MEDAN, Indonesia — A recent clash between Indigenous community members in Sumatra and workers from a pulpwood plantation company has marred ongoing efforts to resolve a decades-long land conflict. At…
BANGKA, Indonesia — In the lore of Bangka Island, one of the world’s main tin-producing centers, the rocky, white-sand beach of Tuing holds a special place. Tuing Beach is one…
JAKARTA — Human rights and environmental activists have called for an investigation following the sudden death of a top government official in a remote Indonesian archipelago who was opposed to…
Illegal miners attacked and tried to block Indigenous leaders in Brazil’s Amazon from traveling to the country’s capital to protest invasions of their lands and violence against their people, in…
This piece was originally published on Atmos as Paid in Blood on June 7, 2021. It has been republished here with the permission of Atmos. Fernando dos Santos Araújo woke…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a landmark 2017 ruling that all plantation data and maps in the country must be made publicly available — a ruling that the…
Satellite imagery reveals several areas of primary rainforest were cleared alongside agricultural fields in the Brazilian Amazon, all in close proximity to Indigenous and protected lands. In March, the Global…
132 Amazon protected areas have been offered for adoption, with three transnational companies signing on so far (French Carrefour, Dutch Heineken, and U.S. Coca Cola). Activists say traditional peoples are not being consulted.
Land conflicts in Brazil hit 1,576 cases in 2020, the highest number ever recorded by the Catholic Church-affiliated Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), which has been keeping track of the issue…
Wildcat miners fired shots and set houses ablaze in an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon this week, fueling worries among Indigenous rights groups of further violent attacks by gold…
San Rafael National Park/Proposed National Reserve sits in eastern Paraguay, quietly encompassing a remnant of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest, a unique biome that stretches between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay…
After a week of violent clashes with illegal gold miners in Roraima state, the Yanomami people’s calls for federal help have remained unanswered. The government will incur daily fines of 1 million reais ($189,000) if the delay exceeds June 5.
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
For the past several years, Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park has been racked by one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country. According…
While Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state, Brazil’s Lower House approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, further endangering the country’s ecosystems and traditional communities.
During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
“I’m the one who called the meeting; I’m going to set the tone,” says Viviane Aguiar, a lawyer representing the Renova Foundation, interrupting Valeriana Gomes de Souza, a cattle farmer…
An unprecedented lawsuit by an Indigenous group that was once nearly wiped out seeks $8.2 million in damages for continued invasions and destruction of their territory
PURWOKERTO, Indonesia — An environmental expert in Indonesia has warned against a government plan to relocate mangrove trees along the north coast of the island of Java to make way…
JAKARTA — On March 10, Suande, a member of the Dayak Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo, said goodbye to his family before leaving his village for the police station in…
Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary sprawls across a vast expanse of Cambodia’s eastern reach. But much of what used to be covered in lush rainforest has been laid barren by deforestation.…
On Monday, French energy giant Total declared force majeure on its multibillion-dollar light natural gas (LNG) project in northern Mozambique, formally withdrawing all of its employees from the region and…
Imagine you have invaded a public land in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, cut the forest down and, after all that, you get the papers that certify you as…
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.
MANILA — The Philippines is protesting the presence of more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels anchored at Whitsun Reef, a shallow coral region located 175 nautical miles (324 kilometers) west…
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…
Three Guarani men were assaulted last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state allegedly over an ongoing land dispute between ranchers and Indigenous people; one expert accuses the Bolsonaro government of “restriction of the rights of Indigenous peoples.”
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.
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…
