold-mining operation in Vohilava commune in the country’s southeast. Many local people welcomed the news, which comes after years of tension over…
On Sept. 8, a court ruling shook up an old land conflict in Cotegipe, in the Brazilian Cerrado grasslands. That was when the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Bahia state…
Multiple versions of a sweeping deregulation law passed in Indonesia last week contain substantial differences affecting the nation’s plantation sector, despite assurances from lawmakers that any changes to the text…
Update: A new version of the deregulation law containing substantial changes began to circulate on Oct. 12. Mongabay covered it here. A wide-ranging deregulation bill passed in Indonesia this week…
HO CHI MINH CITY — Earlier this year, Vietnam’s prime minister called for a ban of the wildlife trade in the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several months…
In late July, a high-speed chase stirred the waters northeast of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, as patrol officers pursued a Vietnamese vessel suspected of illegal fishing. Having fled when authorities approached…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — On Sept. 6, five teenagers went together to a man-made lake in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province, carved out of a coal-mining pit that had been abandoned and…
Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.
JAKARTA — A new paper calls for greater coordination by governments around the world to tackle the persistent problem of organized crime in the fisheries industry impacting the wider economy.…
674 major Amazon fires were detected between May 28 and September 2, with the Brazilian government failing to control most blazes. Remote Indigenous communities are especially threatened.
In a befuddling move, the Bolsonaro administration last Friday cut all agency funding to fight deforestation and put out fires in the Amazon and Pantanal, then reversed the decision; even as both biomes burned.
An area nearly 5 times that of New York City’s land area has burned so far in 2020, most of it recently deforested, and now illegally burned over, to make way for new cattle pastures and croplands.
The historical record shows that Indigenous reserves are only safe from invasion by illegal deforesters once fully protected by government — protections rapidly eroding in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
As the 2020 Amazon fire season moves toward its August peak, hundreds of blazes — almost all in Brazil, mostly illegal, and some on conserved lands — have been detected: Report.
Spurred by a deadly Brazilian dam disaster in early 2019, a partnership between the U.N. and industry leaders has released new guidance on managing mining waste. Released Aug. 5, the…
In April, Brazil’s environment minister urged Pres. Bolsonaro to “run the cattle,” using the nation’s focus on COVID-19 as a diversion to dismantle environmental rule of law; some new executive acts appear to do just that.
A gunshot ended the life of Indigenous leader Arbildo Meléndez Grandes in Peru. On a Sunday in early April this year, he went hunting and fishing for his family and…
Brazilian NGO flyovers show that indigenous reserves — including Munduruku lands in the Tapajós basin — are being illegally invaded and deforested by miners likely funded and directed by elite land speculators.
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested and charged six executives from local recruitment agencies linked to the forced labor endured by 22 Indonesians on board two Chinese fishing boats.…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities say they’re still waiting for China’s response to a request to turn over a witness in an investigation into alleged human trafficking that led to the…
JBS, a Brazilian company repeatedly accused of “laundering cattle” in the past, has again allegedly been caught purchasing livestock illegally reared in an Amazonian indigenous reserve in Rondônia state, Brazil.
Pac-Man walks quickly, wags the tip of his tail, and shows off his fangs while panting. Suddenly he stops and slightly raises his left rear leg. He turns to see…
New research finds that roughly 20% of Brazilian agricultural exports to the EU are linked to illegal deforestation, but only about 2% of agricultural properties produce the majority of this forest loss.
One day around 2010, Agustinus Tomba and his neighbors heard the sound of heavy machinery in their ancestral forest, in the Indonesian province of Papua. When they went to see…
Juma Xipaya, a young indigenous woman, medical student and fierce activist, fought the Belo Monte dam and exposed corruption; now she lives in daily terror of two thugs in a white pickup.
A federal judge has issued an emergency order giving the Bolsonaro administration just days to evict all illegal miners, and keep them out until the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
JAKARTA — Activists have called on the Indonesian authorities to probe the finances of the Korindo Group, a privately owned conglomerate, in the wake of an investigation that exposed a $22…
Soaring gold prices, brought on by the economic meltdown and COVID-19 uncertainty, have led to a rapid, largely un-policed, expansion of illegal gold mining in the Amazon.
In 2006, when the first large environmental monitoring project began in the Peruvian Amazon, its objective was not to uncover new environmental crimes in the forest. Instead, the project was…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Part 1: ‘Maybe they didn’t expect us to find it’ In April 2019, an Indonesian delegate stepped onto the stage at a…
