PALAWAN, Philippines — What do you do if you encounter a saltwater crocodile on your way home? For Roozie Quea Idlana, a resident of the town of Balabac in the Philippines,…
MIAMI — Along the Miami shoreline, luxury high-rises and condominiums run parallel to Biscayne Bay, one of South Florida’s most biodiverse ecosystems, characterized by its once abundant coral reefs, seagrass…
JAKARTA — Hundreds of Indonesian fishers protesting against an offshore tin mining operation in Sumatra have seized a dredging vessel they deemed to be operating within their fishing zone. The…
COLOMBO — Authorities in Sri Lanka have called for a renewed focus on conserving the island’s rich coastal ecosystems, identifying the “blue economy” as key to the nation’s sustainable development.…
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…
Indonesia has more mangrove forests than anywhere else on Earth. The country's 17,500 islands house around 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of mangrove, or one-fifth of the world's remaining…
BANGKA, Indonesia — For more than two decades Ardianto has walked to the coastal mangrove trees from his village in Indonesia’s Bangka Island at sunrise with a triangular net, searching…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Seen from above, Cape Ca Mau National Park, at Vietnam’s southernmost point, juts into the Gulf of Thailand like a verdant green toe. This…
In 2018, Chile designated a marine protected area (MPA) around its Diego Ramirez island, offering protection to kelp forests — ecosystems that provide nurseries for young marine organisms and lock away carbon…
Celine van Bijsterveldt and her team had traveled to Central Java’s mangrove forests to investigate efforts to restore them. But when the researchers saw plastic trash strewn throughout the swamps,…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian government initiative that fell short of its goal to rehabilitate degraded peat forests will get another chance to do so — plus the added task of…
AKLAN, Philippines — In December 1989, Elizabeth Ramos, now 63, heard from a neighbor that a mangrove reforestation project was underway near her home in the province of Aklan in…
“In the years when logging was not happening, sometimes you did not see the sunlight in the bush because of the tree cover,” said Musa Mballo, a forest protection activist…
Five years ago – where the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea meet is the small South American country of Guyana – an offshore oil exploration struck black gold. At…
The vast tangled mangrove forests that sweep along so many tropical coasts are one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems. They also play crucial roles in protecting coastlines from erosion…
SINGAPORE — Languishing in the soft, silty mud, the living fossil looked as if it didn’t have a care in the world as it feasted on the fish left stranded…
MANILA — On July 29, the San Miguel Corporation, the Philippines’ largest company by revenue, started planting 25,000 mangrove trees in a coastal area just north of the capital, Manila.…
A Japanese ship that wrecked off the coast of Mauritius in July and sparked one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history may have run aground because of…
On the morning of Aug.15, a wrecked ship, longer than the Titanic, broke in two in Mauritian waters. The Japanese-owned bulk carrier, M.V. Wakashio, had rammed into the island nation's…
Mauritius, envied the world over for its azure waters, alluring beaches and marine riches, is facing one of its worst environmental disasters after a ship ran aground on a coral…
BANGKA BELITUNG, Indonesia — Fishers in Sumatra have joined forces in opposition to a government plan to allow coastal mining that they say will destroy their fisheries. The government of…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — A $9.3 billion residential and tourism development has been approved within the buffer zone of the Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve here in this…
“Twenty years ago, I collected between 600 to 800 a day – now I’m lucky if I can harvest 150.” Adrian Torres holds a black, shining, wrinkled mollusk (Anadara tuberculosa)…
AKLAN, Philippines — An oil spill on July 3 threatens a mangrove forest on the Philippine island of Guimaras, an area only just recovering from the country’s largest spill in…
MANNAR, Sri Lanka — The Vidattaltivu coastal belt in Sri Lanka’s north was once home to the marine unit of the Tamil Tiger guerrilla group, known as the “Sea Tigers.”…
The threshold beyond which the world’s mangrove forests can survive could be reached within the next 30 years if sea levels continue to rise at their current pace and greenhouse…
PALAWAN, Philippines — Lawyers have condemned police officers on the Philippine island of Palawan for holding at gunpoint and arresting environmental law enforcers who visited a coastal village on June…
JAKARTA — The Waladuna mosque is submerged in a meter of seawater, about 3 feet deep. It’s low tide in northern Jakarta. During high tide, the water creeps up to…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — As the largest urban area in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City is known for its kinetic pace of life, rivers of motorbike traffic, and…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. In late 2013, during a hearing convened by the local legislature of Indonesia’s Maluku province, a…
