*Name changed for the security of sources who feared retributions from authorities KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — “The company operates as they please. We’ve asked the authorities for help, but they…
In 2009, a village in southern India became a part of a long experiment. The Shola Trust, an NGO, trained the village’s Indigenous communities to harvest stems of a vibrant…
WHATCOM COUNTY, Washington — "Some mornings, the sun's hitting that reef net just right and it’s like I know it's talking to me,” said Ellie Kinley, a member of the…
Pramila Pradhan, 51, embraced thengapalli, a form of forest stewardship, because of her mother-in-law, who took her along on forest patrols. Thenga means stick, and palli means turn or rotation.…
In the village of Tarapacá, a group of women are working to strike the perfect balance between using the natural resources of the Amazon rainforest for income and protecting this…
The construction industry, with its intensive use of cement, is a climate killer. But an innovator in Mexico has found one solution: combining traditional adobe construction in a state-of-the art solar-powered public building.
ST. JULIAN’S, VALLETTA and MOSTA, Malta — Mediterranean countries, under the guidance of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), are investing in the development of aquaculture as a solution…
In November 2018, Pesqueras Echebastar, a Spanish tuna fishing company, received a certificate of sustainability from the London-based nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries.…
In a remarkable fusion of tradition and innovation, a couple of Marma women and Manipuri men have taken the Bangladeshi fashion scene by storm with their unique creation: a sari…
Sustainable farming, mercury-free fishing and circular trade are among the strategies Amazon Indigenous peoples have been developing to survive in one of the most hostile states for Indigenous people in Brazil.
CONCEPCION, Philippines — The skies were overcast but intense heat from the sun permeated the salty air one June afternoon on Bagongon, a central Philippines island. As the tide receded,…
LABASA, Fiji — Jerry Lotawa knows his forest. He was raised in the tiny settlement of Drawa, a village of 11 brightly painted houses tucked high in the mountains of…
LABASA, Fiji — No one finds their way to the village of Drawa by accident. To get there, you must first board a tiny plane to Labasa, the biggest town…
Lomwé and Macua communities in Mozambique’s Zambezia province traditionally harvest wild mushrooms to eat alongside staples like cassava. Conservationists are working with hundreds of Indigenous women there to commercialize the…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A flurry of subdecrees released through the end of July and early August show that the Cambodian government has approved he addition of more than a…
Foreign tuna fishing companies, mostly from Asia, have been exploiting Madagascar’s waters since the 1950s. The bloc that is now the European Union joined the hunt in 1986 and didn’t…
SINGAPORE — For a while now, researchers and policy experts have touted the transition to a circular economy as a way to sustainably handle the world’s growing waste and pollution…
The world’s linear economy, critically labeled as “take-make-waste,” is blamed for many global environmental problems, including climate change. The circular economy — focused on conserving resources and material reuse — is a proposed alternative.
MADURA, Indonesia — For centuries, every architect in Indonesia relied on local materials when constructing homes and public spaces. Today Yu Sing is one of the few holding onto this…
We live in a rapidly urbanizing world, with half of humanity now concentrated in cities. Without adequate and affordable housing, more than a billion people live in informal settlements or…
Algae biofuels were initially hailed as a holy grail to sustainably power the transportation sector. Now after more than a decade of boom and bust, the industry says it’s on the verge of globally scalable, climate-friendly jet, ship and truck fuels.
Farmer and agronomist Roberto Rodríguez first taught the farmers of Lejanías they weren’t poor. Once they learned this critical lesson, they relied on themselves, their neighbors and nature to thrive sustainably.
LIMURU, Kenya — Kiambu County in Kenya is facing a major water scarcity crisis that is threatening not only people’s livelihoods but also biodiversity. Rivers and wetlands that were once…
As meetings to oversee deep-sea mining on the high seas draw to a close, it remains unclear whether regulators will allow it to commence in the near future. At the…
KATHMANDU — When NASA’s Earth Observatory published a post on its website earlier this year describing how Nepal had regenerated its forests between 1992 and 2016, it received a lot…
Tanzania is Africa's second-biggest producer of honey, and to get it to the next level, the country’s government and aid agencies want beekeepers to adopt hanging-frame beehive designs to increase…
More than a decade ago, Bolivia pioneered an innovative conservation project. For the very first time, inhabitants of the same watershed, both those living in rural areas and in cities,…
Seaweed, a common name for thousands of marine plants and algae found in different water bodies, not only provides food and shelter for marine animals, but it can also help…
Mount Mantalingahan, PHILIPPINES —Ubre Tiblak can vividly remember the day he fell coming down the mountain. It was a rainy afternoon in June 2015, and the 66-kilogram (145-pound) pack on…
Environmental peacebuilding is a rapidly grow field of research and practice. It examines how addressing conflicts over natural resources and improving resource governance can serve as a stepping stone for…
