This past June, scientists and researchers gathered outside the office of INPE, Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research, in the municipality of São José dos Campos. They were there to…
THUNG NUI, Thailand — Firdaw Manjeed says she’s glad to be back to school for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Here in Thailand’s southernmost province, Satun, on…
GORO, New Caledonia – Known widely as the “Madagascar of the Pacific,” New Caledonia is coated in remnant Gondwana rainforest and surrounded by reefs rich in marine life that constitute one…
GORO, New Caledonia — On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a…
Authorities in Brazil have uncovered the bodies believed to be those of Dom Phillips, a British journalist, and Bruno Pereira, a prominent Indigenous rights defender. The discovery, on June 15…
In May 2017, Brazilian representatives to the United Nations Human Rights Council brought back 242 recommendations from other U.N. member states on how to improve the country’s compliance with international…
When 700 members of Tanzania’s anti-riot Field Force Unit (FFU) arrived in the Loliondo division of Ngorongoro on June 6, no one told local Maasai pastoralists about the purpose of…
Packed into a thatched-roof meeting hall in the village of Urucurituba, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, hundreds of Mura Indigenous people mulled over whether to allow a massive potash mine…
Legal restrictions meant to protect Brazil’s Indigenous territories from outside threats are failing to deter illegal deforestation and cattle ranching, fueling fears for the safety of uncontacted and isolated Indigenous…
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, according to an analysis by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the international consortium Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Of the total,…
As thousands of people protested in Brazil’s capital against a “death package” of bills deemed anti-environmental and anti-Indigenous, the lower house of Congress agreed to fast-track one of those bills,…
Conservation needs to adopt a human-rights based approach to deal effectively and equitably with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, according to a new report co-authored by…
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has withdrawn as a cooperating agency from the U.S Federal government’s ongoing environmental assessment of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) operations. Standing Rock attributed their…
U.S. timber companies imported nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, circumventing sanctions and channeling millions of dollars in revenue to the country’s junta, according to a…
Myanmar’s rainforests, home to the endangered Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar), are some of the most biodiverse in the…
In one of the largest and most spontaneous protests in post-apartheid South Africa, thousands of people gathered on the country’s eastern coastal beaches last Sunday to voice their dissent against…
Nestled amid the mountains of northern Laos, the picturesque ancient capital of Luang Prabang is under siege from a dam-building fever along the Mekong River, with a Thai developer now…
Earlier this month, six young activists associated with advocacy group Mother Nature Cambodia were released on bail after spending up to 14 months in prison. Although nominally at liberty, their…
When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…
With vulnerable nations enraged as oil nations censor critical COP26 Glasgow accord language, the world is struggling mightily today to hammer out an agreement to truly curb climate change.
Five years ago, one of South Africa's largest coal mines was given permission to grow even larger. In 2016, the Tendele mine was granted mining rights to an additional 212…
Some 1,800 lawsuits attempting to hold nations and corporations responsible for their climate change pledges — assumed to be non-legally binding — are wending their way through the legal system.… And some are being won.
NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philippines – Community leader Eduardo Ananayo says he wept when heard the Philippine government had renewed its mining agreement with Australian-Canadian company OceanaGold Corporation this past July. “We…
SIGAPITON, Indonesia — In mid-August, when Mangatas Togi Butarbutar visited an ancestor’s grave in this village on the shores of Indonesia’s biggest lake, he had to tread carefully. Though the…
RIO DE JANEIRO – Horto, a secluded neighborhood in the south of Rio de Janeiro with a view of the famed Christ the Redeemer statue, is enveloped by forest. Tropical…
As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue to roil Myanmar following the military coup in February, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat. In the seven months since protests erupted,…
Thousands of Indigenous people marched in Brazil’s capital this week, ahead of a landmark Supreme Federal Court ruling that activists warn could hamper the official recognition of Indigenous people’s territories…
BROOME, Australia — A cool breeze blows through the savanna country east of Broome, a small town on the far north coast of Western Australia, Australia's largest state. This time of year is known as Barrgana by the…
In 2017, the name “La Merced de Buenos Aires,” or simply “Buenos Aires,” became famous throughout Ecuador. This small parish located high in the Andean province of Imbabura was invaded…
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…
