Indigenous Communities News

The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of…

Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all…

COVID-19 has devastated communities around the world, but for some Indigenous groups, the pandemic posed an existential threat. Few people are better placed to speak to the impact COVID is…

To the Haudenosaunee, water is life. In their creation story, deep water covered the Earth, until a woman, known as Sky Woman, fell from an island in the sky. Birds…

Almost eight years after Typhoon Haiyan barreled into Busuanga Island in the western Philippines, the lesson it left is still etched in the mind of village leader Annabel Dela Cruz.…

A first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots across the Amazon shows that Brazil, once again, has the grim distinction of being a leader in destruction. Massive areas of forest…

Brazil’s highest court has upheld a ban on missionary activity inside reserves that are home to isolated or recently contacted Indigenous people, in a bid to protect the communities against…

SORONG, West Papua — With its lush rainforests and long stretches of beaches, Waimon, a coastal village in Indonesia’s West Papua province, seems like an idyllic place. But some residents…

Earlier this year, the Peruvian government established a new agrobiodiversity zone a tenth the size of its capital, Lima, high in the Andes. Here, in the Marcapata Ccollana community, the…

More than 50 years after the Krenak Indigenous people were subjected to torture, arbitrary confinement, beatings and forced labor in military-run concentration camps, a federal judge has ruled for reparations and an official apology.

Canadian oil company Enbridge is just hours away from completing its thousand-mile pipeline from Alberta through north Minnesota to Wisconsin, with oil set to flow the day after Canada’s first…

TALAMANCA, Costa Rica — “How do I say lemon in Bribri language?” ask Andy, 9, and his cousin Sergio, 11, of their grandmother, Marina López. They’re playing among cocoa trees…

The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar is a beautiful and rich expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where we still have wild tigers and elephants, and where the forest provides…

This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Covid,…

Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing this…

Scientific literature is rife with accounts of desolate reefs bereft of corals, drained of color and sea life. A meta-analysis published Sept. 17 shows that these are not isolated incidents…

JAKARTA — A long-delayed bill on Indigenous rights continues to languish in parliament because most lawmakers have business interests that are threatened by the acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights, activists…

Ever heard of “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECM)? Snappily named, they are not. But convoluted acronyms aside, supporters of OECMs, a designation by global conservation authority the IUCN, are…

In the KMÃNÃÑ HÊSUKA (“Making Books”) workshop, Central Brazil’s Xakriabá people learned the stages of the publishing process in order to make their own publications; imbuing the books with Indigenous voice was the project’s goal.

On the western fringe of the Brazilian Amazon, lush forest stretches for miles across a protected reserve that is home to the Ashaninka Indigenous people. Just a few miles away,…

As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue to roil Myanmar following the military coup in February, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat. In the seven months since protests erupted,…

Over the past five years, Mighty Earth has emerged as one of the most influential advocacy groups when it comes pushing companies to clean up their supply chains. The group,…

It’s easier to spot the bristly, gray-brown hide of a Bornean bearded pig (Sus barbatus) ambling through orderly rows of oil palm trees, than amid a dense tropical forest. But…

Nine months ago, Abdón was one of 40 Indigenous people from the Peruvian municipality of Flor de Ucayali who traveled, for the last time, to the border between his community…

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Mario Quispe Hermoza, 37 years old and from the Peruvian Andes, is a man with long hair, deep reflections on nature and…

Today we’re taking a look at what works in conservation. That’s what we always aim to do here at the Mongabay Newscast, of course, but today we’re talking about the…

In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030 via protected areas,…

Thousands of Indigenous people marched in Brazil’s capital this week, ahead of a landmark Supreme Federal Court ruling that activists warn could hamper the official recognition of Indigenous people’s territories…

A group of Kichwa patrollers living in the Peruvian Indigenous communities of Santa Rosillo de Yanayaku and Anak Kurutuyaku made an unexpected discovery in 2018. On their land in the…

In late 2019, Mongabay launched a special reporting project on Amazon women that took readers to communities throughout the region to meet and learn about the women who are emerging…