Smallholder agriculture cuts into key Sumatran tiger habitat
Indonesia’s Kerinci Seblat National Park is the largest national park on the island of Sumatra and the second-largest park in Southeast Asia. It is home to a wide variety of…
Mongabay series: Forest Trackers
The stories in this series are powered by Places to Watch, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to quickly identify concerning forest loss around the world and catalyze further investigation of these areas. Places to Watch draws on a combination of near-real-time satellite data, automated algorithms and field intelligence to identify new areas on a monthly basis. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW is supporting data-driven journalism by providing data and maps generated by Places to Watch. Mongabay maintains complete editorial independence over the stories reported using this data.
Indigenous Cacataibo of Peru threatened by land grabbing and drug trade
Mario’s nervousness is evident on the other end of the phone as he speaks about how three men tried to stab him in November 2020. This wasn’t the first time something…
Colombian and Ecuadorian Indigenous communities live in fear as drug traffickers invade
The Siona are a binational people, their territory straddling two countries: Sucumbíos province in northeastern Ecuador and in the Putumayo department in southeastern Colombia. But the forest they depend on…
Cocaine production driving deforestation into Colombian national park
The Catatumbo River originates in northeastern Colombia’s Norte de Santander Department and flows to Venezuelan Lake Maracaibo. For generations, it has provided passage for fishermen and small farmers; but increasingly,…
Industrial agriculture threatens a wetland oasis in Bolivia
It was August 26, 2020. Dirlene Mejía, a park ranger who works in the area around Concepción Lake, a protected area located in eastern Bolivia, had just left for her…
Illegal deforestation rises in South America’s Indigenous territories, parks
Between 2010 and 2020, South America lost an average of 2.6 million hectares of forest per year, according the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In other…
‘Devastating’ fires engulf Brazilian Pantanal wetlands – again
Under the thick blanket of smoke, relentless flames spread with dizzying speed over swaths of Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, its grasslands parched by months of drought. In a charred marshland,…
A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it
The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent…
Alleged gov’t-linked land grabs threaten Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains
Rising across remote stretches of southeast Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains harbor dense tropical rainforest, much of it native growth carpeting the range’s wet slopes. Due to its remoteness, the vast…
Fueled by impunity, invasions surge in Brazil’s Indigenous lands
A thin plume of smoke rises above the lush canopy of the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. A couple of men feed the flames engulfing a wooden…
Chinese demand and domestic instability are wiping out Senegal’s last forests
“In the years when logging was not happening, sometimes you did not see the sunlight in the bush because of the tree cover,” said Musa Mballo, a forest protection activist…
Solomon Islands environmental defender faces life sentence for arson charge
In June, three environmental defenders from the remote island of Nende celebrated their acquittal from arson charges, along with the many supporters who had attended their trial. But the later…
Threatened species caught in crossfire of ongoing land conflict in Myanmar
Reaching down into the Malay Peninsula, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region is home to rainforests that support a unique assemblage of endemic and endangered species, including the endangered Malay tapir (Tapirus…
Under cover of COVID-19, loggers plunder Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
Nestled in the far reaches of eastern Cambodia lies Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nation’s most vital areas of protected forest and a haven for rare wildlife. Yet…
Brazilian Amazon protected areas ‘in flames’ as land-grabbers invade
In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to…
Fires in the Pantanal: ‘We are facing a scenario now that is catastrophic’
A canopy of thick smoke blanketed a vast patch of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, stretching as far as the eye could see. Underneath, flames were engulfing the yellowed grasslands of the…
Understaffed and under threat: Paraguay’s park rangers pay the ultimate price
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fifth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
No choice: Why communities in Paraguay are cutting down forests to survive
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fourth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
Marijuana farms expand in Paraguay reserve despite gov’t crackdowns
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the third installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
Protected areas in Paraguay hit hard by illegal marijuana farming
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the second installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
‘On the edge’: Endangered forest cleared for marijuana in Paraguay
This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the first installment of a five-part series about illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…
‘Betting on impunity’: Brazilian Amazon under attack despite logging crackdown
In a corner of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, a handful of clandestine roads neatly slice the dense jungle canopy into rectangles. From the sky, an entourage of bulldozers can be…
Indonesia struggles to restore peatlands as fires strangle national parks
In September 2019, the noon sky over a part of Jambi province in Indonesian Sumatra turned crimson. Fires had been raging through Indonesia for the past few months, and certain…
Marijuana cultivation whittling away Madagascar’s largest connected forest
Between the cacao fields of northwest Madagascar and the vanilla of the northeast, a chain of rainforests bob along the highland interior. Tsaratanana Reserve, home to the country’s highest peak,…
Illegal logging ‘mafia’ stripping hornbill habitat in Northeast India
On a wet August afternoon in 2015, Jorjo Tana Tara, 48, a member of the indigenous Nyishi community and an anti-logging activist, discovered illegal loggers and poachers at a large…
Gender-based violence shakes communities in the wake of forest loss
KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…
‘They never intended to conserve it’: Outcry as loggers gut Cambodian reserve
In late February, conservationist Kheng Khou tried to enter Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which he routinely patrols with other members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and…
Takeover of Nigerian reserve highlights uphill battle to save forests
IJARE, Nigeria — The silver blade slides through the log laid over a metal bed beneath the sawmill machine. When the careful routine ends, one of the two operators pulls…
A tale of two Nigerian reserves underscores importance of community
IKPAKO, Nigeria — Dark stumps of half-charred trees, dry cassava stems and dead tree trunks cover a large swath of land on the way to Ikpako, a small farming enclave…
National parks pay the price as land conflicts intensify in Colombia
Colombia is the world’s second-most biodiverse country after Brazil. Central Colombia’s Macarena region, in particular, is important for biodiversity as it serves as a transition zone between three major biomes:…
Special series
Forest trackers
- Smallholder agriculture cuts into key Sumatran tiger habitat
- Indigenous Cacataibo of Peru threatened by land grabbing and drug trade
- Colombian and Ecuadorian Indigenous communities live in fear as drug traffickers invade
- Cocaine production driving deforestation into Colombian national park
Oceans
- 2020’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- ‘Tamper with nature, and everyone suffers’: Q&A with ecologist Enric Sala
- New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries
- Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters
Amazon conservation
- Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- In ‘dire’ plea, Brazil’s Amazonas state appeals for global COVID assistance
- Brazil’s collapsing health service, new COVID variant, raise Indigenous risk
- Lack of protection leaves Spain-size swath of Brazilian Amazon up for grabs
Land rights and extractives
- Timber organization’s backing ‘one step’ toward ‘peace park’ in Borneo
- Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- Papua tribe moves to block clearing of its ancestral forest for palm oil
- Protesters hold back military takeover of Balkans’ largest mountain pasture
Endangered environmentalists
- Brazilian woman threatened by Amazon loggers wins global human rights award
- Indonesian fishers opposed to dredging project hit by ‘criminalization’ bid
- Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’
- In Philippines’ Palawan, top cop linked to assault on environmental officer
Indonesias forest guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
