Global emissions of carbon dioxide reached 36.8 billion metric tons in 2019, and were on track for the highest levels ever in 2020. But then the coronavirus hit, and the resulting economic…
Gibbons, hornbills, komodo dragons and even Sumatran orangutans — these are just a few of the animals once kept illegally behind bars at a small zoo in North Sumatra, Indonesia.…
Today we’re taking a look at the potential for transformative change in environmental conservation in the US and beyond. Listen here: The administration of US President Joe Biden released a…
Today the Biden Administration formally laid out its vision for conserving 30% of America’s land and waters by 2030. The “America the Beautiful” report, released by the Departments of Commerce,…
In a ruling that could strengthen Indigenous land rights claims across Brazil, the nation’s Supreme Court has sided with the Guarani Kaiowá, allowing the possible reopening of a case involving their territory claim.
Shortly ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Mongabay spoke with Antha N. Williams, the head of the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation launched by businessman and former…
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.”
In the past decade, the term “Just Transition” has gained more widespread understanding among climate campaigners and environmental advocates. A Just Transition is the idea that the shift toward low-carbon…
I’ve lost count of the number of times, working as a journalist across Latin America, that I’ve met, spoken to, or heard from or about Indigenous peoples and other local…
Luísa Carvalheiro says she remembers a time when açaí was just a humble berry, a staple for the Amazon's Indigenous communities. That was before the inky purple berries became all…
“I’m very happy because, finally, justice has been served. We’re going to restore nature, for all the sick children, for the people, for the parents who have fought to stay…
The illegal sale of protected land in the Brazilian Amazon has been going on for years, but a new BBC report got deeply inside the criminal network and found some land grabbers advertising on Facebook.
For at least the past 20 years, conservation has been wrestling with some of the darker aspects of its historical relationship with local communities: legacies of colonialism, institutional racism, lack…
As we welcome the new year, Democrats control both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, creating real momentum to advance campaign-promised actions on climate change. With this opportunity, a…
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.
1. The ocean in a worldwide pandemic As the year that challenged the world with a widespread pandemic draws to a close, COVID-19 has affected almost every aspect of life…
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.
In 2009, traditional Brazilian Amazon communities and Catholic nuns brought the transnational mining company to the negotiating table and galvanized Amazonia’s land rights struggle.
QUITO — COVID-19 has made it hard to ignore the gaping social and economic inequalities and environmental destruction worldwide, particularly in the global south. That’s why researchers and social movements…
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.
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.
The Brazilian riverine communities of Boa Nova and Saracá say they’ve endured decades of environmental harm brought by MRN, the world’s fourth largest bauxite mining company.
An exclusive study shows that 114 properties have been certified inside indigenous territories awaiting demarcation in the Brazilian Amazon, spurred in large part by a recent statute that leaves these reserves unprotected from such illegal land grabs.
Land grabbers, landed estate owners and even oil companies stand to benefit from a new guideline released by FUNAI, the federal indigenous affairs agency, which opens up 237 indigenous territories in Brazil for sale, subdivision and speculation.
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at how the environmental crises we’re currently facing intersect with two other major crises: the Covid pandemic and the systemic racism…
In recent years, five of the most powerful international banks and investment funds have financed oil exploration in the region where the Amazon River begins. These business ventures are impacting indigenous communities and countless species of fauna and flora.
Some 600 indigenous people have seen their crops die due to the expansion of agribusiness in the state of Pará, Brazil. The streams used by the Munduruku have also been damaged, if not dried up.
A sweeping policy change by the Bolsonaro government opens unregistered ancestral indigenous lands to landgrabbers, loggers, ranchers, and soy growers, with huge risk for the Amazon.
An unprecedented court settlement guaranteed reparations to the Ashaninka people of the state of Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon, whose lands were deforested in the 1980s to supply the European furniture industry. The indigenous people only agreed with the negotiation because it included an official apology and a recognition of their "enormous importance as guardians" of the Amazon.
The murder of Sister Dorothy in 2005, and resulting international outrage, helped curb violence in Brazil for a time, but crimes against landless peasants and activists are on the rise.
