Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo nine months before his death, returned to the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
Among the 3,500 inmates in the overcrowded Munzenze prison in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are five farmers from the town of Kitshanga. In November 2022, they were…
On Nov. 2, the Kenyan government began demolishing houses and destroying property belonging to Indigenous Ogiek living in the Mau Forest. The Ogiek had won a landmark case in 2017…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Activists have slammed the Indonesian police for rights violations after officers reportedly shot dead a villager and injured at least two others during a protest against…
RIO DE JANEIRO — Monitoring the threats that uncontacted traditional peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon is set to become easier for Indigenous rights activists and agencies, thanks to a…
One morning in 2013, Ojobe William watched as the blade of a bulldozer destroyed his farm in southeastern Nigeria. Soldiers armed with whips and rifles looked on, alert. Residents of…
The Philippines has gained the grim distinction of being Asia's deadliest country for land and environmental defenders, with 281 deaths over the past decade, roughly one-third of which were linked…
In just 72 hours this month, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 7, security guards for a palm oil company allegedly shot and wounded five Tembé Indigenous people, in the latest flareup linked to a long-running land dispute. The incidents occurred in a part of the Amazonian state of Pará that’s been dubbed the “palm oil war” region, where Mongabay has over the past year documented the escalating tensions.
Gabriel Trujillo was unstoppable when it came to studying nature. Botany, his passion, led him to explore lots of places while cataloging plants and their behaviors. In June 2023, that…
Anger over latest oil spill as Shell pipeline contaminates river and farms in Nigeria Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) says an oil spill from Shell’s Trans…
KATHMANDU — On Jan. 10, 2020, 24-year-old Dilip Mahato died after being stabbed multiple times and then run over with a truck. Mahato was an outspoken critic of illegal sand…
Only 13 of some 60 men implicated in a human trafficking case in which Indonesian drug users were imprisoned under the guise of a rehabilitation program and forced to work…
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
Indigenous groups are seeking urgent measures against the escalation of police violence they face in seeking to reclaim their ancestral lands in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. In most…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Karla Mendes is a fellow. A prominent Indigenous leader was shot in the head on May 14…
The human rights organization Front Line Defenders has published its Global Analysis 2022, a report on the state of people who have dedicated their lives to defending the environment, Indigenous…
PHNOM PENH — On the morning of April 26, a handful of activists took to the streets of the Cambodian capital to commemorate the 11th anniversary of environmentalist Chut Wutty’s…
A new wave of land conflicts between a major palm oil company and local communities has recently broken out in the Brazilian Amazon, raising concerns about escalating violence in the…
This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, and Native News Online. NEW YORK—In Tanzania, the…
This article was published in a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and La Barra Espaciadora de Ecuador. “We’ve been resisting oil operations in this territory since they tried to begin them six…
Journalists in Brazil have a saying, an expression penned by Brazilian poet Gonçalves Dias: “Boys, I saw it!” It’s popular among anyone going to the field to make reports, interview…
PRADO, Bahia — Eliane de Oliveira Conceição heard the roar of gunfire before she could see who was firing. In the early hours of daylight, she could make out three…
Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem.…
Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…
DRC community accuses Canadian miner of encroaching into their forests WALIKALE, Democratic Republic of Congo — For the past 10 years, a Canadian-registered company, Alphamin Bisie, has been mining tin…
The controversial whistleblower who helped expose corruption in Thailand's parks department has gained a major promotion — and increased scrutiny of his own checkered history, which includes two murder charges,…
“A lot of people talk about conservation in terms of theory, in terms of simply what is shown in books; but it’s another thing to experience a place and to…
Throughout 2022, Colombian authorities identified the presence of 40 dredgers on the Colombian side of the Puré River, with another 200 operating on the Brazilian side, where it is known…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — This autumn, Mongabay had the opportunity to interview Nelly Marubo, friend and colleague of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who was brutally murdered in the Brazilian Amazon…
