NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya — Caroline Chepkoeh looked around her idyllic property, perched on a hilltop surrounded by green maize fields as far as the eye can see. A storm front…

Large landscapes of intact tropical forests will figure prominently in global strategies to avert catastrophic climate change and conserve biodiversity. In this context, the extensive forests of Papua and West…

BANDUNG, Indonesia — President Joko Widodo has signed a presidential instruction on agrarian reform, in a bid to accelerate a program to give local communities greater control over land. The…

EMBOBUT FOREST, Kenya — One morning in May, David Kisang, 50, sat outside his tiny dome-shaped hut, with its walls made of sticks and black polythene for a roof, sipping…

Indigenous communities occupying four territories in eastern Panama are taking their nearly five-year land-titling battle with the government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. Their move…

JAKARTA — For the past four years, the indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya has battled for state recognition of its right to ancestral forests in a remote pocket…

The camera follows the men through the forest as they arrive at the splintered stump of what looks to have been a massive tree. “For me, the forest is a…

The word “pygmy” conjures images of hunter-gatherers living deep in the Congo rainforest, far removed from the modern world. But that modern world is closing in on them, as the…

MONTES DE MARIA, Colombia - Under a cloudless sky and a baking sun in late January, Argemiros Capela, 76, pointed to a patch of scrubland on his lot that had…

When a farmer cuts down a tree in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there’s often a reason for it. She’s most likely clearing the land to plant crops — the…

TABA PADANG, Indonesia — Yoyon remembers being elected head of his village back in 2010, here on the southwestern coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, following a spate of…

JAKARTA – Marsudi has mixed feelings about the visit earlier this month by Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to his small village of Nganduk in East Java province. On the…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has relinquished control over nine tracts of forest to the indigenous communities that have lived there for generations, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced at a…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is taking a page out of Brazil’s playbook as it seeks to catch up on its carbon reduction commitments and net a financial windfall. Indonesia, a major…

The Liberian government designated a new national park in August 2017 that will protect an important population of Critically Endangered western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), as well as several other…

On Jan. 1, the world’s largest association for ethical palm oil production found that Wilmar International had violated the rights of the indigenous Kapa community of West Sumatra, Indonesia, when…

TIK SIRONG, Indonesia — It is often said in this archipelago country that the best solutions come through consensus. The phrase typically refers to people. But sometimes a compromise is…

ith the disbanding of Colombia’s largest military guerrilla group, FARC, Colombia’s forests could come under pressure from developmental goals. Home to almost 10 percent of the planet’s biodiversity, Colombia is…

iberians are anxiously awaiting the passage of the stalled Land Rights Act, which many land experts in Liberia say will help drastically curtail conflicts. Liberia has long been plagued by disputes…

Rice paddies in Bali. Photo: Rhett Butler Indonesian civil society groups and experts welcome President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's campaign promise to redistribute nine million hectares of land to farmers –…