BANDUNG, Indonesia — In a valley downstream from the source of the Citarum River, retired army general Doni Monardo approaches a magnolia tree planted in 2018 by President Joko Widodo…
JAKARTA — The Citarum River that skirts the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, is infamous as the most polluted river on Earth. The rivers inside Jakarta aren’t in much better state, either,…
JAKARTA — Villagers in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island have demanded authorities revoke the permit of an iron ore miner after it continued operating in violation of an order to halt its…
(This report by La Cola de Rata is part of their series entitled Especial Tierra de Resistentes, which can be viewed here) Edith Lucía Taborda Guevara is an anxious…
INDRAGIRI HILIR, Indonesia — Customary leaders Patih Majuan, Datuk Manti and Datuk Mangku approach their scared forest with hands clasped in prayer. Other residents of the village of Talang Durian…
MARERENI, Kenya — It’s mid-morning in April, and Ngombo Tsuma is seated under a lone neem tree by one of his two grass-thatched huts. His wife sits by the door…
DHAKA — Bangladesh is looking to recharge its aquifers with storm water, reclaimed water, desalinated water and potable water, in an effort to ward off the depletion of this precious…
New legislation passed by the Chilean government in May 2021 aims to rid the nation of all single-use products in the food and beverage industry, including plastics, within three years.…
As if all the strategic and political aspects of the Putin-Bolsonaro alliance weren’t detrimental enough, underlying environmental considerations add yet another undesirable dimension. Meeting with Putin at the Kremlin literally…
Environmental regulation runs up against political roadblocks in many nations, but the trend is especially strong in authoritarian countries like Turkey, where weak laws, lack of transparency, and repression are rife.
Frustrated with watching agribusiness and eucalyptus plantations destroy their territory, members of several Indigenous Pataxó communities in the Brazilian state of Bahia took over a plantation, set fire to it,…
BANYUMAS/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A muddy flood polluting a river on the Indonesian island of Java earlier this year depleted its fish stock, raising calls for restoration and restocking efforts in…
Since February of this year, a tailings dam at the QMM mine in Madagascar has failed at least twice. Hazardous mine wastewater overflowed and contaminated the surrounding lagoon system relied…
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…
JAKARTA — Residents of a remote island in eastern Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island, after having an earlier legal challenge…
Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…
The Sepik River takes an unhurried 1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles, to snake from the lush highland rainforests of western Papua New Guinea, swerving momentarily across the border into Indonesia’s…
The route connecting the provinces of Loja and Zamora Chinchipe in Ecuador is a series of roads surrounded by green, leafy and picturesque mountains. Near the city of Zamora, signs…
Thirty years ago, Brazil issued a decree officially recognizing the ancestral land of the Yanomami people as an Indigenous territory. The new designation made the area, located deep in the…
A new book by Wake Smith, “Pandora’s Toolbox,” explores controversial ideas for artificially cooling the planet. Smith discusses the hopes and hazards of geoengineering in an exclusive Mongabay interview.
It might be surprising to learn that, in a lake as large as Victoria, a single fish could shape so much of East Africa’s history, culture and, now, an uncertain…
Primates and other tropical wildlife are increasingly being exposed to pesticides pharmaceuticals, plastics, nanoparticles and other synthetic materials, but adverse impacts on these animals have been little studied.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that his department will be undertaking a first-of-its-kind investigation to determine the role that the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have played in…
PASURUAN, Indonesia — Farming and other water-based industries thrive in Pasuruan, a fertile rice-growing district in Indonesia’s East Java province that’s home to active volcanoes and rich aquifers. Thanks to…
VICHADA, Colombia — Nearly 13 years have passed since the Guahibo Indigenous community El Trompillo was allegedly forcibly relocated from their territory. Members report persistent hunger and overcrowding in makeshift…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — A coal barge that ran aground in the sea off the Indonesian island of Java remains stuck there, having already spilled much of its cargo and disrupting…
“It still rains here,” says Emeterio Hernández Cano, the San Francisco communal land commissioner, at the start of a tour of La Fabriquita, a pine and oak forest of just…
The planetwide cocaine supply chain — its production, trafficking and consumption — causes deforestation and pollution, and impacts biodiversity, as do other criminal activities associated with illegal drugs.
At seven in the morning, the sun rises over Sandy Bay on the Caribbean island of Roatán, Honduras. The soft light seeps through the mangroves and draws golden lines on…
