Reaching down into the Malay Peninsula, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region is home to rainforests that support a unique assemblage of endemic and endangered species, including the endangered Malay tapir (Tapirus…
As the world heads towards 2021 with COVID-19 still raging overhead, it might be easy to forget about the other global crises. But a new app, debuted today, aims to…
674 major Amazon fires were detected between May 28 and September 2, with the Brazilian government failing to control most blazes. Remote Indigenous communities are especially threatened.
A wave of planned “mega” infrastructure projects across the tropics of Latin America threatens the region’s forests and the biodiversity and carbon they contain, a group of scientists warned Aug.…
JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists have welcomed the cancellation of an oil palm plantation permit on Indigenous land in Indonesia’s Papua region. They say the case is a prime example…
Nestled in the far reaches of eastern Cambodia lies Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nation’s most vital areas of protected forest and a haven for rare wildlife. Yet…
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — Officials in the southern Philippines have canceled a $5.9 billion project to exploit Southeast Asia’s largest known undeveloped copper and gold reserves, but have left open…
The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have launched a blockade of the BR-163 highway, a key Brazilian commodities shipment route, mostly in protest over lost funding to prevent reserve invasions.
NEW YORK — On an early December morning last year in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, half a dozen members of the Indigenous Guajajara people packed their bags with food,…
A group of more than 100 Peruvian and international non-profit organizations has written a letter to Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra, asking him to deliver emergency support to the Indigenous communities…
The historical record shows that Indigenous reserves are only safe from invasion by illegal deforesters once fully protected by government — protections rapidly eroding in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
Wary of Western medicine and of the prejudice and neglect they say they suffer at hospitals, Amazon's Kokama people decided to turn to traditional healing practices, administered by shamans. The Kokama were the first Indigenous group in Brazil to be infected with COVID-19, and to date there have been more than a thousand confirmed cases and 60 deaths within the community.
A new indigenous geo-storytelling platform, Tribal Stories, launched on Aug. 9, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The new platform, by Netherlands-based nonprofit People’s Planet Project (PPP), features…
In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to…
MINDORO, Philippines — On May 12, the Philippine island of Mindoro reported its first confirmed case of a tribal resident being infected with COVID-19. The patient, a 4-year-old Indigenous Mangyan…
Hundreds of dams are planned within global protected areas, a prospect that threatens people, plants and animals that rely on the lifegiving waters of free-flowing rivers. According to a first-of-its-kind…
The recent deaths of four Indigenous Yanomami babies and subsequent disappearance of their bodies from a hospital in Brazil have revealed yet another hardship in the way the coronavirus pandemic has impacted Indigenous communities.
A gunshot ended the life of Indigenous leader Arbildo Meléndez Grandes in Peru. On a Sunday in early April this year, he went hunting and fishing for his family and…
Brazilian NGO flyovers show that indigenous reserves — including Munduruku lands in the Tapajós basin — are being illegally invaded and deforested by miners likely funded and directed by elite land speculators.
Companies and governments are pushing for the privatization of land around the world as a way to get at economically valuable resources, according to a recent report from the Oakland…
A pork and chicken producer has expanded its operations in northern Ecuador with the help of funding from the World Bank's commercial lending arm, despite sustained complaints from local communities…
MANILA — A Philippine court has thrown out an appeal by a mining company seeking to continue operations despite its permit having expired last year. The decision by the Philippine…
The article was co-published with The Gecko Project. A decade ago, the Indonesian government began to heavily promote large-scale plantation developments in Papua province, a region of savannahs and rich…
JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia plan to call pulp and paper executives to testify about a recent case in which an Indigenous farmer was jailed for cutting down pulpwood trees…
A federal judge has issued an emergency order giving the Bolsonaro administration just days to evict all illegal miners, and keep them out until the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
JAKARTA — Activists have called on the Indonesian authorities to probe the finances of the Korindo Group, a privately owned conglomerate, in the wake of an investigation that exposed a $22…
QUITO — As COVID-19 sweeps across communities in the Amazon rainforest, the Indigenous Waorani in Ecuador are celebrating a bittersweet victory after a provincial court ruled in their favor in…
More than 3,660 indigenous people are infected, with many elders dead. Analysts suggest the rising toll may be driven by deep poverty, and the undermining of traditional cultures and overall health by modern intrusions.
In a corner of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, a handful of clandestine roads neatly slice the dense jungle canopy into rectangles. From the sky, an entourage of bulldozers can be…
An exclusive study shows that 114 properties have been certified inside indigenous territories awaiting demarcation in the Brazilian Amazon, spurred in large part by a recent statute that leaves these reserves unprotected from such illegal land grabs.
