The reconstruction of Brazil’s BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway (Figure 1) and its associated hidden projects are not yet a fait accompli, but the danger has reached a critical moment. In…
When Chilean President Gabriel Boric instructed the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) to complete the final section of a highway connecting the southern cities of La Unión and Corral in…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities, academics and companies are working together to build a miniature tropical rainforest they hope will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation program in Indonesia’s new…
In January 2020, Luis Carlos Galeano was traveling with his family through the Claro River Basin in Colombia’s mountainous Antioquia department when his wife, Viviana Aguirre, pointed out a tree…
The sharecropping system that defined land tenure in the Ecuadorian highlands prior to agrarian reform was known as the ‘huasipungo’, a Quechua word that describes the relationship between landlords and…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Planners building Indonesia’s new capital city in eastern Borneo say they’re far from their target of reforesting the site that the country’s president has projected will…
JAKARTA — Deforestation by the palm oil industry in Indonesia increased in 2023 for the second year in a row, bucking a decade of gradual decline, according to an analysis…
The government in Ecuador is looking for ways to keep open a controversial oil block in the Amazon Rainforest, defying the results of a referendum to close the operation due…
CANTABON, Philippines — In the heart of Siquijor province in the southern Philippines lies the secluded mountain village of Cantabon. Amid the verdant trees, the healing hut, or balay pahi-uli,…
A new amendment to Peru’s forest and wildlife law is being criticized by opponents as unconstitutional and a step backward in forest protection after it came into effect Jan. 10…
The agrarian reform process in Peru began in 1964. Originally a cautious effort targeting the more egregious examples of peasant exploitation, it was dramatically expanded by a left-wing military government…
JAKARTA — The construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo may destabilize the current stable population of endangered proboscis monkeys, a study has warned. President Joko…
The conservation group African Parks says it has contracted the law firm Omnia Strategy LLP to investigate allegations of human rights abuses at Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of…
Regularizing land tenure on landscapes where private property predominates is more challenging than on landscapes occupied by communal landholdings. In part, this is due to their greater number, but the…
As an undergraduate biology student, Talia Speaker faced several hurdles in using technology in her work. Biology and ecology professors weren’t well-versed with the technical side of things, while those…
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…
BUÍQUE, Pernambuco, Brazil — In the Brazilian backlands, the jurema is a most willful tree: When you think it's dead, it sprouts again. You can cut it, tear it down,…
As Sarawak’s top officials plan three new hydropower dams, seemingly eager to export more electricity, some Indigenous residents of the Malaysian Bornean state are urging officials to slow down development…
JAKARTA — A conservation task force trying to help an Indonesian mine operator minimize its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s most threatened great ape, says it was the…
The political movement that brought Evo Morales to power incorporated a latent conflict between highland and lowland Indigenous communities. The lowland nations are intent on recuperating their ancestral territories, which…
The liana is an opportunistic plant, a vine that, in the right conditions, can smother a tree as it hitches a ride up to the top of the forest canopy.…
Scientists have described three new frog species that dwell exclusively in the spiky leaves of pandan trees in Madagascar's eastern rainforests. Lead researcher Hugh Gabriel, from the Technical University of…
A new study has for the first time identified the most common tree species in the tropical forests of Africa, the Amazon and Southeast Asia — and their similarities have…
Throughout history, philosophers have told us that in order to best prepare for the future, we should look to the past. Wisdom, knowledge and new perspectives can often emerge out…
Bolivia was a leader in the agrarian reform movement in South America. A defining moment in its modern history was the national revolution of 1952, which started as an uprising…
CENTRAL ARU, Indonesia — One afternoon last November, Natanel Ginobal, 67, drove his motorboat to check the mud crabs caught by the traps he had installed earlier the day. He…
Last October, I took some time off work at the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) to learn how to surf. Surfing has always been a dream of mine…
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.
As countries around the world begin to either propose or enforce zero-deforestation regulations, companies are coming under growing pressure to prove that their products are free of deforestation. But this…
"Hope is the last to die. We are apprehensive about what happened, but we will fight." These are the words of Indigenous leader Jose Antônio Parava Ramos, a member of…