In February 2020, lightning struck Figure of Eight Island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago, igniting a fire that burned through most of its vegetation in just a few days. While…
VICHADA, Colombia — Nearly 13 years have passed since the Guahibo Indigenous community El Trompillo was allegedly forcibly relocated from their territory. Members report persistent hunger and overcrowding in makeshift…
A Brazilian Federal Police operation dismantled a criminal organization that operates in illegal mining inside Kayapó Indigenous Land, in southern Pará state. The gold is sold abroad to Chimet, an Italian business group specializing in refining gold to make jewellery.
Conservation needs to adopt a human-rights based approach to deal effectively and equitably with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, according to a new report co-authored by…
Small islands, big seascapes: that’s how many Pacific Ocean nations are characterized. Aotearoa New Zealand, a country about the size of the U.K. but with the world’s fourth-largest maritime area,…
BANGKA BELITUNG, Indonesia — A conflict that flared up at the start of the year between traditional fishers and illegal miners in Indonesia’s Bangka-Belitung Islands has once again highlighted the…
QUITO — Its a sad moment for any Indigenous community when spiritual leaders, those who hold the knowledge of sacred ceremonies and traditions, pass away from this world. But Sabino…
PEKALOBEAN, Indonesia — Haeriah is a young homemaker and a member of the Marena Indigenous community on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Although she’s lived all her life near her…
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has withdrawn as a cooperating agency from the U.S Federal government’s ongoing environmental assessment of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) operations. Standing Rock attributed their…
Cecilia Rivas remembers Tukupu as a place to live freely. The dwellings of the Indigenous Kariña community, spread out under the shade of the trees in the Imataca Forest Reserve,…
Ten Native American tribal nations, forming the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, have received ownership of 215 hectares (532 acres) of California’s redwood forest. The tribal council is partnering with Save…
For the uninitiated, the first mouthful of the Hawaiian red algae known as limu kohu (Asparagopsis taxiformis) may be an unpleasant one: intensely iodine-rich and bitter, with all the marine…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
"Where does your ayahuasca come from?" is a question many drinkers of the psychoactive Amazonian brew would just as soon not ask of their suppliers. But Thiago Martins e Silva,…
The Carib language is slowly disappearing from the villages of its descendants in Guyana. But in the remote village of Kwebana in the country’s Barima-Waini region, a schoolteacher, a community…
One of the major announcements from the United Nations climate summit in Scotland last month, known as COP26, was the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use, along with the…
JOCOTÁN, Guatemala - Baudilio García walks up past alternating rows of trees and dried maize lining the hillside. Together with family members, he’s preparing to substitute the crops between the…
WEST KIMBERLEY, Australia — November marks the end of the dry season in the Kimberley, the northernmost region of Western Australia, the country’s largest state. As the monsoonal rains start to…
In the village of Nongtraw in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, one of the world’s wettest regions, honey is a sought after resource by the Khasi Indigenous community. They go…
In one of the largest and most spontaneous protests in post-apartheid South Africa, thousands of people gathered on the country’s eastern coastal beaches last Sunday to voice their dissent against…
Nestled between steep mountains and a sandy shoreline that slopes into the Solomon Sea, the village of Baniata is testimony to resilience and self-sufficiency. Located on the remote southern shore…
Mining interests in the Brazilian Amazon pose an imminent threat to Indigenous groups, a new study shows, causing “incalculable damage” for 43 isolated groups if a bill legalizing mining on…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Silo Siswanto picks a rejung melody over a guitar fretboard under stage lights in the Teater Potlot in the city of Palembang, evoking the fragility of the…
After a dream, Yanomami shaman and great leader Davi Kopenawa began to reflect: television, cinema and all the images created and transmitted are an important part of white people’s culture.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
UPDATE 09/10/2021: Today, members of the IUCN World Conservation Congress approved the motion that calls to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025, a move that is being celebrated by…
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…
