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…
DAK DOA, Vietnam — At the end of the rainy season, the hillsides in Dak Doa district, in central Vietnam's Gia Lai province, turn pink as the Cỏ Hồng grass…
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…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — With trembling hands, Raimundo Serrão lights candles for his grandmother at the Livramento Cemetery's cross on the Day of the Dead because he couldn't find her…
“My son was covered in burns, poor boy – he just died,” says María Grefa, a Kichwa from Sinchiurco, a community in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The tragedy took place…
This story was published in partnership with Grist. As nearly 200 countries struggle to negotiate a new plan for nature conservation at the United Nations’ Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada,…
We are peoples of place — our relationship with our lands and waters have sustained us for millennia. What happens to one species or ecosystem has immeasurable impacts on our…
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…
Protecting forests by investing in Indigenous peoples and local communities, or IPLCs, is increasingly seen as one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change and halt the global…
Human actions influence animal populations. In Montana, U.S., a road with a very high density of wildlife crossings was once dangerous for wild animals. But it now has 42 highway…
Since time immemorial, the Karuk tribe of northern California have managed their ancestral lands, over 400,000 hectares of open oak woodlands, meadows, and forested mountains along the middle section of…
The territory belonging the Indigenous Kakataibo community of Puerto Nuevo comprises some 680 square kilometers (263 square miles) of rainforest between the regions of Huánuco and Ucayali in central Peru.…
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…
Mount Mantalingahan, PHILIPPINES —Ubre Tiblak can vividly remember the day he fell coming down the mountain. It was a rainy afternoon in June 2015, and the 66-kilogram (145-pound) pack on…
This year’s U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, ended on Sunday in Egypt with what has seen the highest participation of Indigenous peoples, more than 300 delegates. The participation of…
"Our Atlantic Forest has several very important living beings, species that are already endangered and that we need to bring back," says the Pataxó Matias Santana, president of the Foresters…
Artisanal gold mining is driving the global demand for mercury, with 2,058 metric tons of the toxic metal contaminating water, land and air every year, according to a recent report…
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes office at the start of 2023 as president of Brazil, his third term in the post, he faces the difficult task of making…
SANTA ROSILLO DE YANAYACU, Peru — Swaths of recently deforested land and images of guns spray-painted on trees greeted the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu patrol when they visited a portion…
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…
FLATHEAD NATION, Montana — In 1989, when the Montana Department of Transportation proposed a plan to address safety concerns on Montana's notoriously dangerous Highway 93, their answer was to expand…
When luxury safari hotel Shompole Lodge opened in Kenya in 2000, it was an overnight sensation. For $630 a night, guests could gaze at elephants and zebras while soaking in…
Local people and communities should be given greater control over the international trade in wildlife in order to make the multi-billion-dollar industry more sustainable, according to a group of scientists…
For 26 years, the last member of the Tanaru people resisted contact and lived alone in his protected land in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Ranchers and miners had massacred…
Lucía lives in Peru, in one of more than 50 indigenous communities along the Putumayo, an Amazonian river that marks the border between Peru and Colombia. She has a banana…
AMAMBAI, Brazil — About a dozen Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous people danced around a grave, freshly filled in, chanting a prayer as they swayed to the rhythm of a rattle. Around them,…
Funders of a $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they disbursed around 19% of the money to bolster the land rights of Indigenous and local…
We have two fascinating conversations about forests in the Americas for you on this podcast episode: the first is the story of how the Shuar Indigenous community in Ecuador recently…
“We always grew native products that come from here, like corn, beans, potatoes or lulos,” says Don Danilo, a longtime farmer near Sonsón, a small municipality in the Colombian state…