Environmental crime News

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IBAMA officers watch a camp on fire.

Brazil can green its environmental crime-fighting in the Amazon (commentary)

Anna Gielas 4 Sep 2025
A female member of the Charip territorial monitoring group standing outside a monitoring post holding a traditional spear. Image courtesy of Maria Goretii/Convoca.

The making of an autonomous Indigenous nation in Peru’s Amazon

Aimee Gabay 3 Sep 2025
View of Chiribiquete National Park.

Deforestation & illegal roads advancing fast in Colombia’s largest natural area

Iván Paredes Tamayo 19 Aug 2025

New charges added in Argentina’s largest-ever wildlife case as key defendant attempts to flee the country

Ana Cristina Alvarado 14 Aug 2025
Although operations like Green Shield are useful, experts say that they are not the solution for combatting illicit activities in the Amazon in the long run, as activities such as illegal mining continue to expand. Image courtesy of the UAE Ministry of Interior.

Formalizing small-scale gold mining can reduce environmental impacts & crime (commentary)

Robert Muggah 7 Aug 2025
mining equipment on fire

Cross-border operation cracks down on environmental crimes in the Amazon

Mie Hoejris Dahl 6 Aug 2025
Birds captured by traders at a temple in Nepal. Image by Abhaya Raj Joshi/ Mongabay

Illegal pet trade in Nepal now shifting online, research suggests

Abhaya Raj Joshi 31 Jul 2025
Paulo Paulino Guajajara, from left, with Laércio Guajajara, Karla Mendes and Olimpio Guajajara during Mendes's 2019 reporting trip. Paulo was killed in an ambush nine months later. Image by Karla Mendes/Mongabay.

Mongabay journalist Karla Mendes wins 2025 Oakes Award for environmental journalism

Mongabay.com 23 Jul 2025
A woman sits under a tree surrounded by dry waste in East Java.

Burning, burying and banning: Indonesia’s cities struggle to manage their garbage

Jeff Hutton 23 Jul 2025
According to undercover investigators with Agent C Wildlife Initiative, staff at shops across Laos advise tourists to wear ivory or rhino horn jewelry purchased while traveling back to China via the railway.

Illegal wildlife trade surges in Laos with Chinese package tours

Juan Maza 22 Jul 2025
Thai authorities seized more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of ivory hidden in luggage shipped out from Congo to Laos via Bangkok in 2015.

Large-scale illegal wildlife shops in Laos found scamming Chinese tourists

Mongabay.com 22 Jul 2025
Mamiraua reserve. Image courtesy of Thiago A. Lacerda via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Community patrols can slash environmental crime by 80% (commentary)

Caetano Franco 21 Jul 2025
Area of burned forest in ​​the city of Apuí, Amazonas state. Image by Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Amazon deforestation spikes as Brazil blames criminal fires

Lucas Berti 16 Jul 2025
Data from transmitters helped the team identify corridors that are critical for the movements of the thick-billed parrots, which are endangered birds endemic to Mexico.

How drug cartels destroy the last habitat of Mexico’s thick-billed parrot (commentary)

Andrew-James Anthony 14 Jul 2025

Brazil’s Arariboia set to be the first Indigenous land with legal cattle

Karla Mendes 14 Jul 2025
A leopard in Panna National Park, India.

‘Forgotten’ leopards being driven to silent extinction by poaching and trade

Spoorthy Raman 26 Jun 2025
Person kneeling in gold mine extraction site

Organized crime & gold trade are increasingly connected, report shows

Fernanda Wenzel 25 Jun 2025
Glass eels are a juvenile form of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla), a species that undergoes an incredible 10,000 kilometer (6,200 mile) migration. Photo courtesy of Alessandro Cresci.

Glass eel smuggling booms despite bans, leaving species on the brink

Keith Anthony Fabro 23 Jun 2025
Munduruku people from the Sawré Muybu village gather in an assembly to receive feedback from Fiocruz on the hair sample test results determining levels of mercury contamination in people. Image by Joao Paulo Guimaeres via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

After crackdown on illegal miners, Indigenous Munduruku still grapple with health aftermath

Karla Mendes, Fernanda Wenzel 16 Jun 2025
A southern white rhino explores its surrounding after translocation from South Africa to Rwanda's Akagera National Park. Image © Gael Vande Weghe.

Seventy southern white rhinos arrive at their new home in Rwanda from South Africa

Graeme Green 10 Jun 2025
A tokay gecko.

Environmental crimes are often hidden by ‘flying money’ laundering schemes (commentary)

Andrea Crosta 6 Jun 2025
A worker carries a yellowfin tuna on his shoulders at Dong Gang wholesale fish market, Taiwan.

Bumble Bee asks court to dismiss lawsuit alleging forced labor in tuna supply chain

Basten Gokkon 6 Jun 2025

Hero rats among the global anti-poaching efforts affected by U.S. funding cuts

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 May 2025
IBAMA raid to fight illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land in Roraima in December 2023. Image courtesy of IBAMA.

Amazon illegal gold mines drive sex trafficking in the Brazil-Guyana border

Elizabeth Oliveira 29 May 2025

Indigenous Bajo suffer child deaths & toxic sludge amid green energy push

Riza Salman 24 May 2025
Banner image: A truck carries logs cut from the Amazon Rainforest in the state of Rondônia. Image courtesy of Vicente Sampaio/Imaflora.

The world needs a new UN protocol to fight environmental crime (commentary)

Robert Muggah 15 May 2025
Federal forces have been expelling illegal gold miners from protected areas like the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in Pará state. Image courtesy of the Federal Police. 

Amazon illegal miners smuggle gold into Venezuela

Fernanda Wenzel 15 May 2025
Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica

Indonesian pangolin trafficking prosecution reveals police involvement — and impunity

Ayat S. Karokaro 14 May 2025
Cambodian journalist Ouk Mao has faced physical and legal threats for his continued reporting on environmental crimes in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. Image by Nehru Pry / Mongabay.

Attacks on Cambodian environmental journalist continue to pile up

Gerald Flynn, Nehru Pry 12 May 2025
The rescue team carries a deer rescued from an artificial amusement park.

Bangladesh cracks down on illegal wildlife captivity — but what happens after?

Abu Siddique, Sadiqur Rahman 6 May 2025

In the Pan Amazon, regulators struggle to punish environmental crimes

Timothy J. Killeen 2 May 2025
An aerial view of mining operations run by KP Cement, Vantage Mining and others inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in October 2023. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Cement factory approved inside Cambodia’s Prey Lang sanctuary despite mining ban

Gerald Flynn 28 Apr 2025

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