Indigenous Groups News

Eight past environmental ministers assail policies. Amazon Fund and 334 Brazilian parks at risk; sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties head to approval.

Many hundreds of years ago, the first Polynesian boats arrived on the shores of what is now known as New Zealand.  In the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, the…

Indigenous women have a long leadership tradition in the Amazon and across Brazil, but perhaps never more so than since the election of Jair Bolsonaro, whose policies they oppose.

JAKARTA — In the wake of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s announcement that he intends to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta, some have expressed concerns that the plan could result…

JAKARTA — In the space of a few days, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has vowed to side with local communities in their disputes over land with large companies — yet…

A new report urges the EU — a major Brazilian trading partner — to pressure the Bolsonaro government to end its regressive indigenous and environmental policies.

QUITO, Ecuador — The indigenous Waorani community in Ecuador won a historic lawsuit against the government late last month, when a three-judge panel ruled that a consultation process conducted with…

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

The promise of jobs and prosperity often helps palm oil companies convince skeptical local stakeholders to accept development on their lands. However, there has been little objective evidence showing whether…

As you approach Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, five hours north of Phnom Penh, it’s difficult to tell exactly where the park begins. There is no audience of trees to greet…

Halcyon Agri Corp, the world’s largest rubber processor, is taking steps toward a more sustainable and transparent natural rubber supply chain following vocal public outcries from environmental NGOs last year.…

13 tons of oxygen-starved fish died as water filled the new Sinop dam reservoir, a project of French firm Electricité de France (EDF), along with Brazilian companies.

Top court rules against request to stop Agriculture Ministry from taking over indigenous land demarcation, prompting indigenous people to hold major march on Supreme Court.

The Sateré people practice Waumat — an excruciatingly painful rite involving bullet ants — as a way of unifying and gaining strength against Brazilian land grabbers.

As Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for indigenous assimilation, the Amazon’s Sateré-Mawé people asserts its indigenous identity and land rights.

The elephant poaching epidemic continues to tear across the African continent. It’s even reached remote refuges in recent years, like the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, where poaching deaths began surging…

A paper published in Science today outlines a new “Global Deal for Nature,” officially launching an effort to establish science-based conservation targets covering all of planet Earth, including terrestrial, freshwater,…

PUERTO GALILEA, Peru — In 2009, special decrees signed by then-president Alan García opened up vast swaths of Peruvian indigenous territory to resource exploitation. Indigenous groups in the northern portion of…

Deforestation can reduce communities’ access to clean drinking water, according to a recent study conducted in Malawi. A lot of prior research on how deforestation impacts water dynamics has shown…

At least 9 people are known dead in new violent attacks on remote Amazon communities near areas of heavy deforestation and large hydroelectric dams.

One person has reportedly died and another was injured after police in Colombia cracked down on a protest by indigenous groups demanding a meeting with the country’s president over land…

A group of 20 men, women, and children, mostly members of the Achuar and Shuar indigenous communities, move through dense jungle near a military base in the town of Shell…

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. DARIÉN GAP, Panama — There is a land at the center of the Americas that is said to remain in…

Sophie Chao is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney, whose work focuses on the impacts of agribusiness on the peoples and environments of the Asia-Pacific and Melanesia…

As part of a wave of rural violence sweeping Amazonia, dam activist Dilma Ferreira Silva, her husband and a friend were brutally murdered last Friday; a large scale landowner is in custody.

The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah has called on construction crews working on the multi-billion-dollar Pan Borneo Highway project to avoid breaking up the region’s forests and…

On the night of March 18, Sergio Rojas Ortiz, leader of the Bribri indigenous people, was murdered at his home in the indigenous territory of Salitre in Costa Rica. Rojas,…

“Maybe what happened to my brother will also happen to me,” says Joseph Paborada, Chair of the indigenous organization Pangalasag. It has been over six years since his brother Gilbert, the…

Conservation nonprofit WWF has come under heavy criticism after an investigation was published last week by Buzzfeed News that the wildlife charity knowingly supported eco-guards who committed severe human rights…

Indigenous groups will be consulted but have no veto, says Brazilian mining minister as he announces opening indigenous reserves to mining in opposition to constitutional law.