A United Nations expert is calling for an urgent shift away from fossil fuels by the global economy, including a ban on advertisements or promotions, and the criminalization of misinformation from the industry.

Elisa Morgera, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, who presented her 23-page report at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, reminded states of their human rights obligations, and businesses of their responsibility to phase out fossil fuel within the current decade.

“The interlinked, intergenerational, severe and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle, coupled with six decades of climate obstruction, compel urgent defossilization of our whole economies, for a just transition that is effective, human rights-based and transformative,” Morgera wrote in the report. She added there’s “no scientific doubt” that fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change, and the main driver of planetary crises including biodiversity loss and mass human rights violations.

Morgera said at the Human Rights Council’s 59th session that current efforts to mitigate climate change “fall significantly short” of greenhouse gas reductions needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.

But she added that “securing a liveable and sustainable future for humanity is still possible” through effective climate action within the decade.

This includes countering the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to “keep the public uninformed about the severity of climate change and about the role of fossil fuels in causing it,” Morgera wrote in the report.

She added the formation of public opinion and democratic debate should be protected from “undue commercial influence,” and urged states to ensure the availability of science-based information, ban fossil fuel advertisements and promotions, prohibit lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, criminalize misinformation and misrepresentation such as greenwashing, and criminalize attacks against environmental human rights defenders, including judicial harassment.

Morgera said phasing out fossil fuel production and use should be interpreted as part of states’ duty to fulfill the right to life. To prioritize the phaseout, she recommended that states prohibit new licenses and revoke exist ones for fossil fuel operations.

Morgera wrote of the need to “tackle historical responsibilities and current injustices” to prevent mass human rights violations due to climate change. Remedies to address the harms of fossil fuel activities should be given to, and developed with, affected communities, she said.

The Guardian reported that while the report lays the human rights case for decisive political action for a world in which the basic rights of people are prioritized above profits by a few, it “will probably be dismissed by some as radical and untenable.”

But Morgera told The Guardian that the seemingly radical transition to renewable energy “is now cheaper and safer for our economics and a healthier option for our societies.”

Banner image of a flare stack by Yerevan Malarerva via Pexels.

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

In a corner of the rainforest where Colombia meets Peru and Brazil, the hum of chainsaws and gunfire never quite dies. Yet, in the shadows of this long emergency, a subtler resistance endures. Its frontline is marked not by barricades or armed patrols, but by walking sticks carved from peach palm, and a deep, unshakable intimacy with the land, reports Mongabay Latam’s Daniela Quintero Díaz.

Luis Alfredo Acosta has walked this path for 35 years. A member of the Nasa people and national coordinator of the Indigenous guard under the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), Acosta speaks with clarity shaped by decades of witnessing promises deferred and communities displaced. “Although these appear to be isolated things … it really is an integral resistance,” he says. “Because at its core, all of this only works if there is land.”

In Colombia’s Amazon region, “resistance” is neither metaphor nor battle cry.

It is physical — guarding against armed groups, illegal loggers, and narcotraffickers.

It is intellectual — preserving ancestral knowledge and mapping sacred sites.

It is spiritual — sustained through rituals and the use of yagé.

And it is cultural — enacted in daily life through small farms, seed banks and forest patrols.

That these efforts persist amid violence is remarkable. Of the 1,411 human rights defenders killed in Colombia over the past decade, at least 70 were Indigenous guards. In many areas, the state has withdrawn: 11 protected zones in the Amazon are now inaccessible to park rangers due to armed conflict. Yet forests within Indigenous territories remain largely intact, with 98% cover — a fact both defiant and tragic.

The guards, often unpaid, rely on collective will more than resources. In Putumayo, the Siona community has removed mines and monitored vast forest tracts. In Guainía, fishers have transformed kitchens into labs, contributing to national fishery policies. In Amazonas, communities reforest thousands of hectares using knowledge handed down through generations.

The state’s support has been halting. President Gustavo Petro’s National Development Plan pledged to strengthen Indigenous guardianship, but funding has been piecemeal. For guards like Olegario Sánchez of the Tikuna, even basics like radios or canoes are scarce. “If we leave the territory,” a Siona guard warned, “we get closer to dying. If a root dies, its essence dies. And the principle of a community dies.”

In the Amazon, the forest still stands. But its fate — and that of its guardians — hangs in the balance.

Read the full story by Daniela Quintero Díaz here.

Banner image: A community member catching fish in the Fluvial Star of Inírida, where the Guaviare, Atabapo and Inírida rivers meet. Image courtesy of Camilo Díaz for WWF Colombia.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Authorities in Greece imposed mandatory work breaks on Monday in parts of the country where temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), with the heat wave forecast to last through Thursday.

The labor ministry ordered the work stoppage, in effect from midday to 5:00 p.m. (0900–1400 GMT), for outdoor manual labor and food delivery services, primarily in central Greece and on several islands. Employers were also asked to offer remote work options.

No emergency measures were implemented in Athens, and the current hot spell — following sweltering temperatures across Europe — is not considered unusual.

Greek authorities say they are taking long-term steps to address the effects of climate change, including the deployment this summer of a record number of firefighters.

Banner image: Tourist with umbrellas wait outside the Acropolis of Athens, on Monday, July 7, 2025 while authorities in Greece have imposed mandatory work stoppages in parts of the country where temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A two-year investigation into 139 complaints lodged by communities in Africa and Asia affected by tropical plantation company Socfin has confirmed that many of the allegations are at least partly valid, according to a statement released by a collective of 33 civil society organizations from around the world.

The statement follows the final report by the Earthworm Foundation (EF), a nonprofit that was commissioned by Socfin to look into the allegations of communities in Côte d’Ivoire against Socfin’s Ivorian subsidiary SOGB in Grand Béréby.

In its visit to Côte d’Ivoire, EF confirmed SOGB concessions encroached village land, labor issues, and the plantation’s history of non-compliance with free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) standards.

Previously, during its two-year investigation, EF visited 12 Socfin-owned plantations in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Cambodia. These visits also found ongoing severe human rights violations, prompting EF to urge Socfin to take meaningful action.

“Earthworm is trying its best by conducting field visits to better understand the problems facing communities and workers, but it is unable to change Socfin’s policy,” Emmanuel Elong, a community member and the president of the National Synergy of Peasants and Residents of Cameroon (Synaparcam), told Mongabay in a message.

The civil society signatories of the recent statement analyzed all EF reports published over the past two years and found that almost two-thirds (59%) of the communities’ grievances were confirmed as “founded” or “partially founded.” About one-third (30%) of the allegations were labeled as “unfounded,” while the rest were “not determined.”

In seven Socfin-owned concessions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cameroon, EF found evidence of gender-based violence by company employees. Labor violations and compromised livelihoods were found in nine plantations and land conflicts and environmental degradation in eight. Destruction of sacred sites was confirmed in four.

Community members and civil society say in their statement that, despite confirmed violations, many problems highlighted by EF against Socfin remain unresolved. They add that EF’s independence from Socfin is also questionable.   

Responding to Mongabay’s request for comment, a Socfin spokesperson told Mongabay by email that the collective statement offers a “broad brush overview” that “understates both the calibrated nature of the EF findings and the tangible progress we have already made.” 

He pointed to Socfin’s recently published sexual harassment and violence action plan which he said the company will use to address issues of gender-based violence across its operations within the next nine months.

“The issues raised in this press release are serious,” EF’s Jotica Sehgal told Mongabay by email. “The findings of our investigation clearly show that change is needed, and we agree that the company must go further and faster.”

Sehgal said EF will continue its work with Socfin and is planning a “field verification process” to follow up on action plan implementation at three sites this year.

Banner image: A young oil palm plantation in Sierra Leone next to community land. Image courtesy of Maja Hitij.

Mongabay India won an excellence in audio reporting award recently from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA). The award was for the limited series podcast Wild Frequencies.

SOPA, which promotes best practices and excellence in journalism, announced the winners of its 2025 Awards of Editorial Excellence during a ceremony in Hong Kong on June 26.

Wild Frequencies, a three-episode series that follows researchers in India studying animal sounds to better understand wildlife, is hosted by Mongabay India’s Kartik Chandramouli and Mongabay’s Shreya Dasgupta. It features sound design and original music by Abhijit Shylanath.

SOPA shared the judges’ comments on the series: “With a rich audio-scape and creative sound design, rigorous reporting and engaging storytelling, these reports from the field (and forests and wetlands) around India offer listeners a deeper understanding of how the sounds [are] made by creatures in the natural world, and what those creatures and their bioacoustics can tell us about whether an ecosystem is healthy or imperiled.”

The series also won “Best Science and Medical” podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards in June and the “Best Produced Show” in the science category for the India Audio Summit & Awards 2025.

In 2023, Mongabay won SOPA’s Excellence in Bahasa Indonesian News Reporting Award for the story ‘The promise was a lie’: How Indonesian villagers lost their cut of the palm oil boom, which was a collaboration with The Gecko Project and BBC News.

Find the Wild Frequencies episodes here:

Episode 1: “Find Them” — introduces the science of bioacoustics and how it is useful for  identifying specific species of birds, bats and other wildlife. It can also be used to count species including dolphins, porpoises and wolves.

Episode 2: “Know Them” — explores what we can learn from elephant and cricket sounds. Calls of such species help us understand how they communicate with each other to share information, work together and even find mates.

Episode 3: “Us and Them” — explores how changes in animal sounds can be an indicator of shifts in animal behavior, especially when wildlife face altered habitats due to human activities.

Follow Mongabay India’s Everything Environment podcast on Apple and Spotify. You can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay India website.

With the recent addition of the French-language podcast, Planète Mongabay, Mongabay now offers podcasts in four languages along with English, Spanish and Indonesian.

Among Indigenous Naga tribes in India’s northeastern state of Nagaland, hunting traditions are transforming as cheap homemade guns make targeting commercially valuable large mammals easier, a recent study finds.

“Indigenous hunting preferences are rooted in cultural traditions but have evolved under the influence of economic pressures and environmental changes,” Satem Longchar, conservation ecologist and the study’s lead author, told Mongabay by phone. “The use of modern weapons like cheap homemade firearms has increased the efficiency of hunting, resulting in a decline in wildlife.”

Indian laws prohibit wildlife hunting, but they’re mostly ineffective in Nagaland, where Indigenous tribes manage around 88% of the state’s forest, the paper notes.

To better understand how and what the communities hunt and how they perceive wildlife conservation, the researchers interviewed 45 hunters across 10 villages around two areas: Khelia Community Forest in eastern Nagaland and Intangki National Park. The team also installed 156 camera traps in both forests.

The interviews revealed that 78% of the hunters owned cheap, homemade firearms for hunting, using them along with traditional methods such as snares, traps, bows and plant poisons.

Meanwhile, the cameras photographed 31 species of wild mammals. While the hunters said they hunt all these species, they primarily target large-bodied mammals, including barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak), wild boar (Sus scrofa), Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) and sun bears (Helarctos malayanus). These are valued both for consumption and sale.  

Some 87% of the hunters reported a decline in wild animals over the period they’ve been hunting. “With larger wildlife becoming scarce, hunters are increasingly shifting toward smaller prey and opportunistic hunting, not conforming to traditional ethics like seasonal hunting and restrictions from hunting rare species,” Longchar said.

She added that transboundary trafficking of wildlife parts from Nagaland to Southeast Asian countries, such as the targeting of bears for their bile in areas bordering Myanmar, poses a significant threat to conservation. “Wildlife hunting for trade is driven by poor economy of the state, especially in rural areas where agriculture is the primary livelihood,” she said.

Many interviewed residents acknowledged wildlife is dwindling due to forest clearance and overhunting, yet their inclination toward conservation remains low, the study found, due to reasons such as lack of time due to farming and the absence of economic incentives.

“Conservation initiatives must recognize the cultural and economic realities of Indigenous communities,” Longchar said.

Bano Haralu of the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society India in Nagaland, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Mongabay by phone that the study “reflects ground reality” in Nagaland. “We must prioritize educating Indigenous youth before cultural traditions are lost, given the ongoing infrastructural developments and habitat loss in the region.”

Longchar said that despite the “ugly reality of hunting,” her study also highlights the persistence of Nagaland’s biodiversity. “Hope the outcome of my study brings awareness, instead of discriminations towards Nagaland.”

Banner image: A hunter in Nagaland with a gun and barking deer. Image courtesy of Satem Longchar.