After the Seko indigenous peoples of Indonesia rejected a plan to build a hydropower plant on their traditional lands in the province of South Sulawesi, the company behind the plant…
Nobody knows just how much rosewood Madagascar’s timber barons have hidden away in caches throughout the country. Buried in the sand, sunken in rivers, or tucked away in remote, walled…
KUCHING, Malaysia — Implicit gender and race bias within the conservation community may be undermining researchers’ work in both the field and in science publication, experts say. “One of the…
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…
As it seeks to diversify its sources of fuel, India is looking to get in on the ground floor of coal mining in previously unexploited deposits in Indonesian Papua. In…
This commentary is a response to "Palm oil certification? No silver bullet, but essential for sustainability," an op-ed Mongabay published on May 25, 2018. Changing Markets Foundation’s recent report "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…
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…
Both the RSPO and GVL have responded to this commentary. Click here to jump to GVL's response. Click here to jump to the RSPO's response. Below these is a response…
Traditional landowners in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, have exerted their power of veto under the autonomous region's new mining laws and rejected a corporate bid by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL)…
More than 50 conservation and human rights organizations have called on international donors to halt funding aimed at economic development and forest protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the…
Kavous Seyed Emami, a professor of sociology and a director of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, died in Tehran’s Evin Prison earlier this month. Iranian authorities said he committed suicide after…
The word “pygmy” conjures images of hunter-gatherers living deep in the Congo rainforest, far removed from the modern world. But that modern world is closing in on them, as the…
On Tuesday, a Vietnamese court sentenced Hoang Duc Binh to 14 years in prison for activism related to a chemical spill that resulted in a massive fish kill in 2016.…
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh – Look out from the high-ground in the middle of Kutupalong and two sights fill the eyes: Myanmar’s green hills silhouetted in the east and dehydrated, denuded mounds…
GARUT, Indonesia — It was, at first sight, a typical scene for the Ath-Taariq Islamic boarding school in Indonesia’s West Java province: some 50 people, most of them women, gathered…
The indigenous inhabitants of Indonesia’s Mentawai district, a cluster of islands off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, are a step closer to reclaiming their ancestral rights to their land from…
A rare earth mining project in Madagascar that has been in turmoil for the last two years took another blow in September, when its concession, previously valued at over $1…
In early 2017, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) decided that it was going to stop working with certification in agriculture. It was actually a fairly easy and straightforward decision: After…
SAVA REGION, Madagascar — Madagascar is applying to sell millions of dollars’ worth of illegally logged timber, prompting fears of a bonanza for traffickers. The country has stockpiled tens of…
