Indonesia’s Sangihe islanders score legal victory over mining company
JAKARTA — Residents of a remote island in eastern Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island, after having an earlier legal challenge…
Environmental Crime
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
Mongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the…
In Mexico City’s urban sprawl, an unexpected illegal logging network thrives
TLALPAN, Mexico — Mexico City is, by some counts, one of the largest cities in the world. Its 9 million citizens occupy 1,485 square kilometers (573 square miles) of sprawling…
An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs
Beginning along Honduras’s northeastern coastline and stretching south into its dense interior rainforests lies the Río Plátano Biosphere. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, the Río Plátano is…
Indonesian omnibus law’s ‘whitewash’ of illegal palm oil shocks its architects
JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia have expressed shock — shock! — that a controversial bill they passed into law last year amid near-universal criticism legitimizes illegal deforestation for oil palm…
‘Throw them overboard’: Brazil mine disaster victims bullied over compensation
“I’m the one who called the meeting; I’m going to set the tone,” says Viviane Aguiar, a lawyer representing the Renova Foundation, interrupting Valeriana Gomes de Souza, a cattle farmer…
Palm oil waste is latest item declared non-hazardous by Indonesia
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s decision to categorize the palm oil industry’s solid waste as non-hazardous has triggered environmental concerns. The industry uses huge volumes of a powdered clay called…
JBS, other Brazil meatpackers linked to devastating Pantanal fires, Greenpeace says
In a new report, Greenpeace has linked major Brazilian meat processors JBS, Marfrig and Minerva to cattle ranchers that satellite data indicate were responsible for setting fires in Brazil’s Pantanal…
Papua tribe moves to block clearing of its ancestral forest for palm oil
This article was co-produced with The Gecko Project. JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province are protesting against a company that’s preparing to raze their ancestral forest for…
As 2020 Amazon fire season winds down, Brazil carbon emissions rise
It was another intense year for fires in the Amazon. More than 2,500 major blazes burned across Brazil’s Legal Amazon between May 28 and November 3, according to a fire…
2020 fires endangering uncontacted Amazon Indigenous groups
Amazon fires are burning this year within the protected lands inhabited by isolated uncontacted Indigenous peoples. The fires, largely illegal and intentionally set by land grabbers, ranchers and farmers, are…
Two deaths, zero accountability: Indonesia’s mining pits claim more lives
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — On Sept. 6, five teenagers went together to a man-made lake in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province, carved out of a coal-mining pit that had been abandoned and…
Groups demand financial, human rights probes into palm conglomerate Korindo
JAKARTA — Activists have called on the Indonesian authorities to probe the finances of the Korindo Group, a privately owned conglomerate, in the wake of an investigation that exposed a $22…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Mennonite colony builds bridge, clears forest in Bolivian protected areas
- Satellites show deforestation surging in Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park
- Large-scale logging in Cambodia’s Prey Lang linked to politically-connected mining operation
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
Oceans
- A year before deep-sea mining could begin, calls for a moratorium build
- WTO ban on ‘harmful’ subsidies won’t impact small-scale fishers, Indonesia says
- Experts fear end of vaquitas after green light for export of captive-bred totoaba fish
- Nickel, Tesla and two decades of environmental activism: Q&A with leader Raphaël Mapou
Amazon Conservation
- Swiss pledge to stop illegal gold imports from Brazil Indigenous reserves
- At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
Land rights and extractives
- Coal mining threatens Ethiopia’s ancient coffee forest
- Proposed copper and gold mine threatens the world’s ‘second Amazon’ in PNG
- In Indonesian Borneo, a succession of extractive industries multiplies impacts, social fractures
- Illegal mining threatens one of the last forest links between the Andes and Ecuador’s Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- A look at violence and conflict over Indigenous lands in nine Latin American countries
- Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- “We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Death threats and friction with military force Guatemalan rangers to flee
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove 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
Conservation Effectiveness
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
