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…
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…
HUMBANG HASUNDUTAN, Indonesia — Indonesia has an enormous variety of plants with medicinal properties, and traditional herbal medicines such as jamu are still widely used by both urban and rural…
MINDANAO, Philippines — For environmental groups in the Philippines, 2021 went out with a big blow: on Dec. 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reversed a 4-year-old…
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…
All across the arid and semi-arid landscapes of Africa, grasslands meet the eye. These ecosystems provide a wealth of environmental services, sequestering immense amounts of carbon (grazing lands store up…
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…
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…
JAKARTA — In 2020, residents of Suka Mukti village in southern Sumatra paid 10 million rupiah each, about $700, to a government agency to obtain titles to their land —…
Home to more rainforest than any country but Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia is one of the world's most significant nations from an environmental and biodiversity perspective.…
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…
A series of raids by soldiers and rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park have left one Indigenous man dead and a pregnant woman missing, feared burned…
This report is part of a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto. The departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, in southern Colombia, are covered in dense forest where for years entry…
Under a midnight summer sun, the Inari Sámi gather reindeer. New calves, born just months before, are given a distinctive earmark by the Indigenous herders and then released to graze…
SLEMAN, Indonesia — “We have fought against them for so long, but the mining activities just carry on and so does the criminalization,” says Sapoy, a resident of Jomboran village…
One of the major announcements from the United Nations climate summit in Scotland last month, known as COP26, was the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use, along with the…
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,…
This story was written in partnership with Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto. Leaving the headquarters of the Wayuú Women’s Force, Mülo’u took the first taxi she saw. It was…
Pledges and solutions proposed by world leaders to address the climate and biodiversity crisis at the United Nations climate summit, COP26, and biodiversity conference, COP15, are not going to be…
Mining interests in the Brazilian Amazon pose an imminent threat to Indigenous groups, a new study shows, causing “incalculable damage” for 43 isolated groups if a bill legalizing mining on…
A well-known conservation nonprofit in Kenya is embroiled in accusations that it uses a privatized and neocolonial conservancy model to deprive pastoral communities of their rights to use their lands,…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s…
At the COP26 climate summit earlier this month, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari struck an upbeat note on Africa's plan to build a Great Green Wall. "With all hands on deck…
A project originally aimed to fuel agribusiness in one of the most heavily deforested parts of the Brazilian Amazon is now being touted by the government as a “green” and…
NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya — For Joseph Lesingo, a member of the Indigenous Ogiek community, observing the regeneration of previously degraded sections of the Mau Forest has been one of the…
When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…
BALI, Indonesia — Concerns over a major highway project in Bali are mounting, with a new study revealing how the road would affect the island’s signature farmlands. The idea of…
EL ESTOR, Guatemala — Germán Chub was still sleeping when police and military personnel showed up outside his home. It was the fourth day of a month-long state of siege,…
Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
Siã Shanenawa strikes a markedly different image from the stereotypical view of Brazil’s Indigenous people using bows and arrows as their main tools. Siã Shanenawa’s weapons of choice are drones…
