Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), human rights abuses at sea and the collapse of ocean ecosystems are fundamentally intertwined. Fish populations have rapidly declined globally, with 35% of fish…
Our planet is in crisis. Human activity is driving accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss across the globe. The devastating impacts of both processes are disproportionately felt by women and…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Pulitzer Center. Janne Hirvasvuopio got his first Valentine’s Day card early this year. But the message that came through his…
Canned tuna is trending in the U.S. again: after a tail-off in its consumption in the three decades through 2016, the cheap and shelf-stable protein’s popularity surged during the COVID-19…
A flagship dam and large-scale sugarcane plantations in southwestern Ethiopia are causing starvation and disease among several Indigenous groups driven off their land by the projects, according to a report…
The Amazonian Chief Raoni Metuktire visited the U.K. in January 2020, accompanied by Megaron Txucarramãe and other Indigenous leaders. This visit kicked off a global tour that held very special…
On the morning of May 24, 2017, police and military carried out an operation in the Santa Lúcia farm in Brazil’s northern Amazon state of Pará, killing 10 unarmed rural…
The implementation of nature-based solutions, or NbS — a hotly debated concept that has gained traction in recent years — is seen by many policymakers as a potential means for…
MZIMBA DISTRICT, Malawi — For 16 years, people in villages around the Kanyika hills in Mzimba district in northern Malawi have lived with uncertainty and anxiety. In 2006, an Australian…
In a small room at a safe house owned by a human rights group in rural Liberia, away from prying eyes and passing ears, Decontee explains why she quit her…
This year ended with a big bang for many Indigenous leaders, communities and activists around the world. During the U.N. biodiversity conference, known as COP15, Indigenous traditional lands and rights…
COP15, MONTREAL, Canada — After marathon negotiations and a clutch of protests (including a “die-in” by global youth, and a walk-out by developing countries over a funding stalemate) nearly 200…
The U.N. biodiversity conference (COP15) negotiations in Montreal have been moving slowly and under much strain with a target to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030—known…
The United States has sanctioned Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and fishing violations while operating in other countries’ or international waters. On Dec. 9, the…
KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy…
JAKARTA — Authorities on the Indonesian island of Lombok plan to begin construction this month of a controversial and long-delayed cable car project for tourists to visit Mount Rinjani, a…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized community claims to ancestral forests in the country’s eastern Papua region for the first time in history, a move that environmentalists say could…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center. WAIKAS, Brazil — From up above, long, massive, yellowish stains tear apart…
Not far up the hill, after a right turn off the main road that leads from the Zulu town of Mtubatuba in the province of KwaZulu-Natal into one of South…
Residents of a village in northeastern South Africa, displaced to make way for one of the country’s largest open-pit coal mines in 2007, are suffering from long-term collective trauma, with…
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caught Costa Rica’s Cabécar Indigenous communities at a precarious time. Amid the species-rich forests of the Talamanca Cabécar Indigenous territory, climate change had already begun…
In a country often ignored internationally except when it comes to its bustling tourism industry and oceans, Costa Rica and its Indigenous rights record is receiving careful attention by the…
After five months of waiting, the Indigenous pygmy peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have secured a major victory. Earlier today, the president of the DRC, Felix…
The world’s healthiest tropical forests are located in protected Indigenous areas (PIAs), according to a new study. “After accounting for location biases […], protected-Indigenous areas had the highest protective effect…
Update Dec. 5, 2023: A subsequent analysis in 2023 by the Forest Tenure Funders Group found that 2.9%, not 7%, of the pledged funding delivered in 2021 went directly to…
Activists have accused an association of banks claiming to adhere to principles safeguarding people and the environment of “greenwashing.” Two signatories of the Equator Principles are currently advising East African…
It may look like a nondescript silvery fish, but hilsa, or Tenualosa ilisha, accounts for an eighth of Bangladesh’s total fish catch, and more than 1% of the country’s economic…
More than 14 years after being forcibly relocated from their ancestral villages to make way for mining in one of the world’s largest diamond-producing projects, residents of Arda Transau in…
Groups demand end to Chinese gold mine operating inside DRC reserve ITURI PROVINCE, Democratic Republic of Congo — Civil society groups have condemned what they say is illegal gold mining…
Marked by a fine for illegal deforestation, Agro Xavante, an initiative created with the blessing of president Bolsonaro, moves ahead with leasing public lands and a failure to conduct prior consultation with the local population.