A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
SOUTH PESISIR, Indonesia — Bendri lived with his wife and child just 80 meters, or 260 feet, back from the Surantih Mudiak Dalam River, which flows from Sumatra’s Barisan Mountains…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.
Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four…
“Don’t go to Zabaleta because they’re going to kill you.” “Why are they going to kill me if I haven’t done anything?” “They’re going to kill you, please don’t go…
The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near…
MASVINGO, Zimbabwe — At the end of November last year, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Sinomine Resource Group chair Wang Pingwei walked into a lithium processing plant, construction hats firmly…
PHNOM PENH — On March 22, a jury in Miami, Florida, found Cambodian forestry official Kry Masphal not guilty of conspiracy and smuggling in relation to allegations that he was…
This is the first story in a three-part miniseries on Nepal's development plans around protected areas. Read Part Two and Part Three. KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment…
New research from the NGO Conservation Strategy fund, working with federal prosecutors in Brazil, has refined a tool that puts a dollar value on the socioenvironmental costs of illegal gold mining across vital ecosystems in the Amazon.
PURSAT, Cambodia — On the outskirts of the western Cambodian city of Pursat, some 180 kilometers, or 110 miles, north of Phnom Penh, tourists and travelers stream out of minivans…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is developing a satellite constellation to beef up monitoring of its marine and fisheries resources with the maiden launch of a nanosatellite scheduled this July. That inaugural…
In September 2021, Colombian police received an alert from a shipping company urging them to inspect some cardboard boxes that were about to be exported to Hong Kong from El…
HALMAHERA, Indonesia — Most days, Jamal Adam watches over the 10 aviaries in Ake Tajawe Lolobata National Park with veterinarians and support staff. But during the holidays this past December,…
LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Wawan has traded in stingrays for years out of the port in Lamongan, a district in Indonesia’s East Java province. At dawn, fishers are often seen returning…
In June 2023, where the Caquetá River leaves Colombian territory and enters Brazil, no more than 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) from the border, Custodio Yucuna Tanimuca came across a group…
JAKARTA — Indonesia and Spain have signed an agreement on accrediting Indonesian migrant deckhands, as part of efforts to beef up protection against modern slavery aboard fishing vessels. Under the…
NKOTENG, Cameroon — At the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (Société Sucriere du Cameroun, SOSUCAM), the year 2023 came to a close on a grim note: the death of a man named…
The organization responsible for managing the catch of more than half the world’s tuna holds a key section of its annual compliance meeting in secret. For three days, a committee of…
The 2022 documentary “The Territory” won an Emmy award this January, shining a light on the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous people and the invasions, conflicts and threats from land grabbers in their territory in the Brazilian Amazon from 2018 to 2021.
LALITPUR, Nepal — As the gates to the vet clinic at the Central Zoo in Lalitpur opened, more than two dozen photojournalists thronged the facility and surrounded a metal cage…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — “I would like to announce to the public and the journalists that on November 2, the Ministry of Mines and Energy requested [Prime Minister Hun Manet]…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian palm oil company that dropped a lawsuit against a fire expert whose testimony led to its being fined is suing a second time, in what observers…
In December, the Spanish government issued sanctions against 25 Spanish-flagged vessels that fished near the border of Argentina’s territorial waters between 2018 and 2021. The sanctions were for repeatedly turning…
In 2015, independent journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown revealed that $700 million had appeared in the personal bank account of Malaysia’s then-prime minster, Najib Razak. The money had come from the…
DHAKA — Bangladesh’s strong economic growth over the past two decades has lifted millions of the country’s citizens out of poverty. It’s also led to a booming elite class —…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — On Dec. 2, Togolese authorities intercepted 38 monkeys at the airport. They were being sent from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic…
Drenched up to his thighs, while crouching at the end of our small boat as it cuts through a dizzying collection of waves, our boat captain lifts his hands and…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…