During a 2020 field trip to a rural area in Vietnam, Hoa (not her real name), then working for a conservation-focused nonprofit, visited local authorities to discuss forest management. Vietnamese…
On May 9, 1983, Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo’s placenta was planted in the mountains of Putumayo, where Colombia’s Amazon rainforest meets the Andes. Her mother, Concepción Buesaquillo, was a midwife by…
SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and…
While the name Katahirine seems like it could be for an observatory or some ambitious outer space project, it is rather the name of the first audiovisual network created and…
LAMJUNG DISTRICT, Nepal — When the dark, heavy clouds loom over the lush hills of Ghanpokhara, Ratna Gurung knows it's time to bring in the sun-dried foxtail millet. Before the…
1. Indigenous women play a growing role as leaders Indigenous women are emerging as leaders in addressing climate change, confronting their invisibility within patriarchal structures. In a landmark event in…
Pramila Pradhan, 51, embraced thengapalli, a form of forest stewardship, because of her mother-in-law, who took her along on forest patrols. Thenga means stick, and palli means turn or rotation.…
Ely Marlina’s 2-year-old child began to cough as the wildfires enveloped Indonesia’s Ketapang district in the summer of 2019. The little one soon fell ill with an acute respiratory tract…
In the village of Tarapacá, a group of women are working to strike the perfect balance between using the natural resources of the Amazon rainforest for income and protecting this…
“Our voice is a political voice,” says Samela Sateré Mawé, communicator of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry (ANMIGA) and Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — Fisherwomen on Indonesia’s Madura Island are at the forefront of a protest against a plan to convert a stretch of their coast into salt farming in their…
HARAR, Ethiopia — In the hilly terrain of Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, Fetiya Ousman, a female wildlife ranger, is leading her team on a patrol. Dressed in a jungle-green…
Niéde Guidon has long since stopped her walks through Serra da Capivara National Park. Living as a recluse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the archaeologist, who retired from…
How had we missed this until now? An undersea mountain as tall as three Eiffel Towers. DDT contamination spread across an area of the seabed as large as San Francisco.…
In June, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Monica P. Medina as its new President and CEO. Medina is the first woman to take the helm at WCS and brings…
The first encounter between the biologist and the primates was like a movie scene. The monkeys moved through the thick fog covering the montane forest (or cloud forest), where she…
At the end of April, about 60 Munduruku Indigenous people from several villages in Pará traveled more than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) to Brasília to participate in the 19th Acampamento…
A new study shows that both conservation and agricultural production can improve when women farmers more widely participate in group decisions about sustainable practices. The report, published in February in…
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
“One of the most important days of my life,” are the words that anthropologist Beatriz Matos uses to describe her February visit to the Javari Valley on her first project…
KATHMANDU — Tulshi Laxmi Suwal, a Nepali conservationist, has been named one of the seven winners of this year’s prestigious Whitley Awards, known as the “Green Oscars,” in recognition of…
For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…
Farah Obaidullah’s life has pivoted around the ocean. Growing up in Gabon and the Netherlands, she spent as much time as possible in or near the water, snorkeling, rescuing marine…
JAKARTA — “It was heaven,” says Indonesian fisheries scientist Alyssa “Elle” Wibisono, describing her first ever scuba diving experience in the Komodo Islands when she was a high school student.…
PUNTA CHUECA, Mexico — Legend has it that, many thousands of years ago, a messenger arrived in the Comcaac land on board a strange boat after sailing on the waters…
Our planet is in crisis. Human activity is driving accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss across the globe. The devastating impacts of both processes are disproportionately felt by women and…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly…
PARAÍBA VALLEY, Brazil — Under the frigid morning air of the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, honeybees begin leaving the hive. “When day breaks they are calmer,” says Mara Galvão,…
The European Union is considering a regulation on deforestation-free products that is one of the most promising environmental legislative initiatives of this decade. It would force traders in commodities that…
On July 12, oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright was sealed inside a submersible, traveling to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Wright and…