When around 70,000 Indigenous Maasai were expelled from their lands in northern Tanzania in 2022, it didn’t happen in a vacuum. For years, the Tanzanian government has systematically attacked Maasai…
PHNOM PENH — A new report published by Human Rights Watch on Feb. 28 details a litany of alleged abuses in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project, which covers a vast…
U.S. sanctions imposed in 2022 against Nicaragua’s mining industry were supposed to help combat a bloody wave of human rights abuses against local communities. But several years later, some aspects…
Salvadorans will go to the polls next week to choose a president and 60 members of the Legislative Assembly. Most of this election cycle has focused on security issues and…
PHNOM PENH — Two new hydropower dams approved by Cambodian authorities on Nov. 21 look set to bring further fragmentation to the dense rainforests of the Cardamom Mountains. If built…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have slammed one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producers for a report that they say glosses over its alleged violations and ignores concerns raised by local…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Activists have slammed the Indonesian police for rights violations after officers reportedly shot dead a villager and injured at least two others during a protest against…
Farmers and herders in southern Tanzania say rangers at Ruaha National Park have committed extrajudicial killings and livestock theft in a bid to drive them off their land to make…
JAKARTA — Activists have called on the developers of a major tourism project on the Indonesian island of Lombok to immediately remedy the rights violations alleged by local Indigenous communities…
Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns tells stories that shed light on the complexities and nuances of the United States’ cultural tapestry. This time, Burns has turned his lens on a symbol…
JAKARTA — Critics have questioned the Indonesian government’s priorities as it prepares to evict longtime residents of a small island to make way for a $25 billion development that includes…
TEKOA PINDÓ MIRIM, Brazil — “If we hadn’t come here, someone non-Indigenous would probably already have occupied this space,” says Neusa Poty. The 35-year-old Guarani Indigenous leader speaks in a…
Latin America is far and away the most dangerous place for people fighting to protect the environment. From activists and community leaders to journalists and politicians, standing up against deforestation,…
JAKARTA — U.S. food giant Kellogg’s is the latest major consumer brand to suspend its purchases of palm oil from Indonesian plantation giant Astra Agro Lestari, following reports of environmental…
A historic ruling established that the state of Montana violated youths' constitutional rights to a “clean and healthful environment.” This victory marks the first time in U.S. history that a…
CENTRAL SULAWESI, Indonesia — Karolus Kolong, a 62-year-old villager on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, has spent nearly two decades fighting to get his land back from palm oil giant Astra Agro…
An afro-descendent community in northern Ecuador is fighting to retake its land from a palm oil company that has allegedly used questionable permits and expensive lawsuits to maintain a hold…
The takeover of a polluting landfill in Colombia was supposed to help clean up the area for residents falling sick from exposure to toxic chemicals, but years later they say…
Rosaleen Duffy has long drawn the ire of those who support a forceful “guns and gates” approach to protecting wildlife. A professor of international politics at Sheffield University in the…
JAKARTA — Suryani grew up in a family of farmers on the island of Java in Indonesia. Her parents are members of a farmer’s union called SPP. The land they…
MEXICO CITY — Protecting the environment is no easy task. But in Mexico, it can often be deadly. The country is seeing a rise in violence against environmental defenders, who…
Communities in the Intag Valley of Ecuador have won a significant legal victory after a court ruled to halt copper mining in one of the world’s most biodiverse forests. The…
A wave of violence against Indigenous people in Nicaragua this month has drawn international outcry over the government’s lack of action against land invaders committing human rights violations and destroying…
Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…
KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized community claims to ancestral forests in the country’s eastern Papua region for the first time in history, a move that environmentalists say could…
PHNOM PENH — On the edges of Boeung Tamok, Phnom Penh’s largest lake, 25-year-old Kong Khun sheltered from the late June heat in a bamboo hut. Despite clear skies, Khun…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived…
When workers dig through the earth at the San Andres mine in western Honduras, one of the country’s largest mining operations, they sometimes find something mixed in that wasn’t there…
A report accusing Kenya-based conservation group the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of involvement in extrajudicial killings of pastoralists was rejected on June 9 in an independent review commissioned by the…