Three years after the collapse of a mining dam forced them from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, a small community of Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe Indigenous peoples face…
Many thousands of human-made chemicals and synthetic pollutants are circulating throughout our world, with new ones entering production all the time — so many, in fact, that scientists now say…
When we routinely flush a toilet, the waste is hurled away so quickly that most of us don’t give it a second thought. But that waste, despite our inclination to…
KATHMANDU — Stuffed garbage bags float gently down the Bisnumati River in the western part of Kathmandu. The river, sacred to Nepal’s Hindu and Buddhist populations, is one of the…
Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and…
It doesn’t get talked about much, but 7.8 billion humans make a lot of waste, and a lot of it is flowing into the planet’s rivers, estuaries and oceans, with major impacts on clean water, biodiversity and public health.
Recovering Together, Recovering Stronger. Indonesia adopted this tagline when it took over the rotating chair of the club of the world’s 20 largest advanced and emerging economies, the Group of…
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…
SLEMAN, Indonesia — “We have fought against them for so long, but the mining activities just carry on and so does the criminalization,” says Sapoy, a resident of Jomboran village…
WEST KIMBERLEY, Australia — November marks the end of the dry season in the Kimberley, the northernmost region of Western Australia, the country’s largest state. As the monsoonal rains start to…
This story was written in partnership with Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto. Leaving the headquarters of the Wayuú Women’s Force, Mülo’u took the first taxi she saw. It was…
Crude oil from a blowout has been pouring into creeks in the Niger Delta since Nov. 5, with the well's owner, Nigerian energy firm Aiteo, unable to contain the spill…
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…
Defeat for Japan’s opposition party in last month’s national elections has dashed hopes for a quick resolution to the contentious relocation of a U.S. military base on the island of…
EL ESTOR, Guatemala — Germán Chub was still sleeping when police and military personnel showed up outside his home. It was the fourth day of a month-long state of siege,…
The disposable face mask has become the poster child for COVID-19-related waste since the start of the pandemic, showing up on beaches and in waterways all over the world. Hong…
MARSEILLE, France — Pascal Hagmann lowered a manta trawl — a ray-shaped, metal device with a wide mouth and a fine-meshed net — off the side of his sailboat and…
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…
Ana and her family live one kilometer from the tailings dam that carries toxic waste away from the world’s ninth largest iron ore mine, Minas-Rio, situated in Brazil’s mining heartland…
A fading, yellow, Mexican-style gateway separates Cidade dos Meninos from the rest of the world. Built in the 1940s, the arched structure marks the boundary between the state of Rio…
JAKARTA — Years of deforestation and mining have devastated a wetland of international importance in Papua New Guinea, which, if left unchecked, could lead to the collapse of the ecosystem,…
It’s not unusual to see some rivers running black in Venezuela, or for fishermen to return home scraping dark sludge off their boots. Crumbling infrastructure and a lack of government…
Canadian oil company Enbridge is just hours away from completing its thousand-mile pipeline from Alberta through north Minnesota to Wisconsin, with oil set to flow the day after Canada’s first…
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
Humans have created so much plastic that it now exists from the slopes of Mount Everest to the extreme depths of the oceans. When we consider the effects of plastic…
On Feb. 8, 2019, two weeks after the collapse of a dam holding mining waste killed 272 people and left a trail of destruction in Brumadinho, in the Brazilian state…
The first signal of the day is the sun stretching steadily upward amid a gigantic sea of mountains. The mass of rock, forest and water is so huge that the…
