Mongabay series: Indigenous-led conservation

LA CEIBA, Colombia — Nine years ago, Delio de Jesús Suárez Gómez made a pact with wild bees. The arrangement didn’t come easy, given that neither party knew each other…

“Humanity has opened the gates to hell by allowing the climate crisis to worsen”, said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General at the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit in September. This year, 2023,…

Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo nine months before his death, returned to the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.

In the conservation world, partnerships between the big international NGOs, or BINGOs, and local grassroots organizations are often marriages of unequals. And as with any union, the biggest pain points…

For nearly 2,000 years, the Indigenous Karen people of southeast Myanmar have led a relatively tranquil life in the hilly forests that are part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. But…

Every year in the run-up to the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) publishes a shortlist of possible contenders. This year included two long-time…

BELLINGEN, Australia — A coastal breeze can be felt through the rustling eucalyptus leaves of blackbutt, ironbark and tallowwood trees in the old-growth native forest now known as Newry on…

Indigenous activists have claimed two small victories against timber giant Samling in their decades-long battle to protect their remaining forests and territories in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Operating in…

LABASA, Fiji — No one finds their way to the village of Drawa by accident. To get there, you must first board a tiny plane to Labasa, the biggest town…

CHANGUINOLA, Panama — Long before the Naso peoples in the northern jungles of Panama won the fight for their land, before a king came from far away to lead them…

Indigenous peoples and local communities have critical intimate knowledge of climate change impacts and adaptation options in their lands while the majority of those lands are under threat from industrial…

In southeast Alaska, people and bears alike come to the shore of the Chilkat River to catch salmon beside evergreen trees and mountains with snow-covered stony summits. Five species of…

On 27 March 2021, the natural sounds of the teak and bamboo forests of eastern Myanmar — calling birds, croaking frogs and barking deer — were drowned out by a…

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…

Across Hawai’i’s sprawling islands of towering tree ferns in the wet mountains to the night-blooming maiapilo flower on the coasts, down to the vibrant lionfish in the seas, an Indigenous…

SÃO PAULO — Last Friday, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed documents officially recognizing six Indigenous lands across the country. After years of stalling due to opposition by…

Fifteen funders have committed $102.5 million over the next five years to support Indigenous-led restoration and conservation projects in the United States. This is occurring through the Native Americans in…

Many of the people archaeologist Dulma Karunarathna interviews in rural Sri Lanka have never been interviewed before. And many of them, representing a variety of religions and languages, tell her…

Over the past 15 years, First Nations in Haida Gwaii and central and northern coastal British Columbia, Canada, have turned the tables around: once subjected to massive economic, social and…

Je’chu, a god, first created bees so that their wax would cure the world. So goes the spiritual testament of the Yucuna Indigenous peoples of Colombia. “He is our god…

This story was published in partnership with Grist. As nearly 200 countries struggle to negotiate a new plan for nature conservation at the United Nations’ Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada,…

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caught Costa Rica’s Cabécar Indigenous communities at a precarious time. Amid the species-rich forests of the Talamanca Cabécar Indigenous territory, climate change had already begun…

ORLEANS, California—An elemental smell wafts through the Klamath mountains in early autumn—woodsmoke. Despite the U.S. Forest Service’s intermittent bans on lighting fires in the forest, the Karuk Tribe is maintaining…

Funders of a $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they disbursed around 19% of the money to bolster the land rights of Indigenous and local…

The second Monday of October marks Indigenous Peoples’ Day in multiple cities and states across the U.S. Originally juxtaposed against Columbus Day, celebrated at the same time, the day is…

RAROTONGA, Cook Islands – Every Saturday, a group of Cook Islands Māori youth slide into scuba gear, grab sticks from the ironwood trees (Casuarina equisetifolia) growing along Rarotonga’s beachfront, and…

Salatou Sambou, a fisherman and father of five, has been involved in the Kawawana ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in Senegal since 2008. One of the first members of…

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…

Persistent rain couldn’t dampen the high spirits of Mamalilikulla First Nation members and their guests on a dark day in May. As lowering clouds played hide-and-seek with soaring mountains, the…

In February 2020, lightning struck Figure of Eight Island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago, igniting a fire that burned through most of its vegetation in just a few days. While…