Social Justice News

From oil to diamonds, offshore prospecting looms over South African fishing town DORINGBAAI, South Africa — On Sept. 23 and 24, 150 women in the small fishing town of Doringbaai,…

The July 2021 rupture of a tailings dam at a diamond mine in Angola killed off much of the aquatic life in the Lova, Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. Twelve people…

The Caribbean island is currently being convulsed by a wave of civil unrest and gang violence, immediately triggered by soaring gas prices. But a dire environmental crisis underlays and feeds Haiti’s socioeconomic and political disorder.

It was 35 years ago that Ailton Krenak, while painting his entire face with the black dye of the jenipapo fruit, protested against violence against Indigenous peoples in one of…

This is the second article in a two-part series. Read the first installment here. PANTURA, Indonesia — Not so long ago, Lestari Priyanto needed only sail for a week from…

This is the first article in a two-part series. Read the second installment here. PANTURA, Indonesia — More than 10,000 brightly painted trawlers regularly come and go from the rowdy…

As the clamor to protect vast portions of Earth’s lands and waters grows louder to meet upcoming international goals, a newly translated book critically examines the first principles of global…

I am waiting for the moment when I will be evicted because trees will be planted where my apartment building is right now. I am also waiting for the moment…

Citing growing repression against environment defenders in Vietnam, 52 celebrated environmentalists from across the globe have signed a joint letter calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to…

The Landless Workers Movement in Brazil (or MST, its acronym in Portuguese) is one of the largest social movements in the world. Born in the early 1980s at the end…

Indigenous groups in Brazil are demanding justice after a spate of killings allegedly linked to land disputes left four people dead and two injured in the space of just 10…

Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance. In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.

Authorities in Bangladesh have been slammed for harassment and lack of compassion after arresting 59 people from forest-dependent communities for violating a ban on entering the Sundarbans, the world’s biggest…

In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…

COLOMBO — When Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced from office this month, among those leading the people power movement against Sri Lanka’s deeply unpopular president were the country’s environmental activists. For…

Scientists and conservationists are calling for action to stop violence against Indigenous peoples, local communities and environmental defenders across the Amazon region in South America. The Association for Tropical Biology…

The increasing difficulty of accessing clean water is forcing young women in coastal areas of Bangladesh to try to halt their menstrual cycles by misusing contraceptive pills, putting their long-term…

It’s said that the Rio Negro is so long that it can take two months to row its entire length. The river starts out in Colombia, touches Venezuela, where it…

Three years ago, Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Brazilian Amazon. He was a member of the “Guardians of the Forest,”…

For 13 years, the Indigenous Ogiek people have been embroiled in a legal battle with the Kenyan government for legal recognition of their rights to the Mau Forest, the largest…

If you can read, hear or feel this, you have power. It was as if I were being let in on a secret. Obviously, I’d already heard of global warming…

Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after  reading my articles and hearing…

At times of anguish and confusion we turn to nature to quiet the mind and find healing. We hold on to the miraculous survival of wildlife and ecosystems, to persist…

Today we’re talking about agroecology, which applies ecological principles to agricultural systems and is considered to be a key strategy for both mitigating and adapting to global climate change, as…

In some respects, it was expected. The same doomsday scenarios. The same periodic reminders of more horror to come. The same organization of working groups. The same approach grounded in…

With the relatively recent proposal in the British parliament to ban the import of wildlife trophies, the issue has once again taken center stage among factions of the global conservation…

In early February, wildlife rangers in the remote northern forests of West Africa’s Republic of Benin became some of the most recent victims of the Sahel’s long-running Islamist insurgency when…

In 2021, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest province, Tshopo, lost 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of intact forests to fires. Researchers based in the provincial capital, Kisangani, suspect the record-breaking…

1. The ocean-climate nexus The presence of the ocean was felt more strongly than ever at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12…

Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.