Indigenous Rights News

Brazil’s army helped control Amazon fires in September, but loggers, miners and land grabbers — likely emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — are bringing a surge in deforestation.

KENDARI, Indonesia — A conflict between residents of a remote Indonesian island and a nickel-mining company trying to operate there has gained national attention. In September, the National Commission on…

Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.

The UN special envoy for this year’s climate summit, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, opened the September 19-20 Peoples' Summit on Climate, Rights and Human Survival with an admonition for…

In the Caño La Sal reservation in central Colombia, the Jiw indigenous community lives on a shrinking amount of land. Several armed groups have begun taking over their territory to…

JAKARTA — The Forest Stewardship Council, the world’s foremost body certifying the sustainable forestry industry, has delayed the publication of its findings into a palm oil company’s operations in Indonesia,…

ROKO-ROKO, Indonesia — Residents of this village on the island of Wawonii look like they’re preparing for a battle. Men with chainsaws guard four jerry-rigged huts they’ve built to protect…

At an Amazon fire meeting, President Jair Bolsonaro and 7 out of 9 state governors pressed forward with plans to open indigenous areas to mining and agribusiness.

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s new capital city will sit at the nexus of the country’s coal and oil hubs in eastern Borneo, the president revealed on Aug. 26. President Joko Widodo,…

KUALA KOH, Malaysia — On a daytime flight into Kuala Lumpur airport, it’s hard not to feel a certain sense of despair. The land, at times adorned by jungle-clad mountains,…

There is still hope in the innocent eyes of Yukpa children. They play, laugh, and jump about, despite the difficulties their people face. However, the adults’ eyes tell a different…

New research bolsters the case for indigenous-led land management as a crucial conservation solution. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Policy last month, focused on land and…

How we use the planet’s land, including forests, will make a huge difference in determining the path of climate change in the future, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate…

First, an American company came knocking. Then an Indian firm. A Chinese corporation soon followed. “Ten years doing logging? The amount of machines they wanted to bring... I said no,…

The Sateré and other groups say they’ve been deprived of healthcare; critics see it as Bolsonaro’s way of forcing reliance on mining and agribusiness for aid.

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s proposed new capital city on the island of Borneo will be built in just five years and without the need to raze any protected rainforest, a government…

Documentary offers a glimpse of the uncontacted Awá Guajá indigenous group, who live in the highly threatened Araribóia reserve in Brazil’s Maranhão state.

Federal and state investigators are looking into the knifing death of Emyra Wajãpi and the alleged invasion of Wajãpi territory by heavily armed miners.

Monthly satellite monitoring shows a huge rise in Amazon deforestation in 2019; conservationists squarely place the blame on Brazil’s Pres. Bolsonaro.

Don’t let appearances fool you. The animal pictured above — the dwarf cattle known as tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis) from the island of Mindoro in the Philippines — may look cute;…