Governance News

MORONDAVA, Madagascar — When older people on Madagascar’s west coast were children, there were so many sharks that they had to be a bit careful when playing in the water.…

This week the Malagasy government indefinitely suspended activities of the Base Toliara mine project, the third-largest mining project in Madagascar. It cited friction between the project and local communities and…

This article was produced in partnership with The Gecko Project. When Mika Ganobal, a 35-year-old civil servant, mounted the top of a van in the ramshackle town of Dobo to…

As the forests of South Kalimantan province were whittled away by extractive industries, just one district in this corner of Indonesian Borneo remained free of both mining and oil palm…

JAKARTA — In late September, international news outlets caught flak for their coverage of Indonesia’s largest mass protests since the 1998 uprising that led to the fall of the dictator…

An indigenous Guajajara leader was reported murdered by loggers Friday, adding to rising violence occurring against forest protectors under the Jair Bolsonaro government.

All that is left of the lush forest that once covered this patch of land in the Terra Indígena Ituna/Itatá in northern Brazil are a few dried branches and the…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  This month Mongabay and The Gecko Project published “Saving Aru,” an article chronicling how the people of Indonesia’s Aru Islands thwarted a…

JAKARTA — Maritime experts have slammed the decision by Indonesia’s president to replace his experienced and internationally praised fisheries minister with a political appointee. Susi Pudjiastuti, the country’s fisheries minister…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has announced his new cabinet for his second and final term in office, naming controversial figures with strong ties to the extractive industries. Introducing…

An analysis of 215 companies’ mineral supply chains has found many have fallen short of their obligations under the Conflict Minerals Rule, also known as Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank…

KENDARI, Indonesia — A conflict between residents of a remote Indonesian island and a nickel-mining company trying to operate there has gained national attention. In September, the National Commission on…

JAKARTA — Environmental activists in Indonesia have called on President Joko Widodo to use his second-five-year term to strengthen protections of the country’s rich natural resources, after he failed to…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency has charged a former politician from Borneo in connection with a port development project, in a move that could shed light on an earlier scandal…

This story is part of a series on Marae Moana, the massive, recently enacted multiple-use marine protected area covering the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone. Other stories in the…

TOLIARA AND MORONDAVA, Madagascar — When fishers on the west coast of Madagascar arrive home after a day at sea, children often poke their heads into the pirogues to see…

This story was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. I. The movement begins Late one rainy night in August 2013, a college student named Collin…

UPANG CERIA/GELEBAK DALAM, Indonesia — Boat drivers sometimes decide not to work when the smoke is thick on the Musi River out of fear of a dangerous collision. For the…

It was a sunny afternoon in Tobelo, a town on the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera, when I met the late Den Upa Rombelayuk, a Torajan woman from the neighboring…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…