In early 2024, African Parks, the South Africa-based NGO managing Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo, commissioned U.K.-based law firm Omnia Strategy LLP to investigate allegations of human rights abuses committed by the park’s rangers against local Indigenous people. The investigation is now complete, and AP has acknowledged that human rights abuses occurred, but it hasn’t released the full Omnia report.

The allegations were first published in January 2024 by U.K. tabloid Daily Mail. It documented claims of beatings, torture and rape of Indigenous Baka people when they enter Odzala-Kokoua’s forests to hunt, fish and forage. The park was created on land ancestrally used by the Baka community.

“Now there is only torture in the forest. Today if a Baka enters the forest and comes across Ecoguards they will torture him to death,” Eyaya, a local Baka man said in a video posted by Survival International, an advocacy group that reportedly raised the allegations to AP in a letter in mid-2023.

In a statement, Omnia said it relied in part on Survival International’s reports from Baka people detailing their forced eviction from ancestral lands and subsequent mistreatment.

Omnia’s investigation reviewed events from 2010, when AP took over management of Odzala-Kokoua, through 2024. The law firm sent investigators to the Republic of Congo on four trips over 16 months, interviewing roughly 180 stakeholders, including potential victims, witnesses, ecoguards, park staff, and government officials.

Although the Omnia report is complete, AP hasn’t made it publicly available. Mongabay made repeated requests for the report, but was redirected to a statement saying, “African Parks acknowledges that, in some incidents, human rights abuses have occurred, and we deeply regret the pain and suffering that these have caused to the victims.”

The statement outlines steps AP will take to “ensure a fully integrated, rights-based approach in everything we do.” AP adds that it’s committed to holding staff accountable for abuse, strengthening safeguard protocols, and working with human rights organizations, while enhancing community engagement through efforts like the Odzala Indigenous Peoples Plan.

Critics say AP’s response doesn’t go far enough. “The root of the problem — which the investigation did not address — is that African Parks continues to cling to a racist and colonial model of conservation which kicks out the Indigenous people whose land it is, while outsiders take control,” said Caroline Pearce, Survival International’s director. “As long as this is the case, the Baka will continue to face abuses and the destruction of their livelihoods.”

Trésor Nzila, executive director of the Development Action Centre, a human rights NGO in the Republic of Congo, told Mongabay in a text message: “Recognition is the first step. Now we need to right the wrongs and strengthen prevention and sanction mechanisms.”

Additional reporting by Latoya Abulu.

Banner image: The Baka community of Makouagonda, whose ancestral land was taken for Odzala-Kokoua National Park, now live beside the road. Image © Survival International.

In 2005, the Brazilian government created PDS Brasília, a sustainable settlement in the state of Pará. The settlement was designed to encourage 500 families to practice small-scale family farming, while also collectively using a standing forest to harvest its fruits and nuts, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reported in March.

The 19,800-hectare (49,000-acre) settlement was created following the killing of Bartolomeu Moraes, a peasant leader and trade unionist better known as Brasília, who had for years opposed a handful of powerful local ranchers from monopolizing land.

But two decades later, only 200 of the 500 families remain in the settlement, largely due to a lack of government and financial support, Wenzel reported.

Many families chose to sell their land to large ranchers, who in turn converted the forest settlement into pasture for cattle ranching, both done illegally.

Raimunda “Mariana” Rodrigues, who remains steadfast in maintaining her family farm, produces cacao on her 2.5 hectares (6 acres). Her family gets additional income from selling chickens, eggs, bananas and cassava.

With ranchers eyeing the area for cattle pasture, Rodrigues told Wenzel she wants to encourage fellow settlers to continue with sustainable family farming. She has created a women’s association with 33 settlers to produce fruit, but finding money to buy equipment to process and freeze the fruit pulp has been challenging, she said. The association is seeking funding from NGOs and private companies like mining firms that can pay for such initiatives to offset their environmental impacts.

Another challenge is the lack of support from banks.

Wenzel reported that the concept of the bioeconomy, which refers to sustainable economic activities that also protect standing forests, has become increasingly popular because of its potential to create income for traditional communities while addressing deforestation and climate change. One study found that the Amazon’s bioeconomy could generate $8 billion each year. However, private and public banks haven’t supported the PDS women adequately, Wenzel found.

Miguel Mernitzki, who inherited his father’s land in Pará’s Altamira municipality, followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a beekeeper because it was a more affordable option than agribusiness or mining. He also lamented the lack of support from the government and the private sector for projects like his.

“To start a soybean plantation, you must have millions of reais. To work in gold mining, you must also have a lot of money to buy machinery. To be a logger, you have to have a truck, a tractor and an area to harvest wood,” he told Wenzel. “The bee, on the other hand, is something you grow slowly, and it pays for its work.”

Some larger businesses, such as Gustavo Grotto’s açaí business, have been able to secure bank loans. However, even for farmers like Grotto, fire outbreaks and drought have been challenging, increasing production and logistics costs.

Read the full story by Fernanda Wenzel here.

Banner image of Raimunda “Mariana” Rodrigues in her family farm. Image courtesy of Fernando Martinho.

In a recently published study, researchers offer a new tool to compare how different crops affect the environment in different regions.

Named PLANTdex, the tool assesses the environmental impact of a crop by considering five key indicators — greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater biodiversity loss, marine biodiversity loss, land biodiversity loss, and water resource depletion — study co-author Mark Jwaideh, nature data and risk analytics lead at the University of Oxford, told Mongabay by email.

For each crop, PLANTdex combines these five indicators into one score at a high resolution of 9 by 9 kilometers (5.6 by 5.6 miles).

“This granularity enables the identification of specific regions where crop production is more or less environmentally impactful, facilitating targeted interventions and policy decisions,” Jwaideh said. “This approach enables stakeholders to pinpoint environmental hotspots to make informed decisions on crop commodity sourcing or where better management is required.”

To build PLANTdex, Jwaideh and colleague Carole Dalin, an associate professor at University College London, used crop production and environment impact data from 2000 to assess 16 crops globally. While old, the year 2000 provided the most consistent data for building the tool’s models, Jwaideh said.

Based on this data, the study found high PLANTdex scores, indicating high environmental impacts, for crops planted in Central America, Southern Europe, the region between the Black and Caspian seas, Southern Africa, and South, East and Southeast Asia. PLANTdex scores were lower for midwestern North America, certain areas of Central Europe and Russia, western South Asia and parts of Central Africa and South America.

When looking at subnational data, PLANTdex identified higher environmental impacts in two distinct areas. First were areas along rivers, which the researchers attributed to “high aquatic impacts of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer application such as in South Asia along the Ganges River.” Next were higher-elevation areas and slopes, possibly due to “increased nutrient run-off, which adversely affects aquatic biodiversity,” the authors write.

“Environmental impacts of crop production vary significantly at sub-national levels, emphasising the need for localised assessments,” Jwaideh said.

Crop type also mattered. Globally, crops like rapeseed, rice, cotton and oil palm were identified by PLANTdex “as the most environmentally impactful crops to produce per dry tonne,” while wheat, maize, sugar beet and sugarcane showed smaller impacts.

The researchers write it’s desirable to find crops that have low environment impacts and higher production levels. While their tool did not find such significant relationships when looking at entire countries, some trends emerged when zooming into smaller areas. For example, for crops like barley, cotton, maize, potato, rice, soybean, sugarcane and wheat, high production areas seemed to have lower environmental impacts. Meanwhile, oil palm and rapeseed showed higher environmental impacts in high production areas.

While the tool was originally built with data from 2000, “more recent iterations of PLANTdex now include timeseries data with updates to all five underlying indicators,” Jwaideh said.

Banner image of oil palm plantation in Malaysia by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Narrow strips of flowering plants along road edges can support high butterfly diversity, a recent study from Singapore has found.

In late 2023, researchers surveyed 101 road verges — strips of green planted along the side of roads —  across the tropical city-state of Singapore, recording 56 species of butterflies feeding on nectar from 96 flowering plant species a total of 1,320 times.

“The most surprising result was seeing how effective even narrow and artificially planted road verges can be in supporting butterfly communities when managed well,” co-authors Tharaka S. Priyadarshana and Eleanor M. Slade, from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, told Mongabay in a joint email.

All but six of the 96 plant species the butterflies visited were nonnative, the study found.

The authors said this suggests that in tropical cities, where flowering and butterfly activity occur year-round, roadside green spaces can serve as “meaningful habitat” for butterflies even if planted with nonnative species.

Many cities regularly cut roadside plants for “aesthetic appeal” and better driver visibility, the researchers say. However, the study found that verges with higher diversity of flowering plants that were cut less frequently and had varying plant heights supported more butterfly diversity than those with “uniform, flat vegetation.”

The authors told Mongabay the flower-rich, less frequently cut verges offer “a cost-effective and space-efficient way to support urban pollinators without the need to have very wide strips of vegetation.”

Not surprisingly, the researchers found that butterfly diversity within the road verges decreased as traffic density and vehicle speeds increased. “[W]hile reducing speed limits may not always be feasible, promoting slower traffic in residential areas and integrating biodiversity-friendly road verge designs can help mitigate the impact of traffic while also improving pedestrian safety,” Priyadarshana and Slade told Mongabay.

The researchers also found that larger green spaces around verges positively influenced butterflies.

“Connecting small linear habitats like road verges at the local scale to larger green spaces such as parks, gardens, or natural remnants at the landscape scale is crucial,” Priyadarshana and Slade said. They added that the “broader network of greenery” provides vital supply of nectar and host plants for butterfly larvae, and creates “mini-environments conducive to butterflies by reducing the harsh impact of weather conditions.”

The authors said their study addresses a research gap since most papers on road verge habitats are from temperate regions, while theirs examined a rapidly urbanizing tropical city. Singapore lost nearly all its primary forests by the turn of the 20^th century, but greening efforts since the 1960s have resulted in about 50% of Singapore’s land now being vegetated, mainly as urban parks and secondary forests. “Singapore, which has adopted a vision to become ‘A City in Nature’ by integrating green infrastructure into urban planning, serves as a valuable model for other tropical cities,” the authors said.

Banner image of a striped albatross butterfly (Appias libythea) on a red leea plant (Leea rubra), courtesy of NTU Singapore.

Researchers in Hawaiʻi have described an unusual species of carnivorous caterpillar that scavenges in spiderwebs while wearing cast-off bits of the spider’s prey.

Nicknamed the “bone collector,” the caterpillar belongs to the genus Hyposmocoma, commonly known as “fancy case” caterpillars because they make variously ornamented protective cases to live in. Endemic to Hawaiʻi, they decorate their cases with bits of moss, lichen or sand to blend in with their environment. The bone collector is the only one known to encase itself in inedible insect parts, the researchers say in a recent study.

Unlike most caterpillars that try to camouflage to avoid being eaten, the bone collector “flips the script,” Daniel Rubinoff, the study’s lead author and entomologist with the University of Hawaiʻi, told Mongabay in a video call. “I want to look like your last week’s meal so that … you notice me for sure. But you think I’m garbage.” This leaves the caterpillar safe from being eaten by the spider but with easy access to a free meal caught in the spider’s web.

The bone collector is one of roughly 600 species of fancy case caterpillars, which fall within one of 18 different lineages. Each lineage is named for its distinctive case shape,  including upward of 70 species with burrito-shaped cases, 25 species with smooth cases and 20 species of oyster-shaped cases. But there is only one known bone collector species.

Using DNA analysis, Rubinoff’s team learned that the bone collector’s lineage split off from its closest relatives — other Hawaiʻian carnivorous caterpillars, including one that hunts snails — roughly 6 million years ago. That makes the bone collector older than the Hawaiʻian Islands themselves. Rubinoff says the species likely evolved on older islands that have since eroded back to the sea but not before some caterpillars migrated to nearby younger islands.

Much like Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos, the Hawaiʻian caterpillars adapted differently on each island, based on local conditions.

Part of that adaptation involved avoiding birds. “Before people got to Hawaiʻi, it was the kingdom of birds,” Rubioff said, which put enormous pressure on caterpillars to diversify their appearance to avoid being eaten. There were also no ants, leaving an ecological niche available, and the bone collectors moved in — under rocks and in rotting logs.

The newly described caterpillar is already in danger. It’s only been found on the island of Oʻahu in a 15-square-kilometer (6-square-mile) stand of forest, making it extremely vulnerable to habitat loss and invasive species.

Naomi Pierce, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, not part of the study, told National Geographic that the fact the bone collector was found “only in one tiny spot on one island is pretty sobering.”

Rubinoff says there’s more to the bone collectors than the “gee-whiz” factor. Studying caterpillar genetics and behavior could lead to a less toxic method of controlling caterpillars on crops. “Don’t we all want that?”

Banner image: Bone collector caterpillars, courtesy of Daniel Rubinoff.

The World Bank has released the first-ever framework to address environmental and social harms caused by projects the bank financed through its private sector branches, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

“This is historic. It’s the first actual directive mandate for the IFC that says when one of the projects they finance causes harm, they have to provide remedy,” Carla García Zendejas, director of the people, land and resources program at the Center for International Environmental Law, told Mongabay.

The IFC and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) are both part of the World Bank Group that finances projects that can cause harm to local communities. The IFC/MIGA Remedial Action Framework, published in April, aims to provide community access to remedy if they were harmed by such projects.

The World Bank has long been criticized for leaving behind a wake of social and environmental damages from the projects it finances as well as being slow to respond to problems. “You file a complaint and you are going to wait for almost a decade until they respond,” Francis Colee, head of programs at the Liberian civil society organization Green Advocates, told Mongabay.

 The IFC has repeatedly been found negligent by its independent accountability mechanism, the compliance adviser ombudsman (CAO). 

For example, Mongabay has reported on human rights abuses against communities living near the IFC-financed Salala Rubber Corporation’s plantation in Liberia. CAO investigations of the company confirmed most accusations by locals, including irregular land acquisition, gender-based violence, water pollution and desecration of graves.

The CAO found the IFC didn’t adequately consult with communities or assess the risks associated with the investment. They recommended actions to remedy the grievances. However, in the absence of a remedy framework, the IFC has done little to address the problems.

The recent policy directive won’t likely help that situation either; it only applies to new grievances.

In an email to Mongabay, an IFC spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said the Remedy Action Framework applies only to “future Management Action Plans submitted to the Board in the context of Compliance Advisor Ombudsman cases.”

“The complaint mechanisms have been a big disappointment,” Juan Pablo Orrego, the president of the Chilean environmental organization Ecosistemas, told Mongbay in a phone call. “Remedy should not be reactive but proactive,” he said.

Implementation of the framework will depend on new cases entering the accountability system. “Implementation will show whether this is working or not, and if it’s not working and it should be adjusted accordingly and in a transparent manner,” said Stephanie Amoako from the Accountability Counsel, one of the organizations involved in the framework’s consultation process.

Nonetheless, Amoako said she believes it’s a step in the right direction. “It recognizes that the IFC has a role in ensuring that communities are made whole from harms caused by its projects,” she said.

 Banner photo: Works for the Alto Maipo hydroelectric plant at the Camino Aucayes, Chile. Credit: Pablo Melo A.JPG