Three years after the collapse of a mining dam forced them from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, a small community of Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe Indigenous peoples face…
Illegal mining in protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon saw as much as a fivefold increase since 2010, a gold rush driven largely by surging prices in international markets. Over…
Activists in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, say they fear logging will ramp up following the state government's decision to overturn a ban on exporting unprocessed timber. The ban was imposed by…
For several weeks in 2015, the sound of chainsaws cutting down trees was incessant in the Angangueo municipality in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When a group of people tried…
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 four days last November, Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, was on fire. Four people died during violent riots, and the city’s Chinatown was torched, leaving hundreds homeless.…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of…
The Bolivian government has revived a long-held plan to build a hydroelectric plant in a corner of the country’s western La Paz department, sparking concerns about the potential displacement of…
KWALE COUNTY, Kenya — More than 20 years ago, along the lush southeastern coast of Kenya, the area known as Vanga Bay was home to a mangrove forest spanning 4,428…
Humanity has developed incredible technologies and processes to produce enough food on the planet to feed the entire population. From the Green Revolution to the digitalization of agriculture, the technologies…
It's difficult to overstate the enormity of biodiversity on the island of New Guinea. It contains over 13,000 endemic plant species (meaning these plants grow nowhere else in the world).…
Josefina Tunki is a mother, even though she doesn’t have any biological children. In 2019, she became the first president of the Shuar Arutam People (Pueblo Shuar Arutam, PSHA, in…
JAKARTA — A “social forestry” program administered by the Indonesian government to grant land rights to communities has not been effective in preventing deforestation, and in some cases has even…
The impacts of burning fossil fuels are not only being felt in the environment, but are also affecting human health. The most known and studied trends to date have been…
In January 2017, I played telephone tag with E.O. Wilson. Routinely compared to Darwin (‘a modern-day Darwin’ or ‘Darwin’s natural-heir’ among others) E.O. Wilson is renowned for his work on…
In the 1980s, when the Philippines’ Energy Development Corporation, or EDC, began developing plans for a geothermal energy plant near Mount Apo, a dormant volcano on the southern island of…
BARINGO COUNTY, Kenya — Across the arid landscape of Baringo county in western Kenya, in the geologically active Great Rift Valley, the December heat is scorching. Although the Indigenous pastoralist…
To date, 2021 has proved to be one of the most consequential years for Indigenous rights and participation in global climate and conservation efforts. As biodiversity loss mounted and urgency…
Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within…
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…
The lush rainforest stretches for miles across the Terra do Meio Ecological Station, in Brazil's northern state of Pará. Near the edge of the vast protected reserve, a makeshift road…
2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity…
California is the world’s largest driver of oil exports in the Amazon, researchers of two environmental NGOs, Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch have found. By tracking crude oil exports from four…
RIO BRANCO, Brazil — The intensification of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon is increasingly impacting the health of local populations, with a marked effect on the region’s Indigenous peoples.…
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The Akawaio and Arecuna peoples of Guyana’s Upper Mazaruni District in the north of the country could be forgiven for being a little impatient. For 23 years…
An initiative in the northern Brazilian Amazon is helping a group of rural women reclaim their riverine culture and traditions while also empowering them economically. The Sementes do Araguari Association,…
Myanmar’s rainforests, home to the endangered Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar), are some of the most biodiverse in the…
Near the western fringe of the Brazilian Amazon, the emerald canopy blankets hundreds of thousands of hectares. Tucked into the vast Guajará-Mirim State Park, savanna forest stretches for miles before…
"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,…
SOUTH RUPUNUNI, Guyana — In a Facebook post this past November, Guyana’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced that it had issued a special mining permit to a group of small-scale…
