It was a sunny day in Koh Lanta, an island known for tourism in Krabi Province, Thailand. Surrounding us were calming shades of blue and green, a white sandy beach…
PHNOM PENH — A new report published by Human Rights Watch on Feb. 28 details a litany of alleged abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project, which covers a vast…
Deep cultural connection to land and nature are inherent to the human experience and a birthright, says Jay Griffiths, author of WILD: An Elemental Journey (2006). But what happens when…
In the late summer of 2023, thick stands of wild rice stood tall and shimmered gold in some of Lac du Flambeau’s lakes. The plant has been virtually absent in…
A central figure in many Indigenous systems is that of the Enchanted Ones, ancestral entities thought to connect the earthly world and the spiritual world. Some of these contacts are…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — News of apparent renewed interest in deep-sea mining came as a shock to Jonathan Mesulam in late 2022. Looking out over the Bismarck Sea that…
To bring seabirds back to Kaho‘olawe, you need to first find the cats. And to find the cats on Kaho‘olawe, you need to know where to find the bombs. Eleven…
A new fund, announced Oct. 30, plans to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous organizations in Bolivia’s Madidi Landscape. It has so far attracted $650,000 in initial…
TOLOWA DEE-NI' NATION, California — Three tribes along California's rugged northern coast made history in late September by designating the first Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the United States.…
Despite being a treasure trove of rich biodiversity and traditional plant knowledge, little of the ecological knowledge of Afro-descendent peoples in the Caribbean is recognized internationally. For the authors of…
"Hope is the last to die. We are apprehensive about what happened, but we will fight." These are the words of Indigenous leader Jose Antônio Parava Ramos, a member of…
While the name Katahirine seems like it could be for an observatory or some ambitious outer space project, it is rather the name of the first audiovisual network created and…
Even before sunrise, along the beaches of the rivers and lakes of Xingu Indigenous Park in the Brazilian Amazon, a series of bonfires appear on the horizon to warm the…
One of the final stages in demarcating the Amazonian territory of the isolated Kawahiva tribe is set to take place this year, Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples has announced. It’s…
After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According…
LAMJUNG DISTRICT, Nepal — When the dark, heavy clouds loom over the lush hills of Ghanpokhara, Ratna Gurung knows it's time to bring in the sun-dried foxtail millet. Before the…
Mining giant Glencore’s operations in Peru and Colombia continue to threaten Indigenous communities and cause extensive environmental damage despite the company’s public pledges to mitigate harms, according to three new…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
In 2023, Mongabay launched the fourth season of its serial podcast, “Mongabay Explores,” highlighting the Congo Basin. The six-part series takes a close look at the second-largest rainforest in the…
If any dog has held much of a cultural, economic, and spiritual significance to the Indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest Coast, it was the Coast Salish woolly dog. In…
In the southwesternmost corner of Arizona, the Colorado River weaves in between Mexico and the lands of the Native American Cocopah Tribe. Many spots along the river’s shore are lined…
The government of Papua New Guinea has declared two large new marine protected areas, capping a six-year effort in consultation with local communities on how to curtail the harvest of…
PHNOM PENH — “This book won’t stop deforestation, but it can show what’s at stake, what we will lose if we lose Prey Lang,” said Nerea Turreira-Garcia, assistant professor at…
COVAS DO BARROSO, Portugal — In the hills of Barroso high in northeastern Portugal, the water gushes down small channels built many centuries ago, winding through a mosaic of pastures,…
“They are going to flood the Tapayuna people’s history,” says Yaku Suya, a 43-year-old Indigenous leader from the village of Tyrykho, in Xingu Indigenous Park in the heart of the…
KATHMANDU — In the isolated kingdom of Lo Manthang, tucked away in Nepal’s Himalayas, ancient structures stand tall on arid lands that only allowed tourists in from the late 1990s.…
The Amazon has long been considered home to Indigenous peoples, dating back thousands of years. They worked the land in ways we are familiar with today. They built ditches, ponds,…
LA CEIBA, Colombia — Nine years ago, Delio de Jesús Suárez Gómez made a pact with wild bees. The arrangement didn’t come easy, given that neither party knew each other…
The first rainfall of autumn after months of drought signals the start of the olive harvest, the most important time of year for many Palestinian farmers. Between October and November,…
Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.