While trying to put together a review of what happened to Venezuela’s environment in 2021, conservationists ran into a problem. The government publishes virtually no statistics on things like deforestation,…
JAKARTA — A palm oil company whose permit was revoked at the start of the year and which was ordered to halt operations is allegedly continuing to clear forests in…
JAKARTA — An area of natural forest a tenth the size of Seoul has been cleared by a subsidiary of South Korean paper giant Moorim in Indonesia’s Papua region, a…
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…
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 — Pulpwood and palm oil companies were among the biggest contributors to the loss of a Manhattan-size area of forest in Indonesia’s Papua region in 2021, a new report…
Officials in Honduras say they are cracking down on open-pit mining, an activity that has plagued the country with deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, among other environmental hazards. The…
JAKARTA — Local opposition to a mine on Indonesia’s Java Island, and the heavy-handed police crackdown on protesters, has turned the national spotlight on a spate of development projects touted…
JAKARTA — In the nearly two years since Indonesian lawmakers passed a controversial mining law, the legislation has increasingly been used by police to arrest villagers and local activists opposed…
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…
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are suing a local district head for revoking their permits, the second such case filed since authorities last year rescinded…
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 — In 2020, residents of Suka Mukti village in southern Sumatra paid 10 million rupiah each, about $700, to a government agency to obtain titles to their land —…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s…
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…
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…
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…
Guatemala is getting ready to implement new regulatory programs for the cattle industry in hopes of slowing the rate of deforestation in some of the country’s most at-risk tropical forests.…
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…
JAKARTA — Activists are warning of “severe environmental and social risks” from plans by two of the world’s largest paper companies to significantly expand their operations in Indonesia. Both Asia…
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…
JAKARTA — The planned expansion of one of the largest pulp and paper producers in North America will threaten Canada’s boreal forest, the most carbon dense woodland in the world,…
The statistics paint a grim picture: Accelerating species losses, 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of forest destroyed every year, apocalyptic declines in the abundance of some wildlife. The planet…
JAKARTA — Pulpwood companies obliged to restore the degraded peatlands inside their concessions in Indonesia are instead continuing to cultivate the land, a new investigative report says. The report by…
PANDUMAAN-SIPITUHUTA, Indonesia — For years, Ganjang, a member of the Pandumaan-Sipituhuta Indigenous community in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, has been uneasy about extracting frankincense from trees in a nearby forest.…
JAKARTA — Palm oil giant Korindo Group has had its membership in the Forest Stewardship Council terminated, a move that activists say sends a signal to other companies that they…