An invasion of up to 5,000 illegal miners is underway in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Reserve in Brazil’s Roraima state, Indigenous leaders estimate. Analysts say Jair Bolsonaro’s rhetoric has emboldened the miners.
In a ruling that could strengthen Indigenous land rights claims across Brazil, the nation’s Supreme Court has sided with the Guarani Kaiowá, allowing the possible reopening of a case involving their territory claim.
Mongabay starts publishing today a series of data-driven multimedia stories on Brazil’s Indigenous people living in urban areas, including the metropolitan centers of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília, showing that Indigenous people are much closer to most Brazilians than they realize
Firings, threats, thefts, gag orders, attempted kidnappings and other intimidation against environmental researchers and civil servants appear to be on the rise; many blame an incendiary Bolsonaro government.
Three Guarani men were assaulted last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state allegedly over an ongoing land dispute between ranchers and Indigenous people; one expert accuses the Bolsonaro government of “restriction of the rights of Indigenous peoples.”
The Kalunga — 39 quilombola communities, the descendants of runaway slaves — have united with international funders to use high-tech georeferencing to catalog their traditional lands and natural resources in Brazil.
JAKARTA — Conflicts over land flared up across Indonesia in 2020, as Indigenous and rural communities tried to hold off pulpwood, palm oil and logging companies ramping up their expansion…
Six rangers working at Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were killed in an ambush by a local militia group on Sunday, according to the park’s…
Osvalinda Alves Pereira is the first Brazilian to win the prestigious Edelstam Prize. As a civil rights defender, and at great risk to herself, Osvalinda is resisting criminals illegally harvesting Amazon timber.
Their territory is suffering the ravages of COVID-19, invasion by 20,000 illegal miners, mercury pollution, severe deforestation, and “genocidal” government apathy, say the Yanomami people.
Amazon fires are burning this year within the protected lands inhabited by isolated uncontacted Indigenous peoples. The fires, largely illegal and intentionally set by land grabbers, ranchers and farmers, are…
The historical record shows that Indigenous reserves are only safe from invasion by illegal deforesters once fully protected by government — protections rapidly eroding in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fifth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fourth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
Brazilian NGO flyovers show that indigenous reserves — including Munduruku lands in the Tapajós basin — are being illegally invaded and deforested by miners likely funded and directed by elite land speculators.
2019 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists, according to a new report by the advocacy watchdog Global Witness. In total, the group says that at least 212…
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the second installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
Juma Xipaya, a young indigenous woman, medical student and fierce activist, fought the Belo Monte dam and exposed corruption; now she lives in daily terror of two thugs in a white pickup.
A federal judge has issued an emergency order giving the Bolsonaro administration just days to evict all illegal miners, and keep them out until the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
An exclusive study shows that 114 properties have been certified inside indigenous territories awaiting demarcation in the Brazilian Amazon, spurred in large part by a recent statute that leaves these reserves unprotected from such illegal land grabs.
PALAWAN, Philippines — Lawyers have condemned police officers on the Philippine island of Palawan for holding at gunpoint and arresting environmental law enforcers who visited a coastal village on June…
Land grabbers, landed estate owners and even oil companies stand to benefit from a new guideline released by FUNAI, the federal indigenous affairs agency, which opens up 237 indigenous territories in Brazil for sale, subdivision and speculation.
When Cristobal Pop, 41, started fishing in Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala with his uncle nearly 30 years ago, they always returned to shore with a generous bounty of robalo,…
JAKARTA — Activists in the Indonesian province of Papua are demanding an investigation into the death of an indigenous man who was reportedly assaulted by a police officer after complaining…
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…
A sweeping policy change by the Bolsonaro government opens unregistered ancestral indigenous lands to landgrabbers, loggers, ranchers, and soy growers, with huge risk for the Amazon.
Zezico Rodrigues Guajarara, a teacher from the Arariboia indigenous reserve in Maranhão state, was found shot dead on March 31. He is the fifth Guajarara leader to be killed since November in the lawless frontier region dominated by powerful landowners and logging mafias.
In 2019, suspect exports of rare wood to Europe, the US and beyond were legalized, likely prompting soaring damage to the Amazon rainforest and new attacks on indigenous people by illegal loggers.
The murder of Sister Dorothy in 2005, and resulting international outrage, helped curb violence in Brazil for a time, but crimes against landless peasants and activists are on the rise.
For Ecuador, 2019 was a critical year for court decisions regarding environmental and social issues. At the end of 2018, the courts set precedent by ruling in favor of the…
