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.
As Earth continues to lose forests and biodiversity, many have called for an expansion of protected areas. But protected status is not a silver bullet. Designating land as a protected…
JAKARTA — After halting forest-clearing operations in 2020, the Digoel Agri conglomerate has apparently restarted its activities in Indonesia’s Papua province, raising alarms among local Indigenous communities who say they…
In the midst of political chaos fomented by a Feb. 1 military coup of the government in Myanmar, the country's forestry sector is seeking legitimization from the international community. 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.
This article was co-produced with The Gecko Project. JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province are protesting against a company that’s preparing to raze their ancestral forest for…
MINDANAO, Philippines — Efforts to conserve the critically endangered Philippine eagle, one of the rarest raptors in the world, soared high even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the global havoc…
In his homeland, Norwegian social geographer Torkjell Leira is known as a leading expert on Brazil. After coming to the country as an exchange student some 30 years ago, he…
An innovative collaborative group is working to restore Brazil’s savanna by sowing native plant seeds on degraded agricultural lands; it’s an effort that’s working, say participants.
COLOMBO — With a single notification, Sri Lankan authorities have recently transferred the guardianship of forests lying outside protected areas to local administrators, with a view to increasing the island’s…
Major roadbuilding, including the “reconstruction” of the BR-319 highway, now threatens the Brazilian Amazon’s last, vast intact rainforest, vital to Brazilian ecosystem services.
Almost a fifth of Brazil’s soy and grains already flow down Amazonia’s rivers. Now a boom in private river port construction, with little government oversight, further threatens the region’s waterways.
Some of the world’s biggest banks have invested US$153.2 billion in forest-risk companies in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2016.
The reconstruction of the BR-319 highway — a north-south cut through what remains of Brazil’s Amazon forest — is being fast tracked by Pres. Bolsonaro, but the project risks huge socio-environmental impacts.
JAKARTA — Pulp and paper giant Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL) has allegedly violated its own sustainability commitment by purchasing wood from a company clearing rainforest in Indonesian…
A new tiny orchid species with fiery orange flowers has been discovered on a mountain peak in the northern Philippines’ Cordilleras range. The wild orchid species was named Dendrochilum ignisiflorum…
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.
Humans have not treaded lightly on the Earth. Over the centuries, we have left our mark on almost every ecosystem, contributing to a steady, and increasingly rapid, decline in the…
PALAWAN, Philippines — At the heart of the island province of Palawan in the western Philippines, a verdant mountain range larger than Bangkok stands like a natural bulwark. It’s a…
JAKARTA — A U.N. fund has approved a $103.8 million payment to Indonesia for preventing deforestation-based carbon emissions — its biggest payout yet, and one that critics say can’t be…
In a befuddling move, the Bolsonaro administration last Friday cut all agency funding to fight deforestation and put out fires in the Amazon and Pantanal, then reversed the decision; even as both biomes burned.
The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have launched a blockade of the BR-163 highway, a key Brazilian commodities shipment route, mostly in protest over lost funding to prevent reserve invasions.
A recent report shows that one of the world’s most highly regarded, and wealthiest, universities invested heavily in land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands, where land-grabbing and other environmental crimes are rife.
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.
Wary of Western medicine and of the prejudice and neglect they say they suffer at hospitals, Amazon's Kokama people decided to turn to traditional healing practices, administered by shamans. The Kokama were the first Indigenous group in Brazil to be infected with COVID-19, and to date there have been more than a thousand confirmed cases and 60 deaths within the community.
The Cameroon prime minister’s office recently announced it was suspending plans to log Ebo Forest, a large intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon that spans 200,000 hectares (about 500,000 acres),…
New satellite data shows major tree loss, while Brazil’s VP cherry picks the findings, according to experts. Meanwhile, the environment minister appears to welcome illegal miners’ demands for less enforcement.
In April, Brazil’s environment minister urged Pres. Bolsonaro to “run the cattle,” using the nation’s focus on COVID-19 as a diversion to dismantle environmental rule of law; some new executive acts appear to do just that.
Gold mining can demolish Amazon rainforest in just a few days. New research finds that the impacted forest does not recover even 3-4 years after a mine is abandoned.
Fifteen years ago, Ekwoge Abwe was trekking through Ebo Forest in Cameroon when he heard something cracking in the distance. He scanned the forest, searching for the source of the…
