Ecuador: Waorani people map their rainforest to save it
After a 20-minute canoe ride down the Curaray River, past a swamp that leaves her legs caked in mud up to her knees, Obe heads toward a waterfall set amid…
Field Museum honors Peruvian organization for its conservation work with indigenous groups
Chicago’s Field Museum presented the 23rd Parker/Gentry Award for conservation biology to the Instituto del Bien Común, an organization that works with indigenous communities in Peru, on May 24. The…
Ecuador: Tribe sees how oil industry affects forest on ‘Toxic Tour’
SUCUMBÍOS PROVINCE, Ecuador — “The land is dead,” says Camilo Pauche as he surveys with consternation the devastation that the oil industry has left in Pacayacu, a village in the Ecuadorian Amazon.…
Colombia grants ‘historic’ protections to rainforest, indigenous groups
In a move described as “unprecedented,” Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that the country intends to add 8 million hectares (80,000 square kilometers or 31,000 square miles) to…
How to build a Guardian: students learn about making technology work in the field
Hundreds of students from science and technology programs around the city of Los Angeles, California have begun participating in a hands-on effort to apply ingenuity and technology to protect the…
Detecting disasters on community lands in the Amazon: film highlights indigenous struggle
Tens of thousands of indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon have been fighting decades of contamination of their natural resources by foreign and domestic oil companies. Oil spills, leaky pipelines,…
Ecuador votes to reduce oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park
YASUNÍ NATIONAL PARK, Ecuador — A decisive battle is just beginning for Indigenous peoples and ecologists who have been watching helplessly as state-owned oil company Petroamazonas settles into Yasuní National…
680000 acres of Amazon rainforest may be lost to Peru’s new roads
Late last year, the Peruvian government gave the go-ahead for the construction of new roads along its border with Brazil in the Ucayali and Madre de Dios regions. The main…
‘They want to occupy and take our land’: Land conflicts increase in Brazil
Deforestation is rife in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, which lies deep in the western Amazon rainforest. A new investigation by Greenpeace reveals that as deforestation of protected areas has…
Extensive illegal cattle ranching destroys core area of Nicaragua’s Indio Maíz Biological Reserve
(This article is a collaboration between Mongabay-Latam and Onda Local in Nicaragua) Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, Nicaragua - The howl of a spider monkey that swayed from branch to branch…
Audio: Global megadam activism and the sounds of nature in Taiwan
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we talk to Sarah Bardeen, the communications director for Berkeley, California-based NGO International Rivers. Bardeen wrote a commentary for Mongabay earlier this year…
Colombia expands indigenous reserves near key deforestation hotspot
The Colombian government announced yesterday the expansion of two indigenous reserves in the buffer zone of Serrania de Chiribiquete, the South American country’s largest national park. The Puerto Sabalo -…
How the World Heritage Convention could save more wilderness: Q&A with World Heritage expert Cyril Kormos
The 41st session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) is convening this week and next in Krakow, Poland, drawing participants from 21 member states, 170 observer nations and a multitude…
Amid life and death risks, Brazil’s land defenders stand firm
MUNICIPALITY OF ALTAMIRA , Brazil – Brazil has made headlines recently for almost entirely negative reasons — whether it is the on-going corruption scandal known as Operation Car Wash, which has…
Brazil agribusiness company accuses ally Temer in secret bribe taping
JBS, the world's largest meat processing company was at the center of two globally reported scandals in March, the first, involving federal bribes that allowed the export of rotten meat, and the…
Jokowi reiterates commitment to indigenous rights
Indonesian President Joko Widodo addressed a contingent of indigenous leaders in Jakarta on Wednesday, reassuring them of his commitment to their civil rights movement in a Muslim-majority archipelago nation of…
Indonesia’s indigenous peoples will have to keep waiting for a promised task force on their rights
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki was the object of a forceful gesture yesterday when a Papuan man approached the stage on which he was sitting…
Jokowi cancels appearance at rare indigenous peoples congress
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Abdon Nababan, head of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, was telling reporters today why it had supported Joko Widodo’s bid for the nation’s top job in…
Q&A with Abdon Nababan, outgoing head of Indonesia’s indigenous peoples alliance
This week in Sumatra at a rare congress of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, thousands of tribal representatives from every corner of Indonesia will gather to determine the future…
Brazil’s ‘river people’ join forces with indigenous communities, offer alternative to deforestation
XINGU RESEX, Brazil – On a blazing recent Amazonian afternoon, with the peak of the day’s heat beating down, Lindolfo Silva de Oliveira Filho, 68 – known as “Senhor Lindolfo”…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Two deaths trigger alarm at Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Database offers new details on the dams that hold mining waste
- Xavante tribe digs in as Brazil reneges on vow not to build a road in their reserve
- Vale has filed hundreds of requests to exploit indigenous lands in Amazon
Asian rhinos
- Indonesia-WWF split puts rhino breeding project in Borneo in limbo
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
