Several mines around the world dispose of potentially toxic mine waste directly into the ocean. Environmentalists have criticized the practice, arguing that the waste smothers ocean habitat and leaches harmful…
As it seeks to diversify its sources of fuel, India is looking to get in on the ground floor of coal mining in previously unexploited deposits in Indonesian Papua. In…
In 2008, when a consortium led by ExxonMobil was drumming up support for a $19 billion natural gas extraction and processing project in Papua New Guinea, proponents of the development…
Traditional landowners in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, have exerted their power of veto under the autonomous region's new mining laws and rejected a corporate bid by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL)…
Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…
Around the world, there’s a push for rapid infrastructure development, and nowhere is that truer than in Southeast Asia. Roads, seen by the World Bank as a “blunt instrument” for…
TAMBRAUW, Indonesia — It took more than two hours by boat, through a driving rain, to reach the village of Saubeba from the nearest large town of Sausapor in Indonesia’s…
Papua New Guinea has been granted its largest-ever conservation area, a 3,600-square kilometer (1,390-square mile) protected area of rainforest in the country’s southeast that stretches from near the ocean up…
Experts gathered last week in Malaysia’s capital to explore ways to maximize the benefits of road projects without severely impacting the environment.
The character Yoda, the venerable Jedi Master from the Star Wars franchise, may have come from a galaxy far, far away, but his face seems to pop up a lot…
A report released today by London-based NGO Global Witness has prompted major US retailers to discontinue sales of exotic wood flooring linked to illegal logging in the tropical forests of…
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government is actively pursuing the potential of developing a coal mining industry for the first time in the country’s history. Two years ago, it channeled…
On an island in Papua New Guinea, scientists say they have rediscovered a species of monitor lizard thought to be "lost" to science since the 1800s. The medium-sized lizard was…
British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto was for 45 years the majority-owner of the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville, an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea (PNG). But now it has…
"Everywhere you look, it's the infrastructure that's very often the first stage in complete profound change," explains William Laurance. Laurance is a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in…
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…
Remote-controlled vehicles will soon begin churning up the ocean floor off the cost of Papua New Guinea, searching for millions of tons of copper and gold. In 2011, Canada-based Nautilus…
Paul Palosualrea Pavol of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea (PNG) has won the Alexander Soros Foundation’s Award for Environmental and Human Rights Activism. In a statement, the Alexander Soros…
r. Andrew Mack studies the close living relatives of the dinosaur, the cassowaries, giant flightless birds that can knock you out with a single kick. Though, as Dr. Mack will…
Author's note: after posting, I located a better data set on plant species diversity, which altered the original rankings dropping Peru from #4 to #6. May 22 has been designated…
