China has spent the last two decades quietly establishing an economic foothold in Latin America, a region that has traditionally relied on Western investment. It’s become the top trade partner…
Lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that, if passed, would require human rights safeguards to be embedded in Department of Interior grants given to conservation…
When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it will finalize this month the revocation of hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines that it announced at the start of the…
A ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court this month canceled two controversial mining concessions in Indigenous communities, which have been fighting to stop the projects for nearly two decades. The Nahua…
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation along with a number of prominent U.S. university endowments are among the top investors in a troubled set of oil palm plantations in the…
The ongoing drought in Paraguay, now moving into its third year, has put increasing pressure on conservation efforts throughout the country to support local communities and protect wildlife. Record-breaking heat…
Many Indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are struggling with hunger and malnutrition as increasing land invasions force them from ancestral forests that they once sustainably managed for crop cultivation. Residents…
In late 2021, the Mexican government made a controversial announcement that many of the country’s major infrastructure projects, most notably the Tren Maya project being built across the Yucatán Peninsula,…
JAKARTA — Palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing a local district head for revoking their permits, the second such case filed since authorities last year rescinded…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of…
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…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has rejected a bid by two palm oil companies to have their permits restored after they were scrapped by local authorities for a litany…
At the very southern tip of Colombia, Indigenous communities practice a sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and rotating crop structures within cycles of flooding periods. This has allowed…
One of the most poisonous animals on earth, the golden dart frog carries enough toxins in its body to kill 10 people. If it enters the blood stream, the toxin…
SORONG, Indonesia — An Indigenous clan in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has had its rights to its ancestral lands and forests recognized by the local government, a key step…
International forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology…
JAKARTA — Electric vehicles, solar power plants, biofuel, blue carbon, green bonds and the carbon market: all got a mention from Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo in his speech at the…
World leaders with furrowed brows gathering under the glare of TV lights. Dire warnings that time is running out to solve the climate and biodiversity crises. Proclamations that bold action…
SORONG, West Papua — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s West Papua province are fighting for the rights to their ancestral forests, now that the local government has rescinded licenses for oil…
Cattle ranching has been destroying the Rama-Kriol territory in southeast Nicaragua for decades. And while many researchers have called attention to the devastating forest loss taking place there, few have…
The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee has found that the Paraguayan government failed to regulate the use of harmful chemicals near an Indigenous community, resulting in severe health issues and…
There is a sacred hill in Nicaragua known as Kiwakumbaih, where the ancestors of the Indigenous Mayangna people would go to hold important annual events. To this day, it continues…
This week delegates to the long-delayed global biodiversity summit began the opening round of negotiations over a new international framework meant to address the world’s biodiversity crisis. Originally intended to…
A first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots across the Amazon shows that Brazil, once again, has the grim distinction of being a leader in destruction. Massive areas of forest…
SORONG, West Papua — With its lush rainforests and long stretches of beaches, Waimon, a coastal village in Indonesia’s West Papua province, seems like an idyllic place. But some residents…
JAKARTA — A long-delayed bill on Indigenous rights continues to languish in parliament because most lawmakers have business interests that are threatened by the acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights, activists…
Despite COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, 2020 set a new record for the deadliest year for land and environmental defenders, Global Witness said Sept. 13. It’s the second year in a…
Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in northern Tanzania. Widely considered to be one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet,…
MARSEILLE, France — Indigenous delegates to this year’s global conservation congress have launched a “Global Indigenous Agenda” for conservation, calling for approaches to the biodiversity crisis that center land rights…
