Agribusiness, well backed by government, is hailed an “economic miracle.” But family farms, with nominal help, provide 70% of the food Brazilians eat.

Chinese authorities have nabbed all three identified members of a major ivory trafficking syndicate first exposed by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in 2017. In its 2017 report, EIA had…

Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.

JAKARTA — When Indonesian authorities seized a notorious fishing boat last April carrying 30 kilometers (18 miles) of illegal gillnets, they found they had essentially caught a ghost. The STS-50…

JAKARTA — In May 2015, a wildlife smuggler was arrested at an Indonesian port. He had attempted to transport nearly two dozen yellow-crested cockatoos, stuffed in plastic water bottles, aboard…

FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.

On his first day in office, Brazil’s new president shifted the demarcation responsibility for indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, potentially putting the Amazon at risk, critics say.

Vietnam’s illegal ivory markets are still thriving, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Over two surveys conducted between November 2016 and June 2017, TRAFFIC’s…

In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.

JAKARTA — On the last weekend in October, thousands of people crowded the field next to Indonesia’s largest sports stadium, Gelora Bung Karno, in the nation’s capital. Visitors streamed through…

Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — “Hi, This is Kamaruddin calling in, just parking my car.” “Great, go ahead and share your experience with this broadcast’s theme with the Natural Resources Conservation Agency.”…

As Grainrail, the BR-163 and BR-319 highways, and other transport projects improve Amazon access, they attract land thieves ready to kill.

The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.

Brazil created 11 conservation units to protect the Amazon’s Purus-Madeira moist forest from development due to the BR-319 highway, but to date the preserves mostly exist only on paper.

From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has thrown out a lawsuit against an environmental expert whose testimony led to the conviction of a governor in a mining scandal. Basuki Wasis, an…

MARAFENFEN/LORANG, Indonesia — Benedictus has to go out just after dark to check his traps. If he goes any earlier, the palm cockatoos will still be awake and hear him…

The UN Inter-American Commission on Human Rights upheld a motion filed by civil society organizations condemning Brazil’s continued development of the Belo Monte mega-dam.

Agribusiness desperately wants Grainrail built, but it poses a clear threat to 20 indigenous territories, and to the livelihoods of Amazonia’s truckers. A battle could be brewing.