While attending a recent United Nations forum, Toto, a Lao environmental activist, had an opportunity to meet with a U.N. special rapporteur in person. In the end, he decided not…
On Nov. 17, Ecuador’s highest court ruled in favor of Indigenous and local communities by rejecting a controversial decree that promised to shape how environmental consultations are carried out. Decree…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has postponed the enforcement of a new fisheries policy that drew little support from fishers and widespread criticism from experts and watchdogs. The quota-based fisheries…
Both Lula and the Supreme Court have previously called the measures in the bill unconstitutional and against public interests, and Indigenous organizations announced they will challenge the law.
Despite the COP28 climate summit agreeing on groundbreaking language on forests, countries are still no nearer to closing the “finance gap” necessary to stop the destruction of rainforests, according to…
The government of Suriname has made plans to appropriate a massive stretch of the Amazon Rainforest for projects related to agriculture and livestock. If finalized, the deal could allow unprecedented…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the…
VERDE ISLAND, Philippines — Working together to lift an outrigger from the clear, teal water onto a white sand beach, a group of fishers had just returned home to Verde…
Negotiators at the UN climate summit in Dubai have agreed to "transitioning away from fossil fuels," but the deal isn't legally binding and can't force nations to act. Environmental lawyers around the globe are working to force countries to follow through.
Canadian mining company Belo Sun has filed a lawsuit against community leaders and environmental rights groups for allegedly invading and occupying company-owned land, in a case the defendants are calling…
JAKARTA — Most of the habitat of the Javan hawk-eagle is protected, but threats of forest degradation and isolation loom over the surviving population of Indonesia’s national bird, a new…
Environmental groups at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai have demanded that Vietnam release imprisoned climate advocates and guarantee protections for civil society before a Western-backed deal to finance its…
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost South Papua province have lambasted a court’s decision to reject their lawsuit that seeks to overturn an environmental permit for a palm oil…
JAKARTA — As the 2024 start date looms for Indonesia’s controversial new quota-based fisheries policy, experts and watchdogs continue to flag what they say are fundamental inadequacies in the strategy.…
There’s near-universal folklore told throughout Brazil of colorful fish that fall from the clouds during the rains to live in newly formed ponds. These stories arose to explain a hard-to-believe…
One of Brazil’s largest states is ramping up efforts to monitor cattle ranching in the hopes of combatting deforestation and reducing carbon emissions. A new traceability program will keep tabs…
In a new, tersely-worded letter to Congress, President Biden uses a word that – just a few short years ago – was seemingly foreign to the lexicon of most Americans. Threatening…
The biggest timber firm in Malaysia’s Sarawak state has been able to maintain sustainability certification despite clearing forests for oil palm plantations and skipping steps in informing affected communities, according…
The Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
The new model suggests that Amazon plants would reorganize, allocating more energy to their roots at the expense of stems and leaves; consequently, they would have a lower capacity to retain and absorb carbon in a scenario with reduced rainfall.
The Supreme Court in Panama ruled that the contract for the country’s largest copper mine is unconstitutional, requiring it to shut down. Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company…
The makeshift road tears through the emerald canopy, splintering one of the Amazon’s most pristine corridors of rainforest. Along the edges of the road, running through the heart of the…
One of the world’s largest palm oil companies appears to have overseen a network of companies responsible for deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares, according to a new investigation…
Offsetting the carbon emissions released when we fly in a jet or when a company ships its products is one, albeit increasingly controversial, way to address the climate-warming consequences of…
Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.
POLEWALI MANDAR, Indonesia — Over the past three decades, the residents of Mampie village have watched their homes and farmland vanish from the west coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island. A…
The company’s rapid downfall raises questions about how it can supply its annual 6 million metric tons of wood pellets to the UK, EU and Asia, and how nations relying on biomass to meet energy and climate commitments will cope.
Pramila Pradhan, 51, embraced thengapalli, a form of forest stewardship, because of her mother-in-law, who took her along on forest patrols. Thenga means stick, and palli means turn or rotation.…
Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo nine months before his death, returned to the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.