Natural Resources News

KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…

MANILA — When reports came out that the microsatellite Diwata-1 of the Philippines had re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on April 6, ending its mission, it made headlines for being the…

Like much of the world, Argentina remains locked down, its citizens more or less homebound due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the torpor, Yamana Gold, a Canada-based mining company,…

Applications to mine on indigenous lands in the Amazon have increased by 91% under the Bolsonaro administration. Among the applicants are mining giant Anglo American, small-scale cooperatives whose members are embroiled in a range of environmental violations, and even a São Paulo-based architect.

Extreme flooding in the Ecuadoran Amazon has caused widespread disarray along the banks of the Bobonaza River, all amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past couple of weeks, the surging…

The Land Portal Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands, recently released what it’s calling “the largest global database of land and property rights projects.” In around a decade…

From spiderweb-inspired shampoo to a hotel whose architecture is based on the thermal properties of toucan beaks, scientists and companies in Brazil are betting on nature’s intelligence to create innovative solutions that reduce impacts on the planet.

Illegal gold mining led to deforestation of thousands of hectares of forests inside indigenous reserves in the Brazilian Amazon, according to new satellite image analysis by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP). Mongabay had exclusive access to the report prior to its release.

The peatlands of the Congo Basin are home to more than just massive carbon stocks and some of our closest — and most threatened — relatives in the animal kingdom,…

More than a decade of illegal gold mining around the upstart town of La Pampa in the Peruvian Amazon has tainted local water supplies, razed forests adjacent to a world-class…

Leaders of several indigenous communities have lodged a complaint with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, that a Netherlands-based oil company fouled the environment in Peru's slice…

Billions of dollars in loans issued to resource-rich countries could saddle them with insurmountable debt, according to a new report from the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), a nonprofit organization…

IABOAKOHO, Madagascar — The only light for many miles came from the glow of the makeshift screen as a cool July evening descended on the Iaboakoho commune. A generator whirred…

Authorities in Indonesia have expanded their efforts to shut down illegal gold mining in Sumatra, where they practice has grown in recent years. Officials in West Sumatra province pledged last…

The world’s most impoverished communities don’t need to be told that intact ecosystems are vital to their health, says Joseph Walston, vice president for field conservation programs with the Wildlife…

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — “Growing up in the country, I never knew about coffee and Milo. I grew up on lime leaf tea, pear leaf tea, fever grass, sweet broom, all…

Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with…

Five communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the more than 10,000 residents who call them home, now have legal control of the forests on which they depend.…

JAKARTA — Environmental officials have warned of the potentially catastrophic impact of a planned gold mine in a conservation zone in eastern Indonesia, amid mixed signals from the district chief…

GARUT, Indonesia — It was, at first sight, a typical scene for the Ath-Taariq Islamic boarding school in Indonesia’s West Java province: some 50 people, most of them women, gathered…

WEST BENGAL, India — For the tough, weather-beaten farmers in the rural heartland of West Bengal, agroforestry is an age-old tradition that even finds mention in their folklore. In the…

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Venezuela may have the world’s largest oil reserves according to OPEC, but oil experts are looking to its bordering neighbor Guyana as the next big thing. Widely…

When environmental activist Erlan Sleur heard that four sand mining barges had been spotted at Braamspunt beach, he dropped everything. Construction work on his house could wait. “I wanted to…

Papua New Guinea announced last week that it is deploying its military to quell violence in Hela Province, home to the country's largest oil and gas project.  Tribal conflict in…

Under Indonesian law, resource extraction companies are responsible for restoring mining sites after they have finished scraping coal from the earth. Mining companies are legally required to set aside funds…

The two food production systems that support Bolivia — family farming and agribusiness — are being hit by the worst drought in the last quarter century and one of the…

The ongoing civil war in South Sudan is taking a severe toll on the country’s wildlife and other natural resources, conservationists warn. There has been a “sharp” rise in illegal…

A recent study, published in BioScience, details successful efforts by local citizens to monitor natural resources, and finds that citizens do the job just as effectively as trained scientists. The…