Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…
An underwater expedition has confirmed the presence of some of the world’s largest and most threatened freshwater fish in a remote and barely studied stretch of the Mekong River in…
A hydroelectric dam complex in southern Argentina, one of the country’s largest energy projects, is facing backlash from conservationists and Indigenous communities who are worried about its impact on the…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
Brazil’s Amazon dam plans have been slowed down over the past decade due to realization by the country’s electrical authorities that obtaining environmental licenses would be difficult when Indigenous peoples…
Recovering Together, Recovering Stronger. Indonesia adopted this tagline when it took over the rotating chair of the club of the world’s 20 largest advanced and emerging economies, the Group of…
Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah's attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Adrian Lasimbang, an Indigenous leader in…
The flooding of land for hydroelectric dams has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris) and one in two hundred jaguars (Panthera onca), according to the findings…
The Lower Sesan 2 hydroelectric scheme was completed in northeast Cambodia in 2018. The reservoir flooded 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) upstream of the confluence of the Sesan and…
Update: On Aug. 10, the village governments of Naboay and Malay publicly released resolutions opposing the hydroelectric project, citing concerns about the project's potential impacts on the Northwest Panay Peninsula…
The year 2021 is a La Niña year, and La Niña events typically lead to droughts in southeastern Brazil where São Paulo, the world’s fourth largest city, is located. La…
When the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) meets from July 16 to 31, they will be tasked with addressing urgent threats to some of the world’s most treasured sites of…
The alleged mastermind of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of homicide by a Honduran court on Monday. Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the…
Indigenous people living near the Teles Pires and São Manoel dams in the Brazilian Amazon say the projects have polluted their river, causing health problems and wrecking the fishery. COVID-19 made things worse.
On June 17th a judicial decision marks a new phase for the struggle over water flow to the “Volta Grande” (“Big Bend”) of Brazil’s Xingu River between the two dams…
The prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize” will be awarded today to six environmental activists, one from each of the world’s inhabited continents. This year’s winners…
This past December marked the 5th anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement. Soon after, the Biden Administration rejoined the Paris Agreement as one of their first actions in office. And…
IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has reversed itself, allowing Norte Energia, operator of the mega-dam, to divert water flow to turbines, potentially wrecking the river’s Big Bend Indigenous and traditional fishery.
KALINGA, Philippines — On Nov. 12, 2020, Typhoon Vamco cut across the northern Philippines, flooding more than 60 cities and towns in the Cagayan Valley. Millions of dollars’ worth of…
Today we’re discussing proposed solutions to the global climate crisis that could have unintended consequences and thus might not be the effective solutions they’re promoted as. Listen here: Nature-based solutions…
Even in this era of “alternative facts,” the letter to the New York Times from Norte Energy (the company responsible for Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam) will surely be remembered as…
JAKARTA — Onrizal Onrizal remembers hearing stories of human-like creatures living in the forest when he was growing up in Sungai Dareh, a town in western Sumatra, Indonesia. Legend had…
On any list of places menaced by climate change, Vietnam's broad and fertile Mekong Delta ranks near the top. And yet, as I wrote for Mongabay four years ago, rising…
315 traditional families in the Brazilian Amazon, evicted from their homes starting in 2015 to make way for the Belo Monte mega-dam, have won the right to resettle near their former Xingu River homes.
A plan by Brazil’s Norte Energia, builder and operator of the Belo Monte mega-dam, to drastically reduce Xingu River water flows will be a disaster for habitat, fish, fisheries, and riverine communities, experts say.
JAKARTA — One person is missing and feared dead following a series of landslides near the site of a planned hydropower plant in the only known habitat of the critically…
North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA…
Nearly 2 billion people live within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of a forest, and many rely on forests directly as a source of livelihood. But forests also play a critical…
The planned 650 MW dam on the Rio Branco in Brazil’s Roraima state is scheduled to become operational in 2028; it could do extraordinary socio-environmental harm.
Brazil’s current 10-year Energy Expansion Plan calls for three more large dams in Amazonia by 2029, and the country’s 2050 National Energy Plan lists many more — putting the environment at risk.
