Over the past 20 years, the conservation sector has increasingly recognized the contributions Indigenous communities have made toward achieving conservation goals, including protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystems that sustain us.…
In a ruling that could strengthen Indigenous land rights claims across Brazil, the nation’s Supreme Court has sided with the Guarani Kaiowá, allowing the possible reopening of a case involving their territory claim.
In a far-flung stretch of the Brazilian Amazon, the dense rainforest is slowly giving way to neat rows of oil palm that stretch for miles. Beyond the plantations, a narrow…
Mongabay starts publishing today a series of data-driven multimedia stories on Brazil’s Indigenous people living in urban areas, including the metropolitan centers of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília, showing that Indigenous people are much closer to most Brazilians than they realize
With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand…
Selangor, on the western coast of peninsular Malaysia is the country's most populous and prosperous state as well as one of its most highly urbanized. Amid this sprawl, just 25…
Stretching along the narrow spit of land that connects the Malay peninsula to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia, Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region is home to a confluence of animals and…
A recent Mongabay investigation into Brazil’s palm oil supply chain will be included in up to two legal actions targeting Biopalma, whose use of pesticides led to water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
A new report reveals that investing in securing the land rights of Indigenous and tribal communities across Latin America and the Caribbean could cut carbon dioxide emissions at low costs…
JAKARTA — After halting forest-clearing operations in 2020, the Digoel Agri conglomerate has apparently restarted its activities in Indonesia’s Papua province, raising alarms among local Indigenous communities who say they…
Today we discuss a new investigative report by Mongabay’s contributing editor for Brazil, Karla Mendes, that looks at the impacts of the palm oil industry’s growth in the Amazon. Listen…
A group of 81 Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders from across the world have signed an open letter to BlackRock, saying the fund manager’s investments “continue to threaten our health,…
A longer Spanish version of this essay appeared in the Journal of Latin American Geography. Indigenous elders play a key role in the protection of their culture and livelihoods. A…
Well-known investment funds in the U.S., Europe and South Africa are financing a set of oil palm plantations that have been at the center of more than a century of…
In the past decade, the term “Just Transition” has gained more widespread understanding among climate campaigners and environmental advocates. A Just Transition is the idea that the shift toward low-carbon…
Anglo American has up to 86 applications pending to mine on Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon — a practice that is currently prohibited but could soon be allowed under a controversial bill. The company has refused to commit not to mine on Indigenous lands, yet also claims it never intended to do so when it and its two Brazilian subsidiaries filed nearly 300 applications for that very purpose.
For the past 18 months, Mongabay has investigated allegations of widespread abuses by palm oil companies in Brazil, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for…
In a new report, Greenpeace has linked major Brazilian meat processors JBS, Marfrig and Minerva to cattle ranchers that satellite data indicate were responsible for setting fires in Brazil’s Pantanal…
The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
A controversial freight railway line that would cut through Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon looks set to be approved for construction by the federal government as soon as April,…
Despite growing international awareness of the importance of protecting and restoring our vital ecosystems, President Bolsonaro’s far-right government has taken a wrecking ball to much of the environmental progress made…
On Sept. 3, 2019, the remains of Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, a Karen environmental and community rights defender who was disappeared in 2014, were found in an oil drum submerged under…
JAKARTA — The framework for resolving land disputes involving palm oil companies in Indonesian Borneo has largely failed, allowing conflicts to fester for a decade or more, with very few…
For decades, Indonesia has been blighted by some of the highest levels of deforestation on earth. It also provides more than half the world’s palm oil. The two things are directly related. Palm…
A Portuguese language version of this report is published on Mongabay Brasil TOMÉ-AÇU, Brazil — Guided by an Indigenous leader, we drove down dusty roads in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve, a…
Veronica Tavares Batista is only 19 years old, but has seen more conflicts over land than most people will ever see in their lifetime. Her home of Brejo de Miguel…
IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has reversed itself, allowing Norte Energia, operator of the mega-dam, to divert water flow to turbines, potentially wrecking the river’s Big Bend Indigenous and traditional fishery.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a 19 million acre reserve in the northeastern corner of Alaska that's renowned for its beauty and wildlife. ANWR also holds great cultural…
“One of the good things about living here is that it is — or at least it was, before the pandemic — possible to coexist and share ideas, sips of…
In the past year there's been a lot more talk about stakeholder inclusivity in the conservation sector. The combination of the social justice movement arising out of George Floyd's killing…
