What began with a rare instance of aggressive enforcement of Madagascar’s environmental laws last month culminated in violent destruction. Angry farmers armed with sticks and machetes stormed into the northwestern…
KUCHING, Malaysia — In 1993, fisheries scientist John Aini founded the conservation group Ailan Awareness in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province to help his community and others nearby reverse…
Online mapping platform MapHubs has recently launched a new service, MapHubs Forest, which combines automated forest change visualization and alerts with tools for making maps online, analyzing spatial data, producing reports…
An investigation by Mongabay has uncovered new evidence suggesting one of the world’s biggest paper producers, Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, took deliberate measures to disguise its ownership of a…
ZIMUNYA COMMUNAL LAND, Zimbabwe — Christopher Zimunya, a 72-year-old leader of the indigenous VaJindwi people in eastern Zimbabwe, beamed as he spoke about pangolins. Sitting on the veranda of his…
The best way to save forests and curb biodiversity loss is to recognize the claims of indigenous peoples to their territories, a new report urges. Published by the Rights and…
PORT MORESBY — Heavily armed civilian groups have burned and damaged ExxonMobil construction equipment in a land dispute involving a natural gas plant in Papua New Guinea. The civil unrest…
In July last year, Abdon Nababan, one of Indonesia’s most prominent activists, announced his intention to run for governor in his home province of North Sumatra. During his decade-long tenure…
An activist working to stem corruption and wildlife trafficking in northeastern Madagascar was convicted and immediately released earlier this month — a tactic that has become common in the island nation…
SINGAPORE — Indonesia’s development model over the decades has been to exploit its abundant natural resources to feed a population that’s now ballooned to 260 million and fuel an economy…
In June this year, elections will take place in 171 districts, provinces and municipalities across Indonesia. On paper, millions of citizens in the world’s third-largest democracy will be afforded the…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government expects to take a controlling stake in the operator of the world’s biggest copper and gold mine this month, even as sanctions it imposed for…
One of the world’s biggest paper producers continues to deny that it secretly owns most of the companies supplying it with wood, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. In the…
A farmer turned environmental activist who was convicted on criminal charges after questioning a mining company about its permits has had his appeal denied by a court in Madagascar. The…
Developing countries worldwide are expanding their protected area networks, and a recent paper that examines how Madagascar greatly expanded its own protected area system over the past decade and a…
A recent publication confirmed that inhabitants of the indigenous Nahua population, located in the Santa Rosa de Serjali community in the Ucayali Region of Peru, have high levels of mercury…
Héctor Manuel Choc Cuz, the nephew of prominent land rights activists, dreamed of becoming a professional mechanic when he got older. But the 18-year-old Maya Q’eqchi’ youth’s aspirations were cut…
JAKARTA — An effort by the Indonesian government to compile a single map of land-use cover across the vast archipelago is nearing completion seven years after it began, but continues…
Two decades on from the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, Indonesia’s transition to democracy is regarded as a global success story. But lurking beneath the surface is an ugly truth.…
Residents of villages in Indonesian Borneo who have long complained that a coal company is polluting local waterways have won their first victory in court, but activists say the sanctions…
