KATHMANDU — In a “historic announcement,” Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered the government not to build a controversial international airport in the country’s south. The order comes four years after…
JAKARTA — The United Nations has reiterated its concerns over allegations of human rights violations in a mega infrastructure tourism development project on the Indonesian island of Lombok. In light…
In 1835, a rebellion broke out in the Lower Amazon region, in what was then the state of Grão-Pará, Brazil. The vast majority of the population was composed of Afro-Brazilians,…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Fishers in Indonesia’s Riau province have petitioned President Joko Widodo to end offshore dredging operations that they say threaten their livelihoods and the marine ecosystem. The letter,…
A hydroelectric dam complex in southern Argentina, one of the country’s largest energy projects, is facing backlash from conservationists and Indigenous communities who are worried about its impact on the…
In April, Indonesia’s fisheries minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, announced there would be no funding from the 2022 national budget to develop the National Fish Bank in Maluku province, or a…
In March this year, headlines across the United States announced the rare sighting of an elusive creature in Yellowstone National Park: the wolverine. In the accompanying photographs, a lumbering, blackish-brown…
Brazil’s plan to open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters via Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) and associated side roads such as AM-366 is undoubtedly the planned…
A plan being pushed by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to pave a long-abandoned road in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon has spurred a rash of land grabs…
PASURUAN, Indonesia — Farming and other water-based industries thrive in Pasuruan, a fertile rice-growing district in Indonesia’s East Java province that’s home to active volcanoes and rich aquifers. Thanks to…
The figures vary and come from different sources, including the government, but they all point to the wildlife massacre taking place on the roads of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a sanctuary for half of the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas, alongside forest elephants and many other species. But two road projects…
Bangladesh, a country of some 180 million people, has one of the smallest carbon footprints in the world. Its emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement are similarly modest: 5%…
For the past decade, an association of small farmers has been growing vegetables amid a strip of filao trees that grow on the sand dunes along the coastline in the…
KATHMANDU — Nine lakes listed as Ramsar sites, perennial rivers that start from the Himalayas and beyond, and lush green fields in the foothills of the mountains: these features make…
The central Purus River Basin is one of the best-preserved regions of the Brazilian Amazon. But deforestation here, in the state of Amazonas, could clear an area larger than England…
Hydropower accounts for more than 60% of the electricity generated in Brazil. And the network of mighty rivers in the Amazon Basin is responsible for most of this potential. Today,…
The myth of a “demographic void” in the Amazon and of the “virgin forest” has been systematically debunked by a series of scientific studies showing that the rainforest has a…
QUITO, Ecuador — On Jan. 28, 2022, Ecuador’s Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (known by its Spanish acronym OCP), ruptured, contaminating more than 20,000 square meters of the Cayambe Coca National…
Since October 2020, Thailand's national parks authority has demolished or ordered the demolition of more than 20 luxury mansions, resorts and tourist hotels illegally built in national parks throughout the…
The fourth episode in the New Guinea series of Mongabay Explores uncovers the massive Trans-Papua Highway, the potential it has to deforest the largest protected area in Southeast Asia, and…
The third episode in the New Guinea series of Mongabay Explores covers the island’s unique birds-of-paradise, and their symbolism as ambassadors for both the island’s beautiful landscape, and also the…
JAKARTA — Local opposition to a mine on Indonesia’s Java Island, and the heavy-handed police crackdown on protesters, has turned the national spotlight on a spate of development projects touted…
KATHMANDU — Stuffed garbage bags float gently down the Bisnumati River in the western part of Kathmandu. The river, sacred to Nepal’s Hindu and Buddhist populations, is one of the…
On Dec. 9, the Ugandan parliament passed a bill allowing the controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) to proceed. Construction can now begin according to the agreement signed between…
SYABRUBESI, Nepal — Trucks stir up dust on the gravel road here in Syabrubesi, an eight-hour drive from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. From Syabrubesi, the road winds 11 kilometers…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is launching a program to make the country’s ports more environmentally friendly in an effort to reduce its carbon emissions and protect the marine ecosystem. The so-called…
Yasuní National Park in Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest has long been famed for being one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, home to thousands of species of plants, birds,…
Nestled amid the mountains of northern Laos, the picturesque ancient capital of Luang Prabang is under siege from a dam-building fever along the Mekong River, with a Thai developer now…
