JAKARTA — Illegal loggers in Indonesia’s remote Papua region have largely evaded any meaningful kind of punishment and continue to operate unimpeded, in what a new report calls a failure…
MANILA — Indigenous youths harboring from a military-led counterinsurgency in the Philippines may soon lose the only safe space they have known for the past two years. Under a nearly…
When Singaporean customs officials opened a shipping container en route to Vietnam from Nigeria on April 3, 2019, they found piles of canvas sacks stuffed full of dusty, dried flakes.…
DIANA REGION, Madagascar — With the sun still low in the sky, my taxi boat pulled up to a floating wooden pontoon in the bustling port of Ankify in northwestern…
2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay's year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what's in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch.…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government will reopen some of its waters to fishing with seine and trawl nets, drawing criticism over the destruction wrought by this practice. The fisheries ministry…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Read parts one and two of the series, and watch the film here. It’s cloudy when my plane lands at the airport…
JAKARTA — The arrest of Indonesia’s fisheries minister on bribery charges has prompted a freeze on exports of lobster larvae, but a top official has indicated this is unlikely to…
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested the country’s fisheries minister on charges of corruption related to a controversial policy to resume exports of baby lobsters. Agents from the Corruption…
On November 5, 2015 an iron ore mine tailings dam owned by Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton, two of the world’s largest mining firms, collapsed in Mariana, Brazil. Life along Rio Doce has not been the same since.
JAKARTA — Eighty-eight Indonesian sailors have recently been repatriated from a notorious Chinese fishing fleet where six of their compatriots died under harsh working conditions. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry announced…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is trying to downplay the potential environmental fallout from a recently passed slate of deregulation, prompting criticism from experts. Foreign investors have joined domestic groups…
Another Indonesian crew member has died aboard the Long Xing 629, a Chinese vessel alleged to have used forced labor to engage in illegal fishing, including shark finning, Mongabay has…
Since Susi Pudjiastuti left her post atop the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in 2019, the nation's fisheries policy has undergone major changes. Besides reviving a controversial lobster…
Poaching for tusks, horns or other body parts is a well-recognized threat to Africa's wildlife, but the impact of hunting for bushmeat may pose a greater threat. Conservationists in Southern…
JAKARTA — When Indonesian lawmakers passed a hugely controversial deregulation bill on the evening of Oct. 5, Sulaiman was with his fellow fishermen who had just returned home from the…
Multiple versions of a sweeping deregulation law passed in Indonesia last week contain substantial differences affecting the nation’s plantation sector, despite assurances from lawmakers that any changes to the text…
Update: A new version of the deregulation law containing substantial changes began to circulate on Oct. 12. Mongabay covered it here. A wide-ranging deregulation bill passed in Indonesia this week…
In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to…
Mining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Amazon…
HO CHI MINH CITY — Earlier this year, Vietnam’s prime minister called for a ban of the wildlife trade in the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several months…
In late July, a high-speed chase stirred the waters northeast of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, as patrol officers pursued a Vietnamese vessel suspected of illegal fishing. Having fled when authorities approached…
U.S. authorities say they’ve broken up a conspiracy to traffic shark fins in and out of Florida by a company based in California, where their sale and export is banned…
LOMBOK, Indonesia — Jafarudin, a fisherman from Indonesia’s Lombok Island, had been looking forward to the resumption of baby lobster exports. Months before the Indonesian fisheries ministry made an official…
With its pastel-colored skin and mouth that seems fixed into a smile, the web-footed gecko (Pachydactylus rangei) is a charming-looking creature. The species, which is endemic to the Namib Desert,…
Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.
MANILA — In the Philippines, it’s normal for neighbors to share their food, and — since most areas are still under a form of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic…
Update 8/28/20 17:00 Pacific: shortly after this post was published, the Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA) - Brazil's Ministry of Environment - announced it had reached a deal to secure…
The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have launched a blockade of the BR-163 highway, a key Brazilian commodities shipment route, mostly in protest over lost funding to prevent reserve invasions.
The historical record shows that Indigenous reserves are only safe from invasion by illegal deforesters once fully protected by government — protections rapidly eroding in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
