A rising chorus of voices condemns Laos’ planned Pak Beng dam
A damning review of plans for the controversial Pak Beng hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Laos was released this week by US-based advocacy group International Rivers, adding weight…
Brazil assaults indigenous rights, environment, social movements
“The first five months of 2017 have been the most violent this century,” Cândido Neto da Cunha, a specialist in agrarian affairs at the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian…
Meet the activists risking life and limb to protect rivers (commentary)
In late March of this year, an unusual group of activists gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia for a four-day conference to strategize around stopping destructive hydropower projects across the globe. Hailing…
A stubborn dreamer who fought to save Amazon’s Waimiri-Atroari passes
Sometimes a single person can change history. One such individual is José Porfirio Fontenele de Carvalho, who died on 13 May from cancer, aged 70. Without him, the Waimiri-Atroari, an…
Indigenous communities resisting dams in Indonesia claim they face repression, rights abuses
In October 2014, when developers entered Seko and Central Seko to begin preliminary work on a 480-megawatt hydroelectric dam, the communities living there say no one asked their permission. The…
Amazon’s fate hangs on outcome of war between opposing worldviews
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin lies…
In remote Indonesian villages, indigenous communities fight a hydropower dam
NORTH LUWU, Indonesia — Benyamin Langga invited me to walk with him along the rice field embankment, climbing up a hill and then down a steep slope. At 60 years…
Panama’s Barro Blanco dam to begin operation, indigenous pleas refused
The contentious Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam is set to begin operations within the next few weeks, defying both the relentless opposition by affected communities and the rejection last September by…
Amazon Soy Moratorium: defeating deforestation or greenwash diversion?
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin lies…
Where the forest grants went
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” So said US baseball legend Yogi Berra, on the importance of having a goal in sight and a…
Getting there: The rush to turn the Amazon into a soy transport corridor
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin lies…
Counterintuitive: Global hydropower boom will add to climate change
From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that…
Shrugging off the risks, Laos plans to proceed with the Pak Beng dam
PAK BENG, Laos — At the Happy Bar, on the bank of the Mekong River, the Bob Marley tape starts up at the same time every night after the tourist…
These Indonesian villages are powered by locally sourced sustainable energy
In a country where much of the rural population lives off the grid, villages on the Indonesian island of Flores boast their own renewable energy sources — all built by…
Honduran politicians, US aid implicated in killings of environmentalists
Global Witness, a London-based NGO, published a report yesterday examining the involvement of government officials and foreign aid in violent conflicts over mining, hydroelectric, tourism, and palm oil projects in Honduras.…
Before the flood: can the Bunong culture survive Cambodia’s Sesan II dam?
At a time when much of Cambodia is developing at a breakneck speed, where smartphones and BMWs have become almost as ubiquitous on the streets of Phnom Penh as saffron-robed…
Audio: E.O. Wilson talks about Half-Earth, Trump, and more
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we’re featuring highlights from a conversation with author and biologist E.O. Wilson, one of the greatest scientists of the last 100 years. Wilson…
Is Brazil green washing hydropower? The case of the Teles Pires dam
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin…
‘Day of Terror’: Munduruku village attacked by Brazil’s Federal Police
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin…
The end of a People: Amazon dam destroys sacred Munduruku “Heaven”
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin lies…
Battle for the Amazon: Tapajós Basin threatened by massive development
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil here.) The Tapajós River Basin…
Temer government set to overthrow Brazil’s environmental agenda
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil; You can also read this article in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil). razil’s conservative National Congress has rushed to pass a wave of…
Stone, Sand, Water: the key ingredients changing the Salween landscape
Tun Lin has a unique occupation: he is the security guard at Linno limestone karst cave on the bank of the Salween River in Myanmar’s southeast Karen (Kayin) State. He…
Brazil’s dispossessed: Belo Monte dam ruinous for indigenous cultures
Late in 2015, Brazil’s Public Federal Ministry (Ministério Público Federal, MPF), launched legal proceedings against the government’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), and Norte Energia, the consortium that built the Belo Monte…
The media megaphone: does it help curb bad infrastructure projects?
We live today in the most explosive era of infrastructure development in human history. By mid-century the unprecedented rate of highway, dam, mine and power plant construction; along with city…
A dam shame: the plight of the Mekong giant catfish
Humanity rarely seems to get very excited about conserving fish species, maybe because they are largely invisible to us land-dwelling creatures — except when they arrive on a dinner plate.…
Top scientists: Amazon’s Tapajós Dam Complex “a crisis in the making”
Brazil is forging ahead with plans to build a vast hydropower dam complex in the heart of the Amazon that would convert the now remote and wild Tapajós river system…
Damming the Salween: what next for Southeast Asia’s last great free-flowing river?
"We held each other's hands and moved slowly in the dark, smiling. We desired, above all, a good night's sleep, but that was not possible as we pressed on to…
Amazon oil spill impacts indigenous villages on Teles Pires River
An oil spill was detected on the Teles Pires River, a major tributary of the Tapajós River in a remote part of the Amazon Basin on Sunday, November 13th. The…
Massive hydroelectricity project planned for Indonesian Borneo
It seems there is always something to take from the island of Kalimantan, Indonesia. The island, also known as Borneo, has already been vastly deforested — logged and cleared, mined…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Deforestation on the rise in Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Mennonite communities move in
- Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show
- Deforestation ‘out of control’ in reserve in Brazil’s cattle capital
Oceans
- Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth
- Fishy business of squid vessels needs stronger regulation, study says
- Indonesia’s mangrove restoration will run out of land well short of target, study warns
- As U.N. members clinch historic high seas biodiversity treaty, what’s in it?
Amazon Conservation
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
- In Brazil, criminals dismantle one of the best-preserved swaths of the Amazon
- France seeks EU okay to fund biomass plants, burn Amazon forest to power Spaceport
Land rights and extractives
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
- ‘Brought down by gold’: Communities and nature suffer amid Nigerian bonanza
Endangered Environmentalists
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Tunnel collapse at dam project in orangutan habitat claims yet another life
- Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- Indonesia’s grand EV plans hinge on a ‘green’ industrial park that likely isn’t
