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…
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…
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…
Besides its ecological relevance, the disappearance of the Paraná pine (Araucaria angustifolia), a tree that is native to Brazil, also threatens the survival of an entire people: the Kaingáng, the…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have slammed a rule change by the Forest Stewardship Council that will allow some loggers who couldn’t qualify over the past 30 years to now be…
A radical change to how Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency functions has prompted alarm among activists, who say it effectively threatens to end the demarcation of Indigenous territories and set back…
Even before a definitive license was issued by the Brazilian main environmental agency, paving works had already begun on the so-called Middle Section of the BR-319, the highway that connects the Amazonian cities of Porto Velho and Manaus.
LOMBOK, Indonesia — In the northern foothills of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano, lies a coffee plantation and processing facility that doubles as a training ground. Here, among the arabica…
JAKARTA/NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — The Indonesian government’s strategy to minimize the marine impacts of building a new capital city on the island of Borneo is severely lacking, researchers and…
After a 19-year process, uncontacted and recently contacted Indigenous peoples living in the Napo-Tigre region of the Peruvian Amazon have had their existence officially recognized. With an extensive anthropological study…
It was 35 years ago that Ailton Krenak, while painting his entire face with the black dye of the jenipapo fruit, protested against violence against Indigenous peoples in one of…
An Australian court has set aside the federal government’s approval for major gas company Santos Limited’s drilling plans in the Timor Sea, north of the island nation, ruling in favor…
TAMPAKAN, Philippines — In a move celebrated by anti-mining activists, local officials in the southern Philippine municipality of Tampakan have canceled the business permit for a controversial copper and gold…
The European Parliament has approved a bill blocking the import of "dirty commodities" by members of the European Union, in an effort to combat global deforestation. Under the new bill,…
Indigenous groups in Brazil are demanding justice after a spate of killings allegedly linked to land disputes left four people dead and two injured in the space of just 10…
JAKARTA — An independent initiative in Indonesia continues to make rapid progress in mapping Indigenous lands, with an area the size of Belgium mapped in the past few months alone.…
Men on horseback enter a protected Indigenous area, bringing along 100 head of cattle. Next to a village with no road access, inhabited by the Parakanã people, the men find…
Forest loss is increasing south of the Orinoco River due to lack of Venezuelan official oversight, a growing Colombian insurgency, fires set to create mining camps, and new agricultural lands cleared to feed miners.
JAKARTA — A China-backed zinc and lead mine being developed in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island may pose “extreme” risks to the environment and nearby communities, according to an assessment by the…
Repórter Brasil’s tool points out the federal deputies with the worst socio-environmental performance and shows that the right-wing wave of 2018 strengthened the rural caucus in Congress. Analysts say that the ruralist leanings of the Chamber were already a reality, but the Bolsonaro government unbalanced the political chessboard with the weakening of the Ministry of Environment.
National protests overwhelmed Ecuador in June, with Indigenous groups mobilizing in nearly every province of the country and President Guillermo Lasso announcing a state of emergency that restricted travel and…
INDRAGIRI HILIR, Indonesia — Customary leaders Patih Majuan, Datuk Manti and Datuk Mangku approach their scared forest with hands clasped in prayer. Other residents of the village of Talang Durian…
The community of Deus é Pai (“God is our Father”) sits by the Tefé River in Brazil’s Amazonas state. As children play in a creek on a sunny afternoon, a…
KATHMANDU – The Sherpa Indigenous community in Nepal has lived in the lap of the world’s tallest mountains for centuries. Ever since Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand climber…
At least 1,640 Indigenous people have been rescued from slave-like work conditions in Brazil since 2004, or an average of 90 rescues every year over the past 18 years. That’s…
When Milka Chepkorir Kuto took the stage on July 18 at the opening ceremony of the Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Kigali, Rwanda, she came with a sobering message…
He’s called Bilibeu, Saint Bilibeu, or even Bilibreu. Carved of wood and painted with tar, this saint is said to bring fertility to the earth, to animals, and to women.…
