topic: Activism

topic: Activism

Social media activity version | Lean version

Environmental defenders paid the price during Panama’s historic mining protests – report
- Last year’s protests against a copper mine in Panama resulted in injuries, lost eyesight and several deaths, according to a new report from the Foundation for Integral Community Development and the Conservation of Ecosystems in Panama (FUNDICCEP) and Panamanian National Network in Defense of Water.
- The protests were in response to a new contract for the Cobre Panamá copper mine operated by Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals (FQM).
- Environmental defenders are concerned that another crackdown could take place should there be protests against renewed mining negotiations with the government of President-elect José Raúl Mulino, who takes office July 1.

Rights groups call for greater public input in ASEAN environmental rights framework
- Civil society and Indigenous rights groups are calling for greater public participation and transparency in the drafting process of what they say could be a pivotal agreement to protect environmental rights and defenders in Southeast Asia.
- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) declaration on environmental rights was initially envisioned as a legally binding framework, but the scaling back of the level of commitment to a nonbinding declaration has raised concerns among observers.
- Groups are calling for an extension of the public consultation period, which lasted for only one month, and greater commitments to address key issues in the region, such as strengthening Indigenous rights, access to environmental information and justice, and clarifying mechanisms for resolving transboundary development impacts.
- If the treaty remains non-legally binding, its ultimate success will depend largely on the political will of each separate ASEAN state and on the continued efforts of civil society to hold their governments accountable.

Indigenous Philippine village rejects gold mine, cites flawed consultation
- Itogon-Suyoc Resources Inc. (ISRI), one of the Philippines’ oldest mining firms, is seeking permission to mine gold from the mountains of Itogon, a municipality in the mineral-rich, majority Indigenous north of the country.
- Mining on Indigenous land requires a consultation process, and Itogon communities rejected the company’s application in 2022, citing concerns including water contamination and loss of access for traditional mining activities. The company applied for a new round of consultations in 2023, which resulted in an agreement to allow mining in the area.
- Elders from Dalicno, the village that will be most affected if the mining proceeds, say they weren’t informed about the 2023 consultations. The agreement has yet to receive final approval due to irregularities including a lack of photographs or attendance sheets to prove that community consultations actually took place.
- Proponents of the mine say those opposing it do so only out of self-interest, while ISRI says existing small-scale mining in the area is more environmentally degrading than the company’s planned operations.

Indigenous communities along Argentina’s Río Chubut mobilize to conserve waterway
- A caravan of Indigenous Mapuche activists recently concluded an 847-km (526-mi) trek down Argentina’s Chubut River, meeting with communities along the way to raise awareness of the issues they face along the shared waterway.
- From each trawün, or gathering, they determined that Indigenous access to land and water is diminishing, that large-scale projects on their lands are going ahead without their prior informed consent, and that Mapuche communities need a unified stance toward state decisions.
- Huge swaths of land along the river have been bought up by private interests, including foreign millionaires, cutting off access for the Mapuche to the Chubut that they consider not just a physical resource but a spiritual entity.
- The Mapuche are also concerned about policy changes under Argentina’s new libertarian administration, which has already kicked off a massive deregulation spree and could lift a ban on open-pit mining in the region.

Indigenous Bolivians flee homes as backlash to mining protest turns explosive
- Indigenous communities have been threatened and attacked for protesting mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change in the community collective of Acre Antequera.
- The collective, or ayllu, is an Indigenous territorial structure made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture.
- But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater.
- While protesting earlier this month against the harmful impacts of mining, several women in the community said dynamite was thrown into their homes and their children weren’t allowed to attend school.

2024 Goldman Prize Winner Murrawah Johnson: First Nations must be at the forefront of creating change
- Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, an Indigenous Wirdi woman and Traditional Owner from the Birri Gubba Nation, has been awarded the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize in the category of climate and energy.
- Johnson is the co-founder of Youth Verdict, an advocacy group that successfully won a court case against Waratah Coal in Queensland, Australia. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the significance of this case for First Nations rights in Australia, as well as the legal implications for similar cases in the future.
- The case Waratah Coal Pty. Ltd. vs. Youth Verdict Ltd. & Ors (2022) resulted in the Land Court of Queensland recommending a rejection of a mining lease in the Galilee Basin that would have added 1.58 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over its lifespan.
- The case also set multiple precedents in Australia, including being the first successful case to link the impacts of climate change with human rights, and the first to include “on-Country” evidence from First Nations witnesses.

Meet the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 35th anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroots activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2023 prize winners are Alok Shukla from India, Andrea Vidaurre from the U.S., Marcel Gomes from Brazil, Murrawah Maroochy Johnson from Australia, Teresa Vicente from Spain, and Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu from South Africa.

Women weave a culture of resistance and agroecology in Ecuador’s Intag Valley
- In Ecuador’s Intag Valley, the women’s artisan collective Mujer y Medio Ambiente (Women and the Environment) has developed an innovative way to dye and stitch fibers from the cabuya plant, an agave-like shrub.
- The women use environmentally friendly techniques, such as natural dyes from native plants and insects, and agroecological farming practices to cultivate cabuya as a complementary crop to their primary harvests.
- Being part of the collective has empowered the women economically and personally, enabling them to contribute to their children’s education, gain autonomy, and become community leaders in the nearly 30-year struggle to keep mining companies out of their forests.
- In March 2023, the community’s resistance paid off when a provincial court recognized that mining companies had violated the communities’ constitutional rights and canceled their permits, setting an important precedent for protecting constitutional and environmental rights in Ecuador.

Outdated infrastructure and oil spills: the cases of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador
- Outdated oil pipelines built by foreign companies in the Andean Amazon have repeatedly put at risk ecosystems and Indigenous communities in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, exposing them to oil spills and wide-scale contamination.
- Unlike modern extractive infrastructure, those pipelines are built on the surface, making them vulnerable to the elements, accidents and sabotage. For example, in Putumayo, Colombia, oil infrastructure was attacked more than 1,000 times between 1986 and 2015, triggering at least 160 oil spills.
- Highly dependent on oil revenues, governments in the region are unlikely to give up on the income provided by the old pipelines in order to remedy environmental impacts that affect a small percentage of their population.

Activists file last-gasp suit as Indonesia fails again to pass Indigenous bill
- Lawyers for Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance have initiated legal proceedings against the government for its failure to pass a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights.
- The suit seeks to compel Indonesia’s parliament to expedite passage of the bill, which has remained deadlocked for more than a decade amid intransigence by elected representatives.
- “It still needs to be discussed,” a senior parliamentarian from the Golkar party said earlier this month.
- However, few expect any progress over the next few months, with a new parliament to be sworn in on Oct. 1 and a new president on Oct. 20.

Uttarakhand limits agricultural land sales amid protests & tourism development
- Following widespread protests, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has issued orders to district magistrates to deny permission to sell agricultural lands to those outside the state.
- With just 14% of its land designated for agriculture and more than 65% of the population relying on agriculture, calls for legislation to safeguard residents’ land rights have intensified.
- With a lack of comprehensive, updated land records, monitoring the usage of farmlands for nonagricultural purposes has become challenging.
- Lack of employment opportunities and resources as well as shifting weather patterns and climate change have pushed numerous farmers to sell their land holdings.

UN puts spotlight on attacks against Indigenous land defenders
- At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, experts called attention to the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, exacerbated by intersecting interests in extractive industries, conservation, and climate mitigation.
- While Indigenous peoples are affected by the global trend of using criminal law to dissuade free speech and protests, the bulk of criminalization of Indigenous Peoples happens because of a lack of — or partial implementation of — Indigenous rights in national laws.
- Urgent actions are needed to address systemic issues, including legal reforms, enhanced protections for defenders, and concerted efforts to prevent and reverse the criminalization of Indigenous communities.

Indigenous efforts to save Peru’s Marañon River could spell trouble for big oil
- In March, the Federation of Kukama Indigenous Women in the Parinari district of Loreto won a lawsuit against the oil company Petroperú and the Peruvian government, protecting the Marañon River from oil pollution.
- Since the 1970s, the exploration of oil reserves in the Peruvian Amazon has resulted in hundreds of oil leaks and spills, compromising the health of Indigenous communities.
- While the defendants have already appealed the decision, a favorable ruling in higher courts could force oil and gas companies to answer for decades of pollution in the Peruvian Amazon.

Faced with an extreme future, one Colombian island struggles to rebuild
- In 2020, Hurricane Iota destroyed most of the housing and infrastructure on the Island of Providencia, in Colombia’s Caribbean archipelago of San Andres.
- Although the government sent aid and rebuilt homes, communities complained they were left out of the consultation process and that the reconstruction had been poorly done, without addressing the island’s increased vulnerability to climate change.
- Locals sued the government, obtaining a reopening of consultations, which the new left-wing government has agreed must reach a solution that accords with the islanders’ traditional customs.
- More than 700 islands in the Caribbean could be increasingly exposed to more extreme weather, as climate change threatens to make events such as hurricanes more destructive.

Effective climate activism requires honest conversations about its challenges
- Climate activist Clover Hogan says environmental activists face growing challenges not just from outside their movements, but also from within.
- She shares how the prevalence of unpaid labor can make young activists’ lives even more difficult in the present while they advocate for a more livable future.
- Add to that criticism for perceived imperfections over lifestyle choices and infighting between colleagues that can lead some to choose not to identify as activists at all, or leave movements altogether, she says.
- On this episode of the podcast, Hogan discusses these challenges in addition to direct and existential threats that environmental defenders face worldwide, and how she thinks more inclusive and effective activism can be fostered.

Alis Ramírez: A defender of the Colombian Amazon now living as a refugee in New Zealand
- Because of her opposition to mining, indiscriminate logging in forests and the social and environmental consequences of oil exploration, María Alis Ramírez was forced to abandon her farm in Caquetá, in southern Colombia, and move across the world.
- The various threats she received because of her work as an environmental defender forced her and her family to first move to New Zealand, where she arrived as a refugee in 2019.
- According to reports by human rights organization Global Witness, Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental and land defenders.
- In New Zealand, she says she can live with a sense of tranquility that would be impossible in Colombia. Although Alis Ramírez is now safe, she has not stopped thinking about her country, the jungle and the river that was alongside her throughout her childhood.

How to ‘stop mining before it starts’: Interview with community organizer Carlos Zorrilla
- Over nearly 30 years, Carlos Zorrilla and the organizations he co-founded helped stop six companies from developing open-pit copper mining operations in the Intag Valley in Ecuador.
- As a leader and public figure, Zorrilla is often asked for advice from communities facing similar struggles, so in 2009 he published a guide on how to protect one’s community from mining and other extractive operations.
- The 60-page guide shares wisdom and resources, including mines’ environmental and health risks, key early warning signs a company is moving in, and advice on mitigating damage if a mine does go ahead.
- The most important point, Zorrilla says in an interview with Mongabay, is to stop mining before it starts.

Indonesian court jails environmentalist for flagging illegal farms in marine park
- An Indonesian court has sentenced an environmental activist to seven months in jail for a Facebook post in which he criticized the growing problem of illegal shrimp farms operating inside a marine park.
- The court found that Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan had “created unrest” because of his post, under a controversial 2008 law on online speech that’s been widely used to silence environmental and human rights activists.
- Three other activists face similar charges in the case, which centers on their efforts to highlight the presence of illegal shrimp farms inside Karimunjawa National Park, which is supposed to be a protected area.
- Fellow rights activists have lambasted the ruling against Daniel, saying it sets a dangerous precedent for exploitation of the justice system to silence and criminalize individuals.

‘Planting water, eating Caatinga & irrigating with the sun’: Interview with agroecologist Tião Alves
- In an interview with Mongabay, Brazilian agroecologist Tião Alves tells how he has been teaching thousands of rural workers to survive in the Caatinga biome, severely afflicted by drought, climate change and desertification.
- At the head of Serta, one of the most important agroecology schools in the Brazilian Northeast, he teaches low-cost technologies that ensure food security with a minimum of resources, both natural and financial.
- Currently, 13% of the Caatinga is already in the process of desertification, the result of a combination of deforestation, inadequate irrigation, extreme droughts and changes in the global climate.

Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Four environmental activists in Indonesia face up to 10 months in jail for “hate speech” after complaining online about the proliferation of illegal shrimp farms inside a marine park.
- Karimunjawa National Park, which is supposed to be a protected area, has seen the number of such farms inside its borders proliferate in recent years, which groups like Greenpeace have linked to ecosystem degradation.
- Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan is the first of the four members of the #SaveKarimunjawa movement to go to court; a verdict in his case is expected on April 4.
- All four men have been charged under a controversial 2008 law on online speech, which critics say has been abused vigorously by the Indonesian state to stifle dissent and opposition.

Communities worry anew as PNG revives seabed mining plans
- Coastal communities in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province rely on the sea for their livelihoods and culture.
- But Solwara 1, a resurgent deep-sea mining project aimed at sourcing metals from the ocean floor, could threaten their way of life, community leaders and activists say.
- They also say they haven’t been properly consulted about the potential pros and cons of Solwara 1, and government and company leaders have provided little information to the public about their plans.
- A coalition of leaders, activists and faith-based organizations called the Alliance of Solwara Warriors is opposing the project in Papua New Guinea and abroad, and calling for a permanent ban on seabed mining in the country’s waters.

Indonesians uprooted by mining industry call for a fairer future amid presidential vote
- Ahead of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, people from across the country affected by extractive industries gathered at the site of a notorious mudflow disaster in East Java province.
- The Lapindo mudflow continues to impact thousands of residents with diverse social repercussions, including displacement, environmental pollution, and obstructed access to education and health care.
- The gathering attracted participants from various regions across Indonesia to raise awareness of the impact of mining and extractive industries on affected communities.

PNG communities resist seabed mining: Interview with activist Jonathan Mesulam
- The government of Papua New Guinea appears poised to approve Solwara 1, a long-in-development deep-sea mining project in the country’s waters.
- However, PNG has signed onto several seabed mining moratoria, and scientists have urged caution until more research can determine what the effects of this practice will be.
- Proponents say the seafloor holds a wealth of minerals needed for batteries, especially for electric vehicles, and thus are vital for the transition away from fossil fuels.
- But coastal communities in PNG’s New Ireland province have mounted a fierce resistance to Solwara 1, arguing that it could damage or destroy the ecosystems that provide them with food and are the foundation of their cultures.

Activists urge Australia to end lucrative links to Myanmar junta’s mines
- Pro-democracy activists urge Australian government action against domestic companies they say are funding Myanmar’s military junta, citing environmental and human rights abuses in the country’s mining sector.
- Two advocacy groups criticized the slow pace of Australian sanctions, calling on Canberra to follow Western counterparts in targeting state-owned natural resource enterprises there.
- A recent Justice For Myanmar report identifies Australian-linked companies allegedly supporting the junta through mining activities and related services, prompting demands for coordinated international action.

Landslide in Philippines mining town kills nearly 100, prompts calls for action
- A Feb. 6 landslide in a gold mining village in the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao claimed nearly 100 lives and buried about 55 houses and a government office.
- The mining company was not held liable for the landslide, which occurred inside its concession but away from its mine mining operations; however, activists have called for more accountability by both the mining firm and the government.
- The area has previously been the site of deadly landslides, but neither the local government nor the company issued an evacuation order following landslide and flash flood warnings issued Feb. 4.
- The village that hosts the mine has been declared a “no build zone” since at least 2008, due to the high risk of landslides, but neither the village nor the mining operations have ever been relocated.

No sea change on marine policy from candidates as Indonesia heads to polls
- None of the three candidates running in Indonesia’s Feb. 14 presidential election have presented meaningful policy changes for the country’s coastal communities and marine resources, observers say.
- Indonesians are voting in the biggest single-day election in the world, but the failure by candidates to prioritize maritime issues is a major omission for the world’s biggest archipelagic country.
- Observers say the interests of fishing communities continue to be subordinated to those of industry and developers when it comes to competition for space and resources, and that none of this looks set to change under any of the three candidates.
- They also note that issues such as poverty in coastal areas, threats to marine ecosystems, and the marginalization of coastal communities persist despite the significant role these communities play in Indonesia’s fisheries sector.

Ecuador government weighs delaying closure of controversial ITT oil block
- The government in Ecuador is considering ways to avoid closing the 43-ITT oil block, located inside Yasuní National Park in the eastern Amazon, despite the results of a national referendum last year to halt drilling.
- Since opening in 2016, the operation has led to numerous oil spills and the construction of a road through the 82,000-hectare (202,626 acre) reserve, threatening biodiversity as well as Indigenous groups, many of them living in voluntary isolation.
- But some officials have said closing the oil block needs to be delayed by at least one year to allow the national economy to respond to what could amount to billions of dollars in losses.

In the Brazilian outback, the half-century Kapinawá struggle for sacred ground
- The Catimbau Valley, in the backlands of Pernambuco state, is one of the most biodiverse areas in the Caatinga dry forest and also an archaeological treasure, with the second-largest collection of rock inscriptions in Brazil.
- It’s also the sacred and ancestral territory of the Kapinawá, a people who discovered their Indigenous identity in the mid-1970s amid a war against land-grabbers.
- Part of the Kapinawá lands became an Indigenous territory, while the remaining area was later transformed into a national park in 2002; those who live there complain about the numerous restrictions they now face.
- While fighting to reclaim their lands, the Kapinawá turn the Caatinga into a laboratory for experiments in agroecology, combining biodiversity preservation and food production.

Indonesian utility PLN ordered to disclose coal plants’ emissions data
- Indonesia’s Public Information Commission (KIP) has ordered state-owned utility PLN to disclose emissions data for some of the country’s biggest coal-fired power plants.
- Civil society groups have hailed the decision as a victory against government opacity and a major step toward accountability for public health.
- The KIP’s decision isn’t the end of the story, however; there’s a long history of various government ministries simply refusing to comply with its orders for data disclosure, and it’s not clear whether PLN will buck that trend.

‘Hope is the last to die’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Jose Parava on land rights
- Jose Antônio Parava Ramos is a young leader of the Chiquitano people from the Portal do Encantado Indigenous land, in Mato Grosso state, west-central Brazil, bordering Bolívia.
- The Chiquitano people are an Indigenous group divided by borders, and their largest population currently lives in the neighboring Andean country.
- In Brazil, Parava’s land is the Chiquitano territory closest to completing its demarcation process; the people have waited more than a decade for this, and Portal do Encantado is just one of the many territories in the country in this situation.
- In a Mongabay interview, the Indigenous leader, who is also a health worker, sheds light on the pressures of deforestation and land conflicts on his territory and highlights the importance of demarcation to preserve his people’s identity.

Courage & calm despite attacks: Q&A with Colombian activist Yuly Velásquez
- For years, Colombia’s largest oil refinery, owned by the national oil company Ecopetrol, has discharged oil and toxic waste into water bodies, impacting fish and the livelihoods of fishers.
- Yuly Velásquez, a local fisher and president of an environmental organization, has spent years documenting water contamination and corruption linked to the refinery, and she faces consistent threats and attacks.
- According to a 2022 report by the NGO Global Witness, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental and land defenders, with 60 murders that year.
- In this interview with Mongabay, she discusses the threats environmental defenders face in Colombia and what helps her stay resilient in the face of attacks.

Outcry over deforestation as Suriname’s agriculture plans come to light
- Government documents, first published by Mongabay last year, showed that hundreds of thousands of hectares of Suriname’s primary forest might be under consideration for agriculture development.
- Indigenous communities, conservation groups and some members of parliament are concerned about deforestation of the Amazon and the fate of ancestral territories.
- Some officials have threatened investigations into the Ministry of Land Policy and Forest Management, while Indigenous groups are looking into legal action.

Civil-backed proposal seeks to address root causes of Thailand’s choking haze
- Policymakers in Thailand have begun proceedings on a new Clean Air Act to address seasonal air pollution that blankets parts of the country every dry season, presenting what experts describe as severe health risks for citizens.
- Agricultural burning and industrial emissions, both locally and in neighboring countries, are the main sources of air pollution levels that annually exceed WHO safe limits, often making Thailand among the most polluted places in the world.
- Several draft versions of clean air legislation have been presented for parliamentary approval, including a citizen-backed proposal that focuses on empowering local action and addressing the root causes of the choking haze.

Historic land win for Ecuador’s Siekopai sets precedent for other Indigenous peoples
- Following 80 years of displacement, Indigenous Siekopai communities regained ownership of their ancestral Amazonian homeland on Ecuador’s border with Peru.
- The provincial court of Sucumbíos ruled in favor of the community, saying the environment ministry must deliver a property title for 42,360 hectares (104,674 acres) to the Siekopai, as well as a public apology for its violation of their collective territorial rights.
- The ruling is historic because it’s the first time an Indigenous community whose ancestral territory lies within a nationally protected area will receive title to the land.
- According to experts, this new ruling may change the approach communities use to obtain their ancestral lands in Ecuador, and the country may see more communities filing similar lawsuits to obtain lands locked away for state conservation.

Report: Rush for ‘clean energy’ minerals in Africa risks repeating harmful extractivist model
- The nonprofit Global Witness investigated lithium mining projects in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia, which appear to reproduce the same model of extractivism that has impoverished African countries for centuries.
- In March, residents of the Namibian town of Uis took to the streets to protest the activities of Chinese miner Xinfeng, alleging the company was carrying out large-scale industrial mining without the proper permits or social license.
- In Zimbabwe, activist Farai Maguwu from the Centre for Natural Resource Governance described a similar experience of exclusion and exploitation at Chinese miner Sinomine’s Bikita lithium operation, calling it “typical extractivism.”
- One of the ways to prevent exploitation is to shut out companies that “socialize the costs and privatize the profits,” Maguwu said, adding he remains hopeful that encouraging competition between companies from across the world is the way to ensure better outcomes for Zimbabweans.

Shrinking civil space and persistent logging: 2023 in review in Southeast Asia
- Home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest and some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Southeast Asia has seen conservation wins and losses over the course of 2023.
- The year was characterized by a rising trend of repression against environmental and Indigenous defenders that cast a shadow of fear over the work of activists in many parts of the region.
- Logging pressure in remaining tracts of forest remained intense, and an El Niño climate pattern brought regional haze crises generated by forest fires and agricultural burning returned.
- But some progress was made on several fronts: Most notably, increasing understanding of the benefits and methods of ecosystem restoration underpinned local, national and regional efforts to bring back forests, mangroves and other crucial sanctuaries of biodiversity.

Indonesia remembers Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, rare policymaker who stood for nature
- Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a respected Indonesian policymaker and environmentalist, passed away earlier this month, leaving behind a legacy of dedicated and direct leadership.
- Kuntoro’s lifelong dedication to environmental causes, including his support for Indigenous rights, was rooted in his early years as a nature lover.
- His former colleagues and collaborators recall Kuntoro’s integrity and commitment to balancing developmental and environmental interests.
- His ability to find common ground among diverse stakeholders, address challenges with innovative solutions, and emphasize the well-being of Indigenous communities showcased a practical leadership style with a lasting impact.

‘The police are watching’: In Mekong countries, eco defenders face rising risks
- Activists, journalists, environmental lawyers and others who raise attention for environmental issues in the Mekong region say they feel threatened by authoritarian governments.
- Environment defenders say they feel under surveillance and at risk both in their home countries and abroad.
- The risks they face include violence and arrests, as well as state-backed harassment such as asset freezes and smear campaigns.

Activists slam ‘independent’ probe by Indonesian palm oil giant into violations
- A report commissioned by Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari into alleged violations allegedly by its subsidiaries on the island of Sulawesi failed to investigate key issues such as community rights, NGOs say.
- The investigation was triggered by multiple media and NGO reports on the long-running conflict between three AAL subsidiaries and local communities in Central Sulawesi province who allege the companies grabbed their land.
- The investigation failed to verify whether AAL’s subsidiaries had obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local and Indigenous communities before operating in the area, according to Walhi and Friends of the Earth US.
- Instead, the verification focused on proving whether the communities in the area had legal permits to their land that overlaps with AAL’s concessions, resulting in biased and inaccurate findings, the NGOs say.

NGOs at COP28 demand Vietnam free climate advocates before it gets energy funding
- Vietnam has unveiled the resource mobilization plan for its just energy transition partnership (JETP) at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
- The $15.5 billion plan, a partnership between Vietnam and G7 countries, outlines the policies and financing Vietnam will need to achieve 47% renewable energy and peak emissions in 2030.
- Environmentalists are calling for Vietnam to release imprisoned climate activists and guarantee protections for civil society before the JETP can move forward.
- In the past two years, Vietnam has imprisoned six leading environmental advocates, including individuals working on alternatives to fossil fuel expansion.

Reef damage from 2024 Olympics surfing venue is avoidable (commentary)
- Parisians are not the only ones criticizing the 2024 Olympic Games: residents of Tahiti in French Polynesia are concerned about negative impacts on its celebrated reef from a surfing event venue being built in Teahupo’o.
- A coalition of fishermen, farmers, surfers, and citizens of Teahupo’o have started a petition and have held at least one protest in hopes of forcing Olympic organizers to change their plans.
- “If Paris 2024 intends to follow through with its promises to ‘bring about a new era’ of sustainability in the sporting world, it must take action to ensure that the Teahupo’o reef is left undamaged for its marine and human populations,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Safety of Peru’s land defenders in question after killing of Indigenous leader in the Amazon
- Quinto Inuma was killed on November 29 while traveling to the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community in Peru’s Amazon following a meeting of environmental defenders.
- For years, the Indigenous Kichwa leader had been receiving threats for his work trying to stop invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging in his community, forcing him to rely on protection measures from the Ministry of Justice.
- After Inuma’s death, a group of 128 Indigenous communities released a statement appealing for justice and holding the Peruvian state reponsible for its inaction and ineffectivtieness in protecting the lives of human rights defenders in Indigenous territories. Several other Indigenous leaders who receive threats have requested protection measures from the state but have not gotten a response.
- According to an official in the Ministry of Justice, providing the Kichwa leader with protection measures was very complex because he lived in a high-risk area. The only thing that could be done, they said, is to provide permanent police protection, which wasn’t possible for the local police.

Indigenous groups rebuke court OK for palm oil company to raze Papua forests
- Indigenous Awyu tribal members in Papua lambasted a court decision that effectively greenlights palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari’s plans to raze 26,326 hectares (65,000 acres) of primary forest that sit on ancestral lands.
- If developed in full, the project would replace 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies.
- The impending deforestation would subsequently release at least 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is 5% of Indonesia’s estimated annual carbon emissions.

Nickel mine threatens Philippines biodiversity hotspot on Sibuyan Island (analysis)
- The pursuit of cleaner sources of energy could lead to the destruction of a biodiversity hotspot of global significance — the ‘Galapagos of Asia’ — a new analysis argues.
- Communities on Sibuyan Island have opposed mining for over 50 years but need decisive action from the government to safeguard their forests and rivers via a permanent mining ban.
- Demand for nickel and other ‘energy transition metals’ is set to increase, requiring long-term planning and rigorous, independent and participatory assessment of environmental & social impacts.
- This post is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

How creative & emotive communication conserved 55,000 acres of Peru’s Amazon
- Protecting the Peruvian Amazon is dangerous work, but conservationist Paul Rosolie and his nonprofit Junglekeepers team have attracted millions of dollars in funding to protect 55,000 acres of rainforest in the country’s Madre de Dios region.
- Rosolie first received international recognition via his 2014 memoir, “Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey in the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon.”
- Today, he runs both a nonprofit and an ecotourism service that employs and is co-led by local and Indigenous people.
- In this podcast episode, Rosolie reflects on his decade-plus journey to today and shares his recipe for conservation success.

Lombok sand mine corruption probe continues as Indonesia to resume exports
- After more than a decade of operation, a sand mine on the east coast of Indonesia’s Lombok Island has been shuttered amid a graft investigation.
- The shutdown comes as Indonesia repeals a ban on the export of sand, which had been in place for more than two decades.
- Civil society groups say the decision to resume exports of sand could exacerbate coastal abrasion in the world’s largest archipelago country.

As RSPO celebrates 20 years of work, Indigenous groups lament unresolved grievances
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its annual conference in Jakarta to celebrate 20 years of growth and impact — but activists and Indigenous communities say they’ve been waiting years for RSPO to resolve ongoing conflicts and long-standing complaints.
- Indigenous groups and local communities that have lost their lands and forests say the RSPO grievance system has left them without justice or resolution.
- While the RSPO says it has improved its methods of dealing with grievances, affected communities say their complaints have been dismissed for lack of evidence, they have awaited answers for years and their voices aren’t being heard.

Panama copper mine to close after Supreme Court rules concession unconstitutional
- Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals (FQM), will have to shut down the Cobre Panamá mine after the country’s highest court ruled the concession contract unconstitutional.
- One of the challenges to the constitutionality of the contract focused on tendering, a process in which companies are invited to bid on a project, ensuring a fair market and competition.
- Last year, the mine produced over 86,000 tons of copper, around 1% of the world’s total production and 5% of Panama’s GDP. But the operation is also exacerbating a current drought and threatening migratory birds, protestors said.

End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara
- Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo for a documentary film nine months before his death, returned to Arariboia 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.
- “If those invaders had managed to kill us both, me and Paulo, they were going to hide us in the forest. Who would find us? Nobody was ever going to find me or Paulo again in a forest of that size,” Laércio says of his will to warn the guardians about Paulo’s murder, even as he suffered four gunshot wounds.
- Justice may soon be on the horizon for the Guajajara people: Paulo’s case will be the first killing of an Indigenous defender that will go before a federal jury, likely in the first half of 2024, after a court in late October denied a motion by those accused to try the case in state court.

‘We won’t give up’: DRC’s Front Line Defenders award winner Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke
- Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke, Africa winner of the 2023 Front Line Defenders Award, is an environmental lawyer and community activist.
- He has spent 15 years working in defense of communities in and around Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Because of his activism in a region dominated by armed conflict and the illicit exploitation of natural resources, including gold and coltan, his life has been threatened on numerous occasions and he currently lives in exile.
- Defending the environment is becoming increasingly dangerous: Nearly half of the 194 human rights defenders killed in 2022 were environmental defenders.

Fisheries managers should act to protect swordfish this month (commentary)
- Between 1960 and 1996 swordfish declined more than 65%, the average size of fish caught shrank, and the species became severely overfished in the North Atlantic.
- A campaign led by consumer groups and chefs helped convince regulators like ICCAT to take action, to the point that the fishery is now considered ‘recovered.’
- Top chef and restaurateur Rick Moonen’s new op-ed argues that it’s time for a next step: “Now ICCAT has another opportunity to improve the long-term health of the swordfish population. This November, ICCAT members can adopt a new management approach for the stock and lock in sustainable fishing,” he says.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Muslim community must have a seat for global climate change discourse (commentary)
- Muslims account for nearly a quarter of the world’s total population, much of which is impacted by climate change.
- At the same time, Islamic worldviews can bring solution-based perspectives to events like the upcoming COP28 climate conference later this month.
- “It should be recognized that Islamic frameworks of climate solution thinking are important, and the climate issues facing Muslims need to be at the forefront of climate discourse as well,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indonesian activist Gita Syahrani wins $3m award for work on sustainable growth
- Global philanthropy Climate Breakthrough has awarded Indonesian environmental activist Gita Syahrani $3 million in grants along with capacity-building resources to support her projects in developing alternative economic models for local governments across Indonesia.
- Gita has for many years focused on supporting district governments protect peatlands and forests while developing policies for sustainable economic growth.
- Gita said she is keen to explore and include approaches that are more mindful and spiritual in encouraging more people to be active in protecting, rehabilitating and recovering the balance between people and the environment.
- Gita is the second Indonesian awardee of Climate Breakthrough grants, following environmentalist Arief Rabik in 2019; her fellow awardee this year is Jane Fleming Kleeb of the U.S., a prominent activist against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Australia crackdown on climate protesters grows amid fight against gas project
- The Indigenous ancestral land of Murujuga in Western Australia is home to the world’s oldest and largest collection of petroglyphs, which would be partially destroyed by the country’s biggest fossil fuel project, the Burrup Hub, owned by Woodside Energy.
- As the company argues more gas is needed, direct action tactics by protesters, like releasing non-toxic stench gas or painting on art, have erupted across the state, as well as crackdowns by the police who have begun imposing the strongest form of charges on activists — some facing up to 20 years in prison.
- This is on trend with a general increasing intolerance toward environmental protesters in Australia and an uptick in the use of direct action by protesters who feel the time is running out to meet climate targets and protect endangered species.
- Environmentalists and researchers worry the project will endanger marine life through seismic blasting and say studies show it is not necessary to meet the country’s energy needs.

Environmental groups speak out against arrival of Mennonite farmers to Suriname
- Mennonite farmers from Bolivia, Mexico and Belize are looking to buy thousands of hectares of land in Suriname. Conservation groups and Indigenous communities say it would be disastrous for the environment.
- Areas opened up by the Mennonites could provide new access for mining and logging, as well as jeopardize Indigenous communities’ campaign to obtain land rights.
- Faced with a lack of government transparency, a press conference demanding answers and publicizing the risks of large-scale agriculture was held by WWF, Conservation International, SAFE, Tropenbos International and Green Growth Suriname, among other environmental groups.

Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.

Tensions flare as Ecuador’s environment consultation process is put to the test
- In July, farmers in Las Naves, Ecuador, got into violent clashes with police while protesting a new environmental consultation process and a large-scale open-pit mine soon to begin operations in their canton.
- The environmental consultation is part of the new controversial Decree 754 passed in May by outgoing President Guillermo Lasso which may speed up environmental permits for infrastructure projects — including mining — as its oil economy flounders.
- This conflict highlights an important tension that lies at the heart of all extraction projects in Ecuador: the consultation process. Amid much dispute between environmental lawyers and the ministry on the legality of the decree, the Constitutional Court is stepping in to review it.
- Addressing tensions like these will be on the plate of Daniel Noboa, newly elected to become the next president, as he promises to revamp the country’s economy.

Beyond ‘no,’ more positive visions for conservation need communication (commentary)
- “I have become increasingly concerned that [environmentalists’] ongoing failures stem at least partially from really bad messaging,” a new op-ed states.
- “We are so focused on being against things that we keep missing an opportunity to be for something…We desperately need new climate-friendly visions for our economies and governance systems that we can all get behind, not just a laundry list of what not to do,” the Cambridge scholar continues.
- Some environmentalists are starting to push more positive communications and the development of transformative visions for conservation, such as developing “socio-bioeconomies” to replace existing economic models.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

How the United Nations, kids and corporations saved the Red Sea from an oil disaster
- In August, an international effort led by the U.N. averted a massive oil spill in the Red Sea.
- The FSO Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker anchored in Yemen’s Marib Basin, posed a 1.14-million-barrel environmental and humanitarian threat, with a potential $20 billion cleanup cost.
- Even schoolchildren from Westbrook Elementary School in Maryland recognized the urgency and initiated their own fundraising efforts, but most oil companies with historical involvement in the Marib Basin have failed to contribute so far.
- While some nations and organizations stepped up to help, ongoing challenges in securing funding highlight the need for collective responsibility in preventing environmental disasters.

Communities track a path of destruction through a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Illegal logging persists deep in the heart of Cambodia’s Chhaeb-Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary amid government inaction and even complicity with the loggers.
- Routine patrols by local activists and community members have painstakingly documented the site of each logged tree in the supposedly protected area, even as these community patrols have been banned by the authorities.
- Mongabay reporters joined one of these patrols in April, where a run-in with rangers underscored complaints that the authorities crack down harder on those seeking to protect the forest than on those destroying it.
- A government official denied that the logging was driven by commercial interests, despite evidence to the contrary, instead blaming local communities for cutting down trees to build homes.

Cambodia bars green activists from traveling to accept international award
- Three Cambodian environmental activists have been barred from leaving the country to accept an award in Sweden, prompting criticism of the government.
- Long Kunthea, Phun Keo Reaksmey and Thun Ratha are with the group Mother Nature Cambodia, which last month was named a winner of the Right Livelihood award for its “relentless” activism against environmental destruction in the country.
- The three are currently under court supervision following early release from jail in a case related to their activism, which means they can’t travel abroad.
- Mother Nature Cambodia’s founder says the government has put itself in a “lose-lose situation” by barring them, as the incident has both garnered international scrutiny and revealed the shrinking space for civil society in Cambodia.

What does land mean to Australia’s Indigenous groups fighting logging?
- Many Indigenous Gumbaynggirr people in Australia feel an intimate connection to their ancestral lands, which holds the trees, animals, ancestral spirits and creation stories that form a core part of their identity and sense of belonging.
- This landscape, part of the Newry State Forest in New South Wales, Australia, is facing a logging project by the state-owned Forestry Corporation that threatens the habitat of the vulnerable koala species — also a cultural totem.
- Gumbaynggirr protesters resisting logging plans say they believe every part of the world is in deep relationship with each other, including humans to nature and the land. Their cultural duty to protect totems, they say, pushes them to try to stop extractive industries.
- In this piece, Indigenous Gumbaynggirr protesters explain what land — this piece of the Earth — means to them.

Brazil’s Indigenous women march again for the rights of their people and lives
- Trying to consolidate their leading role in the fight for territory and political prominence, around 8,000 Indigenous women occupied Brasília during the III March of Indigenous Women.
- Aware of the role of Indigenous peoples in preserving biodiversity, the meeting was scheduled to discuss climate emergencies and the importance of Indigenous women’s participation in the U.N. Climate Conference, to be held in Belém, in northern Brazil, in 2025.
- Amid debates in Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, the demarcation of Indigenous territories was brought to the top of the list of urgent issues at this year’s march.

Indonesian islanders draw line in sand as Dubai-style reclamation nears
- Residents of the island of Lae-Lae off the Makassar seafront in eastern Indonesia are stepping up their opposition to a major reclamation project conceived in 2009.
- The community has staged seven demonstrations this year to press their opposition to the ongoing development, which they warn will decimate their near-shore fisheries.
- The provincial government has previously said the island’s population will not be required to move, and that Lae-Lae will derive economic benefits from the development.

Small wins for Indigenous Malaysian activists in dispute with timber giant
- For decades, Indigenous activists in the Malaysian state of Sarawak have found themselves in conflict with timber giant Samling.
- In September, Samling agreed to withdraw a lawsuit it filed against SAVE Rivers, a local NGO that publicized concerns about the company’s treatment of people living in and around two areas under the company’s management.
- Samling also lost certification for its Ravenscourt Forest Management Unit, one of the areas of concern in its lawsuit against SAVE Rivers.
- Activists in Sarawak say they will continue in their fight to empower Indigenous communities questioning Samling and other industrial giants’ plans for their land and resources.

Bolloré blacklisted over alleged rights violations on plantations in Africa and Asia
- French logistics giant Bolloré SE has been deemed an unethical investment by some of Switzerland’s most powerful pension funds.
- Bolloré failed to act to resolve accusations of human rights abuses committed by its subsidiary, Socfin, around oil palm and rubber plantations in West Africa and Southeast Asia, the Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR) determined.
- Investigators commissioned by Socfin recently found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment in Liberia and Cameroon; field visits to other sites will take place later this year.

As climate change hits the Turkish coast, more marine reserves are needed (commentary)
- The Mediterranean Sea’s marine life is facing many threats, not least of which is the rapidly rising water temperatures.
- The sea is warming faster than the global average, and with that warmth comes unwelcome tropical visitors like lionfish, which prey on native marine biodiversity, spurring conservationists to focus fishing pressure on these voracious predators, but that’s not all they’re doing.
- “We believe the expansion of the marine protected area network is now an essential next step, and we are working with the Turkish government to make this happen,” one such conservationist writes in a new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Hoang Thi Minh Hong, founder of Vietnamese environmental advocacy group CHANGE, was sentenced Sept. 28 to three years in prison for tax evasion.
- Hong is now the fifth prominent Vietnamese environmentalist to be charged with tax evasion. Activists say the country’s vaguely worded tax laws are weaponized by the government to punish people deemed as threats to authority.
- In related news, activists say Ngo Thi To Nhien, executive director of the Hanoi-based Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise, was detained by police Sept. 15, though the arrest has not yet been officially announced and it is not yet clear what charges she faces.

Mother Nature Cambodia’s ‘relentless’ activism earns Right Livelihood Award
- Environmental activist group Mother Nature Cambodia has been named one of Right Livelihood’s 2023 laureates.
- The award, established in 1980, recognizes groups and individuals striving to preserve the environment and those who protect it.
- Mother Nature Cambodia has played a key role in campaigns against environmentally destructive dams, logging and sand mining, resulting in the imprisonment of multiple group members and banishment of its founder.

Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict
- Following petitions by Indigenous communities in Palawan, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a writ mandating a nickel mining project and associated government agencies respond to the communities’ environmental concerns.
- The issuance of the writ is an initial step in a legal process activists say they hope will result in the permanent suspension of the nickel mine, which is operating within a protected area.
- While the legal process is currently on hold due to a court recess, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued the mine a cease-and-desist order the same day the court issued the writ.

10 years after land grab, local Nigerian farmers continue fight against palm oil producer
- A decade after transnational palm oil company Wilmar took control of a derelict oil palm plantation, local residents continue to fight for the farmlands, forests and rivers they use.
- The government leased land from several local communities in 1962, but abandoned it in the 1970s.
- In 2012, against the backdrop of a drive to expand Nigeria’s palm oil production, the land was transferred to Wilmar in a move bitterly resisted by local residents.
- Critics say expanding oil palm plantations are accelerating deforestation and local residents complain that Wilmar has encroached on their farms and wastewater from the plantation has contaminated watercourses.

Investors over islanders as Indonesia uses force to push development project
- A plan to build the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel factory on an Indonesian island has met with protests from locals set to be evicted for the multibillion-dollar project.
- Security forces have cracked down hard on the protesters, raising concerns about human rights violations, including the use of rubber bullets and tear gas at a middle school.
- The government has justified its response and its insistence on pushing the project through, saying it’s of strategic national importance and that the investors must be accommodated.
- Critics have pointed out that the government previously championed local residents’ rights when it came to disputes like these, and that the U-turn shows preferential treatment for “big capital” over local communities.

Who were the 11 Philippines environmental defenders killed in 2022?
- The Philippines is now Asia’s deadliest country for land and environmental defenders, recording 281 deaths in the last decade, with roughly one-third linked to mining, according to Global Witness.
- Despite a decline in attacks from 29 in 2020 to 11 in 2022, advocates argue that the current administration has not sufficiently addressed human rights violations and continues to engage in “red-tagging” or labeling defenders as terrorists.
- In 2022, the killed defenders were deemed insurgents and died in “encounters” with state forces, yet their families and organizations argue they were civilian advocates for the environment, climate and farmers and Indigenous peoples’ rights.
- The Philippine Commission on Human Rights, an independent government body, considered red-tagging as “a systematic attack” on human rights defenders and urged the government to enact a law safeguarding them and their communities.

São Paulo Indigenous community pins its territorial hopes on a new village
- Members of São Paulo’s Jaraguá Guarani Indigenous community have founded a new village on land they claim is ancestrally theirs.
- The Guarani are seeking recognition from the Brazilian government for a total of 532 hectares (1,315 acres) of land in the São Paulo area that’s home to some 800 Indigenous people.
- But a bill working its way through Congress could nix that claim; if passed, any claims to land occupied after the cutoff date of Oct. 5, 1988, would be rejected.
- Government officials including the minister of Indigenous peoples and the head of the Indigenous affairs agency recently visited the Guarani village to offer support, but said no official demarcation will happen this year.

Amazonian Indigenous leaders call for 80×2025 at Climate Week (commentary)
- As the world gathers in New York for Climate Week, Indigenous leaders are calling on UN delegates, environmental organizations, and the research community to back a stronger goal for Amazon protection.
- A central element of the “Amazonia For Life” campaign endorsed by 511 Indigenous nations across Amazonia and 1,200 organizations around the world, it calls on governments to protect at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025.
- “As a mother, a grandmother and a voice for a coalition of Indigenous peoples…I urge every state and each one of you to join us in our fight to protect at least 80% of Amazonia by 2025,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Latin America most dangerous place for environmental defenders, report says
- At least 177 environmental defenders were killed last year globally, according to a new report from Global Witness. At least 155 of them were in Latin America.
- There have been 1,910 murdered defenders since 2012, the year that Global Witness started tracking this type of violence. Last year, the murders took place across 18 countries worldwide, 11 of them in Latin America.
- Colombia topped the list with 60 murders while Brazil came in second with 34. Honduras led the world in murders per-capita with 14.

Kellogg’s latest to freeze Indonesian supplier over palm oil violations
- U.S. cereal giant Kellogg’s has become the latest major consumer goods brand to suspend business ties with Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari (AAL).
- It joins the likes of Hershey’s, PepsiCo and Nestlé, which all stopped buying palm oil from AAL following a 2022 report alleging land grabbing, environmental degradation, and the criminal persecution of environmental and human rights defenders.
- AAL has denied the allegations and launched an independent investigation, but has not yet taken steps to remedy the harm allegedly done.
- Activists say the investigation unfairly puts the onus on local communities to prove their allegations against AAL, and have called on other consumer goods companies and investors to stand up to AAL.

Court ruling spares Papua forest from further clearing for palm oil
- An Indonesian court has rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies operating in the Tanah Merah mega oil palm plantation project in the country’s Papua region.
- The ruling means the companies are legally required to stop clearing forest in their concessions and preserve what remains.
- Activists and Indigenous Awyu people living in the area have welcomed the ruling, but point out that communities in the concession areas still don’t have legal recognition of their ancestral rights to these forests.
- They’ve called on the government to formally recognize their ancestral rights and ensure the companies’ permits to the concessions are revoked.

Is the genetically modified, nutrient-rich Golden Rice as safe as promised?
- In April, the Philippines’ Supreme Court heeded farmers’ and activists’ calls to look into the safety promise of Golden Rice, a genetically modified grain created to tackle the vitamin A deficiency that impacts millions, over concerns about its potential impact to rice biodiversity, farmer livelihoods and human health.
- The debate over Golden Rice is long-standing and heated, spanning two decades and primarily centered in the Philippines, where it was initially approved for commercial release.
- As legal debates over its safety promise continue, the country’s Golden Rice rollout is on track and officials aim on cultivating 500,000 hectares (1.24 million acres) of the crop by 2028.
- Mongabay spoke with health experts, Filipino officials, conservationists, farmers’ groups and civil society organizations about the contentious issue.

Pacific alliance adopts moratorium on deep-sea mining, halting resurgent PNG project
- The Melanesian Spearhead Group put in place a moratorium on deep-sea mining within its member countries’ territorial water in a declaration signed Aug. 24.
- Leaders from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and an alliance of pro-independence political parties known as FLNKS from the French territory of New Caledonia said more research is needed to establish whether mining the seabed below 200 meters (660 feet) is possible without damaging ecosystems and fisheries.
- The moratorium ostensibly thwarts the return of Nautilus Minerals, a Canadian company, to Papua New Guinea and its Solwara 1 project in the Bismarck Sea, where it had hoped to mine gold and copper from sulfide deposits on the seafloor.
- Proponents of deep-sea mining say that minerals found deep beneath the ocean are necessary for the production of batteries used in electric vehicles and thus are critical in the global transition away from fossil fuels.

Indonesian voters want a clean energy plan, but candidates haven’t delivered
- Candidates running in Indonesia’s presidential election next year must make clear their plans for transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, policy experts say.
- A survey shows young Indonesians, who make up the majority of potential voters, view environmental issues in general, and a just energy transition in particular, as crucial issues for a new president to tackle.
- However, none of the three hopefuls who have declared their candidacies to date have addressed these issues, with the survey reflecting a sense of pessimism among respondents.
- Indonesia, a top greenhouse gas emitter, has said it aims to hit net-zero emissions by 2060 and retire its existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, but continues to build more coal plants to serve its growing metal-processing sector.

Indonesia awards biggest Indigenous forest claim yet to Bornean Dayaks
- The Indonesian government has officially recognized the biggest swath yet of forests that fall under the ancestral domain of an Indigenous group, awarding rights to nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) in Borneo.
- It took the government 11 years to grant this recognition to the 15 Indigenous Dayak communities that had applied for it, according to the nation’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN.
- There are many more customary forests yet to be recognized in the region, with activists calling on the government to speed up the recognition process.

Brazilian Indigenous artists take the forest to the world
- In recent years, several exhibitions held abroad have featured Indigenous people from Brazil and Latin America, giving unprecedented visibility to artists historically erased by gallery owners and museums.
- Some examples include Siamo Foresta in Milan; The Yanomami Struggle in New York, and BEĨ: Benches of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples in Japan.
- According to curators, the works transcend a mere aesthetic vision, being deeply connected to each people’s cosmologies, in addition to taking political and socioenvironmental issues into museums and galleries.

South Africa community members decry traditional leaders’ power amid mine plans
- Community members, commercial farmers and environmentalists are raising concerns that Jindal’s proposed $2 billion iron ore mine project, slated to be one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, could be allowed to exploit the mineral without community consent — but only with that of their leader.
- Due to the structure of South African law, traditional leaders tend to see themselves as the sole decision-makers in their communities and approve of extractive projects for their stated economic benefits in the region.
- Many communities sit on valuable resources like platinum and titanium, and there is a significant possibility that with the current structure of the law, people will be removed from their lands to make way for extractive industries, say land policy researchers.
- Traditional leaders maintain that it is important for the law to recognize traditional authorities after decades and centuries of fighting for formal recognition after colonization.

Actress Leonor Varela: This Sunday, Ecuadorians can vote to protect Yasuní and send a message to the world
- Tomorrow, Ecuadorians will cast their votes in a referendum to decide whether oil drilling should continue in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse places in the world.
- Environmentalists and Indigenous rights advocates are urging Ecuadorians to vote “Yes” on the measure.
- Leonor Varela, a Chilean actress known for roles in movies and television shows from “Cleopatra” to “Blade II”, has been a staunch advocate for a “Yes” vote. She believes that supporting the measure would not only help conserve Yasuní but also serve as a profound message to the global community.
- “With this first-of-its-kind referendum worldwide, Ecuador could become an example in democratizing climate action, offering its citizens the chance to vote YES for the forest, for Indigenous rights, our climate, and the well-being of our planet,” Varela told Mongabay in an August 2023 exchange.

Jakarta snags ‘most polluted’ title as air quality plunges and officials dither
- Air pollution in Jakarta has hit such dire levels recently that the Indonesian capital has been named the most polluted city on Earth.
- Both the city and national governments blame vehicle emissions for the problem, yet deny that the more than a dozen coal-fired power plants ringing the city are a factor.
- A court in 2021 found the government liable for improving air quality, but the administration of President Joko Widodo chose to appeal rather than comply with the ruling.
- Now, the president himself is reportedly among the more than 630,000 cases of respiratory illness recorded in Jakarta in the first half of this year.

Investigation confirms most allegations against plantation operator Socfin
- After visits to plantations in Liberia and Cameroon, the Earthworm Foundation consultancy has confirmed many allegations against Belgian tropical plantation operator Socfin.
- Investigators found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment practices at both of the sites they visited.
- Activists in both countries remain unsatisfied, saying the consultancy should have spoken to a wider range of community members and calling for Socfin to answer directly to communities with grievances.

Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- In just 72 hours, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in the past few days in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
- This was the latest episode in a wave of escalating violence tied to land disputes between Indigenous communities and palm oil companies in the region, which Mongabay has consistently reported on over the past year.
- In this video, Mongabay showcases the Tembé Indigenous peoples’ outrage against increasing violence in the area as they protest for justice.

Indigenous activists demand justice after 5 shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 7, security guards for a palm oil company allegedly shot and wounded five Tembé Indigenous people, in the latest flareup linked to a long-running land dispute.
- The incidents occurred in a part of the Amazonian state of Pará that’s been dubbed the “palm oil war” region, where Mongabay has over the past year documented the escalating tensions.
- Pará’s State Department of Public Security and Social Defense said the security guard identified as the mastermind of the initial shooting has been arrested, and inquiries to identify the other suspects are ongoing, along with increased security in the area.
- Palm oil company Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) has denied the accusations, saying the Indigenous people had invaded part of its property and initiated the attack on its private security officers during an attempt to evict them.

In Sabah, natural capital agreement surfaces again, despite critics
- In October 2021, an agreement signed without public knowledge by members of the Sabah state government, a Singaporean firm and an Australian consultancy committed 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of land in the Bornean state to a 100-year carbon deal.
- Since Mongabay surfaced news of the agreement in November 2021, the project has stalled in the face of a wave of criticism about its origins and planned implementation.
- In recent weeks, the proponents of the deal, including Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan, have publicly resumed efforts to bring the agreement into force.
- Civil society groups opposed to the project say that concerns remain over Indigenous rights and lack of transparency or details about the planned project.

International community calls for release of El Salvador antimining activists
- Calls from the international community are growing for the release of five environmental activists fighting water pollution and mining in El Salvador who were arrested in January.
- A lack of evidence behind the allegation that they were involved in a civil war-era kidnapping and murder has raised questions from U.S. officials and the U.N. about the legitimacy of the charges.
- A group of 17 U.S. members of Congress is the latest to call for their release and a closer look at the steps the government is taking to renew a defunct mining sector.
- The five “water defenders” say there’s insufficient evidence in the case and that they’re protected from prosecution by a post-war reconciliation law.

In Indonesia’s Aceh, Indigenous communities seek recognition of their forest rights
- The Indonesian government is set to recognize community claims to ancestral forests in Aceh province, on the island of Sumatra, for the first time in history.
- Thirteen Indigenous communities in Aceh are seeking recognition of their rights to 144,497 hectares (357,060 acres) of customary forests, an area nearly the size of London.
- The Ministry of Environment and Forestry says there are still some challenges, like unclear boundaries, that could prevent the issuance of the legal titles for the customary forests.

Scores of parliamentarians renew opposition to deep-sea mining at international meeting (commentary)
- As the International Seabed Authority Assembly gathers in Kingston, Jamacia, more than 70 Parliamentarians from 25 countries have renewed their support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
- The group also urges all members of the ISA Assembly to work swiftly towards this goal.
- Deep sea mining is a potential source of useful metals to enable the world’s transition to renewable energy, but its impact on marine ecosystems and the socieites that rely on them is still poorly understood, even as mining companies race to begin operations.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

How biological surveys prevent destructive dams in the Balkans
- Over 3,000 hydropower dams are proposed to be built in the next few years on Balkan rivers.
- A conservation research and advocacy project says this number is too high, due to such dams’ likely detrimental effects on fragile freshwater ecology, and argues that permits granted to hydropower companies do not take biological richness adequately into account.
- The Balkan country of Albania agreed with them recently, using the group’s data as part of its decision to cancel a giant dam project proposed for the Vjosa River, and instead named the area a national park.
- Mongabay visited the group’s latest biological survey of the Neretva River in Bosnia-Herzegovina and shares this new video report.

Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil firm faces global backlash over community conflict
- A growing list of global household brands, from PepsiCo to L’Oréal to Hershey’s, have suspended their purchases from Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), Indonesia’s second- largest palm oil producer.
- The move comes in the wake of reports of land grabbing, environmental degradation and criminal persecution of human rights defenders by AAL and its subsidiaries operating in Central Sulawesi province.
- AAL has launched an independent investigation into the matter, but NGOs say the process is unnecessary as the evidence of violations is plain.
- They say the company should instead focus on returning the land it claims to the farmers and communities who were there first.

Opposition grows to Indonesia’s resumption of sea sand exports
- Marine conservation and fisheries activists in Indonesia are pushing for exports of sea sand to be scrapped, saying the activity harms the environment and community livelihoods.
- Indonesia imposed a ban on exports of dredged sea sand in 2003, but reversed the policy through a regulation issued in May this year.
- Activists say the policy directly threatens the future of Indonesian fishing and coastal communities in the world’s largest archipelagic nation, where millions of people are dependent on fishing for their livelihoods.
- Others say the resumption of exports will benefit foreign interests, including Singapore, which has expanded its land area by 20% thanks largely to Indonesian sand, and China, which is building artificial islands to shore up its claims to parts of the South China Sea.

Munduruku Collective interviews Maria Leusa on leading the Indigenous struggle
- At the end of April, about 60 Munduruku Indigenous people from several villages in Pará traveled more than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) to participate in the 19th Acampamento Terra Livre (the “Free Land Camp,” known as ATL), the largest gathering of Brazil ‘s original peoples, held in Brasília.
- Among the group were the young people of the Wakoborũn Audiovisual Collective, who, in addition to documenting the event, conducted a long interview with one of their main leaders, Maria Leusa Munduruku.
- In this interview, Maria Leusa talks about the challenges of being a female Indigenous leader, the violence that her people have suffered from prospectors and the dream of seeing Munduruku territory finally demarcated.

Climate of fear persists among Nepal’s eco defenders as threats rise
- Environmental human rights defenders in Nepal continue to fear for their safety and lives amid a lack of protection from the government, a new report shows.
- It found that despite rising threats to the environment, Nepal doesn’t have specific legislation to define who defenders are, their work, or the measures of protection they need.
- It also found that women defenders, in particular, were more likely to experience domestic violence and sexual assault because of their work, as well as excluded from decision-making processes and participation in public life.
- Some of the respondents in the study cited the January 2020 killing of Dilip Mahato, a critic of illegal sand mining in Dhanusha district: “People pay attention … only when they get killed.”

In Indonesia’s Aru Islands, a popular eco-defender climbs the political ladder
- A decade ago, Mika Ganobal campaigned to prevent Indonesia’s eastern Aru Islands from becoming a sugar plantation.
- Mika has since risen from a village chief to the head of one of the Aru Islands’ 10 subdistricts.
- Mika and his wife, Dina Somalay, are raising their children to understand and value a rich landscape that was almost lost a decade ago.

We must center gender and community rights for climate action (commentary)
- The latest UN climate treaty talks continue in Bonn, Germany, from June 5-15.
- Two campaigners argue in a new op-ed that inclusion of diverse voices in the negotiations is crucial to reducing human rights violations, gender inequalities, and biodiversity loss.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
- A group of locals have since 2013 tried to clean up the trash pooling in Lake Sipin in the Sumatran province of Jambi.
- Their efforts have received national attention, with their leader, Leni Haini, awarded the country’s highest environmental award in 2022 by the government.
- Indonesia has announced a plan to restore 15 lakes (Sipin isn’t included) across the country by 2024, citing their high degree of degradation, chiefly sedimentation, which has resulted in their rapid shrinking and a decline in the biodiversity they host.
- These lakes are crucial in supporting the livelihoods of millions of Indonesians, serving as a source of freshwater, a form of flood control, and a site for fish-farming and tourism.

Experts, activists unite to blast Indonesia’s U-turn on sea sand exports
- Indonesia will resume exporting sand dredged from the sea, commonly used in reclamation projects, ending a 20-year ban.
- Environmental activists and marine experts have criticized the policy, saying the resumption caters only to business interests and fails to consider the damage to marine ecosystems and fishing communities.
- The government says it will only allow dredging on seabed areas where sediment from land runoff has accumulated, adding that this will also help ease ship traffic.
- But critics say these arguments are meaningless and a form of greenwashing, and have called for widespread public opposition to the policy.

License to Log: Cambodian military facilitates logging on Koh Kong Krao and across the Cardamoms
- Cambodia’s largest island, Koh Kong Krao, off its southwest coast, is covered in largely untouched old-growth forest, but recent satellite imagery shows deforestation is spreading.
- Much of the forest cover loss is in areas tightly controlled by Marine Brigade 2, a navy unit stationed on the island that has historically been accused of facilitating the illicit timber trade.
- Residents of the island said the navy controls almost every aspect of life there, with provincial officials afraid to intervene or investigate the military’s actions on Koh Kong Krao.
- Cambodia’s military has long been a key factor in illegal logging across the country, and reporters found evidence of its continued involvement in logging across the Cardamoms.

Citizens demand sustainable solution to haze crisis in northern Thailand
- Citizens in northern Thailand have mounted a legal challenge against the prime minister and several government departments for inaction to tackle air pollution that experts say reduces people’s life expectancy and violates basic human rights.
- Air pollution levels in the northern city of Chiang Mai exceeded WHO guideline standards more than twentyfold earlier this year, ranking it among the most polluted places in the world.
- The sources of pollution are mainly from agricultural burning, both locally and in neighboring countries, a practice that coincides each year with the dry season. Air quality is also affected by forest fires that have taken a toll on the region’s landscapes and wildlife in recent years.
- Observers say the legal challenge is an example of civil society’s growing awareness of the right to use litigation avenues to hold companies and government departments accountable to their environmental commitments.

Latest environmentalist arrest shocks Vietnam’s battered civil society
- Prominent Vietnamese environmentalist Hoang Thi Minh Hong has been arrested, becoming the latest civil society activist to face charges of tax evasion.
- Hong’s NGO, the Center of Hands-on Action and Networking for Growth and Environment (CHANGE), shut down last year amid intense pressure on civil society groups in the country.
- Another leading environmentalist, Goldman Environmental Prize winner Nguy Thi Khanh, was also jailed on tax evasion charges, but released from prison five months early on May 13.
- Fellow activist Dang Dinh Bach, jailed for five years for tax evasion, plans to begin a hunger strike “to the death” on June 24.

Shipibo communities create Indigenous guard to protect Peruvian Amazon from deforestation
- The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo peoples, living in Peru’s Ucayali department, near the border with Brazil, have created an Indigenous guard that will help patrol this part of the Amazon and protect their land and resources.
- Indigenous leaders say the rainforest is being destroyed by drug trafficking, logging, oil palm plantations, oil spills, new highways, illegal fishing, and expanding Mennonite communities.
- A lack of government assistance has forced the 175 Indigenous communities to coordinate their own patrols, covering more than 8 million hectares (about 20 million acres).
- So far, the Indigenous guard has made 45 interventions against illegal fishermen, but is still in the process of organizing the various communities and fine-tuning their logistics.

Early release for imprisoned climate activist as Vietnam aims for net zero goals
- Vietnamese climate activist Nguy Thi Khanh was quietly released from prison this month, five months earlier than scheduled.
- No reasoning has been given for Khanh’s release, which has not been formally announced or discussed in local media, but activists note that Vietnam will require international financing to pursue its decarbonization goals, including a recently signed power development plan.
- Three prominent environmental activists remain imprisoned in Vietnam. One, Dang Dinh Bach, has announced plans to begin a hunger strike “to the death” on June 24.

Critics question causes behind major oil spill in Ecuadorian Amazon
- An oil pipeline operated by the state-owned Petroecuador ruptured earlier this month in the province of Sucumbíos, causing concern about contamination of rivers that extend to other parts of the rainforest.
- Petroecuador said the spill occurred after an attack on the pipeline. But environmental activists question those claims.
- Some communities reported seeing contamination downriver and expressed concern that the spill would have a long-term impact on the local ecosystem.

Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- On May 14, Indigenous chief Lúcio Tembé was shot by gunmen on an unpaved road in Brazil’s northern Pará state. This is the latest episode of violence in an area facing an outbreak of land conflicts between a major palm oil company and local communities, the so-called “palm oil war.”
- The Federal Public Ministry raised the possibility of the crime’s connection to conflicts with palm oil companies in the region and requested urgent measures of the Federal Police and Pará’s State Department of Public Security and Social Defense (Segup) in view of the intense level of conflict in the region “with concrete risks to the Indigenous peoples’ life and physical integrity.”
- A crisis committee to contain escalating conflicts in the region was announced on May 16; the crime is being investigated by the Federal Police and the Quatro Bocas municipal police station, urging that any relevant information be forwarded via the hotline 181 under guaranteed confidentiality.
- Some readers may find the images below disturbing, discretion is advised.

Sarawak Indigenous NGO squeezed by defamation case, silenced from reporting alleged logging
- For the fourth time, the hearing of a defamation suit filed by Malaysia-based timber company Samling against Indigenous rights group SAVE Rivers has been delayed.
- According to the statement of claim filed by Samling plaintiffs, the case hinges on eight articles published on SAVE Rivers’ website between June 2020 and March 2021 involving allegations of illegal logging and a rush to gain sustainable forestry certification, which Samling says is untrue.
- Last month, 160 organizations signed a letter describing this suit as a strategic litigation against public participation, or SLAPP case, noting that the fine — plaintiffs are asking for 5 million ringgit ($1.1 million) — would bankrupt SAVE Rivers.
- The deferment of the trial comes days after the Forest Stewardship Council, an international organization that operates a certification scheme for sustainable forestry, said the company will be investigated for alleged violations of the council’s policies.

It’s time to embrace community-led conservation vs. the colonial kind (commentary)
- Conservation NGOs often enter countries like Fiji and advise local and Indigenous communities on how to protect their land and sea territories, or worse, acquire land and preclude the traditional residents from it.
- More NGOs are embracing community-led conservation, though, and we must embrace this, a new op-ed by a former Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji argues.
- “Fiji does not need new ideas on how to protect their ‘iqoliqoli’ (marine areas). Instead, Fiji has a lot to teach the rest of the world,” the author writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Two years since the Feb 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Indigenous activists continue their struggle to protect the Salween Peace Park, an Indigenous Karen-led protected area, from conflict.
- The park was subject to military-led deadly airstrikes in March 2021 and renewed violence in the vicinity of the park continues to force people to flee their homes into the forest.
- The Salween Peace Park was launched in 2018 and encompasses 5,485 square kilometers (nearly 1.4 million acres) of the Salween River Basin in one of Southeast Asia’s most biologically rich ecoregions.
- With many examples around the world, peace parks seek to preserve zones of biodiversity and cultural heritage using conservation to promote peacebuilding. The SPP includes more than 350 villages, 27 community forests, four forest reserves, and three wildlife sanctuaries.

Inaugural Indigenous women’s forum spotlights Congo Basin conservation
- This week, leaders from Indigenous women’s organizations, environment and land management groups and philanthropists are meeting in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, for a forum aimed at strengthening the role of Indigenous women in Congo Basin land management and conservation.
- Organizers hope the forum will result in a fund for Central African Indigenous women supporting biodiversity and climate resilience.
- Research shows that 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found in territory managed by Indigenous peoples, yet Congo Basin countries receive scarce funding for conservation.

‘It gives life’: Philippine tribe fights to save a sacred river from a dam
- Each year, members of the Dumagat-Remontado tribe gather at the Tinipak River to observe an Indigenous ritual to honor their supreme being and pray for healing and protection.
- This year, the rite had an additional intention: to ward off an impending dam project they fear will inundate the site of the ritual.
- The Kaliwa Dam, part of a program aimed at securing a clean water supply for the Manila metropolitan region, is already under construction and scheduled to go online in 2027.
- The project has faced resistance from civil society groups as well as many of the Dumagat-Remontado, who say they fear it will cause both environmental and cultural damage.

A Guatemalan town fights to bar gold mining and save its waters
- Over the last 25 years, local community members have repeatedly rejected a gold mining project on the border of Guatemala and El Salvador for lack of environmental compliance.
- The government of Guatemala has approved the extension of the Cerro Blanco project, which, under new ownership is planned to switch from underground to open-pit mining.
- Worried that mining is contaminating waters and affecting biodiversity, the community of Asunción Mita held a referendum last September, voting to reject the project, but it hasn’t yet obtained recognition from the state.
- While mining is on hold, awaiting a final verdict on the referendum, natural ecosystems and watercourses are bouncing back with life.

Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
- Loggers have entered the Trombetas River Biological Reserve in Oriximiná, in Brazil’s Pará state, to develop a forest management project that has divided the local Quilombola community.
- The reserve is known for its successful bioeconomy project, but the association representing the six local communities signed a contract with a logging company to explore timber in the area.
- The Quilombola say they weren’t properly consulted about the contract and the Public Ministry of Pará recommended interrupting actions for timber management, but the association says it will not suspend the work without a judicial order.
- The Quilombola territory is part of the mosaic of protected areas between the Amazon River and the border with Suriname and Guyana, one of the largest continuous forest blocks in the world.

Latin America had the most attacks on environmental defenders in 2022, says report
- Almost half of the 401 murders of human rights defenders recorded in 2022 were against people involved in the defense of land and environment, according to the most recent report by the organization Front Line Defenders.
- Latin America is the region with the highest number of cases of recorded violence against defenders.
- The countries with the most cases are Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Honduras.
- The violence against rights defenders has not only included murders, but also stigmatization, prosecution and constant threats to individuals and their families, said the report.

Maasai conservationist strives to protect Indigenous rights because ‘land is life’ (commentary)
- “As a member of the Maasai community in Tanzania, I am all too aware of how for thousands of years, Indigenous communities have been the caretakers of the environment, protecting their lands and respecting wildlife,” a new op-ed says.
- Dismas Partala argues that Indigenous communities can offer a more sustainable solution to advancing conservation, and at a lower cost through the biodiversity protection roles they play.
- A conservation program his organization developed for Indigenous-led conservation secures a communal land title deed known as ‘Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy,’ which has resulted in elephants, cheetahs and wild dogs being spotted with greater frequency.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Gold miner faces global protests as it rekindles a mine with a violent legacy
- Three years after the Papua New Guinea government refused to renew its license, the Porgera gold mine is now on track to reopen.
- The mine will relaunch under joint ownership of the government and mine operator Barrick Gold.
- Activists in PNG have joined global protests against Barrick, saying the new agreement does not address a legacy of violence and environmental damage, and drawing parallels between Porgera and Barrick’s mines in Tanzania and Pakistan.

Cambodian activists commemorate 11th anniversary of Chut Wutty’s murder
- April 26, 2023, marks 11 years since Cambodian environmental activist Chut Wutty was gunned down, with no one ever facing justice for his death.
- Wutty was a frequent thorn in the side of Cambodia’s ruling elite, both in the government and in the security forces, for his repeated exposés of their role in illegal logging.
- In a vigil and march in Cambodia to commemorate his death, fellow activists demanded the Ministry of Justice reopen the investigation into Wutty’s killing.
- They also denounced the killings, arrests and prosecutions of environmental activists in recent years as a message from the government to stop.

Meet the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 34th anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroots activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2023 prize winners are Alessandra Korap Munduruku from Brazil, Chilekwa Mumba from Zambia, Delima Silalahi from Indonesia, Diane Wilson from the U.S., Tero Mustonen from Finland, and Zafer Kızılkaya from Turkey.

We need to show that planetary wins are possible, says Dax Dasilva
- In 2021 Canadian entrepreneur Dax Dasilva donated $40 million to launch “Age of Union,” which supports conservation projects working to address climate change and the extinction crisis.
- Dasilva aims to bring a startup mentality to conservation, supporting grassroots, locally-led, and Indigenous-led projects with resources and guidance on scaling impact.
- Age of Union places a strong emphasis on storytelling to demonstrate that conservation efforts can have an impact, and has supported short documentaries and social media videos: “One of the main things we want to do is to show people that things can be done,” said Dasilva. “The worst outcome would be for people to stop believing that we’re out of time and that there’s nothing left to do.”
- Dasilva spoke about his passions, his philosophy on conservation, and more during a March 2023 conversation with Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler.

Report warns of rising violence against environmental defenders in Mexico
- A new report from the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) says the country is experiencing a rise in violence against environmental defenders, who suffer everything from intimidation to kidnapping to murder.
- The violence spans the country and numerous economic sectors, including mining, urban expansion, infrastructure, logging, agriculture and energy.
- In total, CEMDA counted 197 instances of aggression in 2022 — nearly double from the previous year — of which 24 resulted in death.
- CEMDA called on the government to improve protections for sensitive ecosystems and cultural patrimony while deprioritizing harmful industries like mining and hydrocarbons.

Indigenous Maasai ask the United Nations to intervene on reported human rights abuses
- Maasai delegates at the United Nations conference on Indigenous people are calling on the forum to increase pressure on the Tanzanian government to address evictions, forced displacement and thousands of seized cattle in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Loliondo.
- Land disputes at both sites have been grinding on for years after the government revealed plans to lease the land to a UAE-based company to create a wildlife corridor for trophy hunting and elite tourism.
- Last year, the dispute reached a boiling point when Tanzanian police officers and authorities shot and beat dozens of Maasai villagers who protested the demarcation of their ancestral land. One Maasai man and one police officer have been killed.
- At the United Nations forum, a Tanzanian government representative rejected accusations brought against it, pointing to a recent court ruling in its favor and a visit by an African human rights commission.

EU parliament passes historic law forcing companies to track deforestation
- A law passed by the European Parliament requires companies working in cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood to demonstrate their products aren’t sourced to deforested land or land with forest degradation, or else risk heavy fines.
- Companies will have to submit “due diligence” reports showing they took proper steps to verify the origins of their products while also complying with countries’ local regulations on human rights and impacts on Indigenous people.
- Critics say the legislation may still lack the teeth to prevent deforestation, especially if political pressure from traders forces EU countries to overlook their noncompliance with the new regulations.

Bringing the ocean’s vast ‘awesomeness’ to light: Q&A with Farah Obaidullah
- “The Ocean and Us,” edited by ocean advocate Farah Obaidullah, provides information from more than 35 female experts on various topics related to the ocean.
- These cover, among others, climate change, overfishing, pollution, ocean management schemes, the human relationship with the ocean, and inclusion and diversity in the ocean space.
- The book helps fulfill the aims of “ocean literacy,” a concept identified by the United Nations as a key driver for achieving the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development outcomes.
- “The Ocean and Us” was published by Springer Nature in February 2023.

Indigenous leader assassinated amid conflict over oil that divided community
- In February, Eduardo Mendúa, an Indigenous leader representing opposition to oil operations in his community, was killed by hitmen after suffering from 12 gunshot wounds.
- Mongabay looks into Eduardo Mendúa’s life and the oil conflict against the Ecuadorian state-owned oil company Petroecuador EP that divided his community and escalated into his murder.
- David Q., a member of the community faction in favor of oil operations, has been charged with allegedly co-perpetrating the crime by transporting the assassins to the scene.
- The incident worsens the fragile relationship between the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE) and President Guillermo Lasso, with the former accusing the government and oil company of amplifying the community conflict.

Power of traditional beliefs lies at the heart of an anti-mine campaign in PNG
- A newly published study published explores the important role that traditional Papua New Guinean beliefs play in an ongoing campaign against a copper and gold mine on a tributary of the Sepik River.
- Critics say the controversial mine project could potentially pollute one of the most biologically and culturally diverse places on Earth, while supporters point to potential development benefits.
- The Save the Sepik campaign against the mine harnesses traditional governance structures and beliefs, acknowledging the spirits of ancestors, the land and river, in a declaration that has become a rallying cry for the campaign.
- The campaign’s success so far — licenses haven’t been awarded for the mine project — is part of a growing global movement that acknowledges the close relationship some communities have with a sentient environment.

Is there a ‘lighter side’ to our possible environmental apocalypse? (commentary)
- Ocean activist and author David Helvarg deals with dark thoughts about the state of the world environment with humor in a new op-ed.
- “As a professional ocean advocate, I try and see the bright side of environmental and climate impacts such as sea level rise. While the ocean today covers 71% of the planet, it could soon cover 75%. More ocean means more ocean to love,” he jokes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Ecuador banned gas flaring over a year ago. Why is it still happening?
- In September 2021, a provincial court gave oil companies 18 months to eliminate gas flaring in the Amazon because of its role in spiking cancer rates among local residents.
- That deadline expired in March, but today oil companies continue to use gas flares more than ever. Before the court ruling, there were an estimated 447 gas flares in the country. Today, there are 475.
- Activists say they still have some legal avenues for pressuring the government to enforce the ban, including impeaching ministers that fail to comply with the court’s order.

CAPS, new gas megaproject, aims to power Central Africa, but at what cost, critics ask
- The Central Africa Business Energy Forum proposes to build 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) of pipelines linking oil and gas resources across 11 countries in Central Africa.
- The forum says gas in particular should play a key role in developing the region’s economy.
- Seven countries have so far signed a memorandum of understanding, and a feasibility study for a first phase is expected by the end of 2023
- Environmentalists say the project is a mistake that will exacerbate the climate crisis and fail to benefit local populations.

A Ramadan reflection on Islam and climate action (commentary)
- Muslims everywhere are currently observing Ramadan, a month of fasting and striving to grow their faith through prayer and acts of goodness.
- This month also marked the release of the new IPCC report on climate change, which provided the world with an urgent call to action.
- “The connection of the inner state of the heart with the outer state of physical action is the very point of intersection at which Ramadan and the new IPCC report meet. As Muslims focus on their worship…it is imperative that they make a very conscious commitment to connect their acts of worship towards the wellbeing of the Earth,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indonesian Indigenous group AMAN wins Skoll Award for defending land rights
- Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN, has won a 2023 Skoll Award for Social Innovation for its work in advocating for Indigenous rights.
- The group’s work includes mapping Indigenous territories and lobbying for legislation that supports and protects Indigenous rights to their lands.
- AMAN says the award fuels its spirit to work even harder, as there’s still much work to be done, with many Indigenous communities still lacking legal recognition of their land rights and an Indigenous rights bill being stalled in Parliament.
- Four other organizations have won this year’s award, including Conexsus, a Brazilian NGO that promotes sustainable forest management and forest-based economies by centering community-led efforts and Indigenous ecological knowledge.

Ecuador court upholds ‘rights of nature,’ blocks Intag Valley copper mine
- Community members in Ecuador’s Intag Valley have won a court case to stop the Llurimagua copper mining project, with the court ordering the revocation of mining licenses from Chile’s Codelco and Ecuador’s ENAMI EP.
- The Llurimagua mining concession is in the Tropical Andes, the world’s most biodiverse hotspot, home to dozens of threatened and endemic species, including two near-extinct frog species.
- A provincial court recognized that the mining companies violated the communities’ constitutional right to consultation and the rights of nature guaranteed by Ecuador’s Constitution since 2008.
- The decision is a significant win for the Intag communities, who have resisted mining for nearly 30 years, and sets an important precedent for protecting constitutional and environmental rights, as well as sends a message to investors that Ecuador is not a safe bet for mining operations.

Indigenous Pataxó demand land demarcation amid rising violence and murders
- The Pataxó Indigenous people in southern Bahia state are experiencing a renewed wave of violence and orders to leave their communities after they began reoccupying part of their traditional lands last summer.
- They are looking to see if and how the new administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can curb violence, mitigate land conflicts and demarcate their lands while standing up to powerful economic interests in the region, as state and local authorities are connected to the recent murders and violence.
- Without formal demarcation, agribusiness, ranching, eucalyptus and real estate development continue to encroach on their lands, which are in a legal limbo.
- The new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples has created a crisis desk to help deal with the escalating violence after two more Indigenous youth were killed in early 2023, but the Pataxó leaders say little has changed and they live in a state of constant threats and tension.

Jashodhon Pramanik: The farmer guardian of birds in Bangladesh
- Jashodhon Pramanik, a farmer from Natore, Bangladesh, has initiated a bird conservation movement.
- His 23 years of activism led to the banning of air guns, the creation of bird sanctuaries in every district and the creation of watering holes for birds.
- His one-man initiative Pokkhikuler Asroy O Khaddo Nischitkaron Prokolpo (Project for Ensuring Food and Shelter for Birds) influenced the government to make more than 30 decisions in favor of protecting birds.

‘Hope is action.’ David Suzuki retires into a life of determined activism
- One of Canada’s best known scientists and ecologists, David Suzuki recently announced his retirement from hosting “The Nature of Things,” the acclaimed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television series seen in over 40 countries.
- Also a prolific author with 52 books to his name, he has now turned his attention to becoming an ‘active elder’ in the fight to save the planet.
- “The thing about elders [is] they’re beyond worrying about money or power or celebrity, so that they can speak a kind of truth,” he told Mongabay in a new interview.

When a red snapper is more than just a fish: Q&A fisheries scientist Elle Wibisono
- Fisheries scientist and artist Elle Wibisono recently published a children’s book, “A Snapper Tale,” that features red-colored snappers native to Indonesia’s waters.
- Equipped with her extensive knowledge and experience in marine conservation and sustainable fisheries, Wibisono uses her book to highlight the importance of fish identification, a key component of sustainable fisheries.
- Indonesia is home to one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems, with its fisheries sector supplying seafood demand from home and around the world.
- Mongabay’s Basten Gokkon spoke with Elle Wibisono recently about her book and the highlighted fisheries issues, and her hopes for the impacts it will have on readers young and old and on Indonesia’s marine conservation policies.

‘They will not put us in a display case’: Q&A with Indigenous artist Daiara Tukano
- In an interview with Mongabay, artist, educator and political activist Daiara Tukano talks about the pathways by which art inspires critical thinking for the general public and helps in the fight for Indigenous rights.
- Daiara Tukano says people need to understand about the immense diversity among Indigenous peoples to dispel with the long-held archetype of the Brazilian “Indian” and recognize that they’re not only native to the Amazon.
- Given the gradual changes in attitude happening at some museums with regard to Indigenous artistic and linguistic expression, Daiara Tukano says the space must be occupied “through the front door,” while being conscious of potential traps laid by power games.
- “What is driving our fight isn’t a cry of rage, but rather a song of love,” she says. “Happiness seems like a far-off dream when you’re born into this genocidal system. But it’s because of these [happy] moments that our people are still standing.”

Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
- A new study supports mounting evidence that deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest correlates with a reduction in regional rainfall.
- Experts say this research reinforces the findings of other studies that claim the Amazon is leaning toward its “tipping point” and the southern regions are gradually becoming drier.
- Environmentalists see this research as an opportunity to reshape conservation activism and policy towards local communities.

‘Impact assessments need a shake-up’: Q&A with Georgine Kengne & Morgan Hauptfleisch
- Environmental and social impact assessments as they’re implemented in development projects across Africa need a “shake-up” to ensure they’re fit for purpose, experts say.
- Georgine Kengne, from the WoMin African Alliance, says the ideal ESIA process would be one in which “the government and the mining company are not just colluding to make profits.”
- Morgan Hauptfleisch, a professor of nature conservation in Namibia, says the fundamental problem is that ESIAs and other safeguards can simply be ignored with little consequence other than fines that the companies just budget for anyway.
- Mongabay spoke with both Kengne and Hauptfleisch about ESIAs, community participation, and the underused tool that is the strategic environmental assessment (SEA).

Element Africa: Claims of mining encroachment in DRC and broken promises in SA
- Activists say Canada-registered miner Alphamin Bisie has been operating outside its concession in the DRC’s North Kivu province, and encroaching into community forests.
- Police in South Africa have arrested seven activists protesting against Anglo American Platinum for what they say is the mining giant’s failure to report back on its social and work commitments to the mining-affected community.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

Young Indonesian climate leaders demand safe future in new book
- “Menjalin Ikhtiar Merawat Bumi: Memoirs by Climate Reality Leaders,” is edited by Amanda Katili Niode, who served as a special adviser to Indonesia’s environment minister in the 2000s.
- Those who have written essays for the book are “climate reality leaders,” meaning they participated in one of the three-day workshops organized by global nonprofit The Climate Reality Project on finding solutions to the climate crisis.
- More than 45,000 climate reality leaders are spread across 190 countries and territories. Indonesia has more than 1,000.

Forests & finance: A lawsuit, an import ban, and restoring Zambian forests
- Campaigners sue Ghana’s government to block mining of Atewa Forest biodiversity hotspot.
- Conservationists assist a forest reserve in Zambia to restore itself.
- Forest certification is expanding rapidly across the Congo Basin.
- EU bans imports of products linked to deforestation.

Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- A wave of recent closures of environment organizations in Vietnam, as well as the arrests of NGO leaders, reflects the difficult position that activists face in the one-party state.
- Nonprofit organizations have an unclear legal status in the country, and are vulnerable to pressure from the state as well as from powerful private interests.
- Though the communist-led government has at times recognized the value of NGOs as partners in implementing social and environmental programs, it has also attacked the concept of civil society as a threat to official ideology and morality.

Win for science as BP pressured into cleaning up offshore gas plans
- BP is launching an offshore gas platform with a pipeline through the world’s largest cold deep-water coral reef off the coast of Senegal and Mauritania.
- The project’s environmental impact assessment has been described as “nonsense” by a group of marine biologists
- A group of scientists has been fighting for four years to change this. Their proposals are currently being studied.

Podcast: Moths vs. mines in Ecuador’s astounding biodiversity hotspot
- The Intag Valley in the tropical Andes region of Ecuador is among the world’s most biodiverse places, with more than half of its species found nowhere else.
- This rich cloud forest has also been targeted by mining companies seeking its vast mineral resources, like copper.
- Local communities have been organizing to protect the region from such threats for decades, in what has become the longest-continuing resistance to mining in Latin America.
- Mongabay’s associate digital editor Romi Castagnino joins the podcast this week to discuss her recent reporting trip to the valley with staff writer Liz Kimbrough, detailing the immense biodiversity, community resistance, and efforts to challenge the planned mine they witnessed.

Is El Salvador preparing to reverse its landmark mining ban?
- El Salvador banned all mining of metals in 2017, but environmentalists are concerned that the government is preparing to reverse the decision and bring in international investment.
- The government has created a new agency to oversee extractive industries and begun looking into international agreements that facilitate investment in precious metals.
- Five “water defenders,” who have spent decades speaking out contamination of water sources by mining projects, were arrested in January after mining officials visited their town of Santa Marta.

‘The Mangrove Guy’: Q&A with Kelly Roberts Banda, Kenya’s lawyer-conservationist
- Kelly Roberts Banda is a Kenyan property and family lawyer best known for his work as a conservationist, planting mangroves and advocating for climate justice.
- According to government data, Kenya lost 20% of its mangroves between 1985 and 2009 due to overharvesting, clearing for salt mining and shrimp harvesting, pollution and sedimentation.
- In addition to planting trees, Banda and his colleagues help local communities earn money through beehives in the mangroves.
- Banda’s passion for the environment stems from a childhood incident in which his home was flooded and he witnessed the damage from heavy rainfall throughout his neighborhood.

Chile’s denial of Dominga port project is a just energy transition victory and lesson (commentary)
- Last week, Chile rejected the Dominga copper and iron mining project and its port, proposed for a location near the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve.
- Dominga’s estimated 20 to 30 years of operation would have jeopardized a marine biodiversity hotspot, along with human livelihoods and communities’ access to basic resources.
- “Dominga’s rejection is a victory for environmental justice and a lesson about the underlying tensions in the energy transition,” writes the author of a new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Sonia Guajajara: Turnaround from jail threats to Minister of Indigenous Peoples
- In this video interview a week before her official inauguration, Sonia Guajajara tells Mongabay what the four years of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s government meant for Native peoples, and she describes the turnaround preceding the creation of a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples — an unprecedented act in Brazil’s history — with a behind-the-scenes account of her appointment.
- “It was really [like a] hell. Everything we talked about was monitored,” she recalls the Bolsonaro government while speaking at her office in the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples in Brasília.
- She says she never imaged herself a minister but she took the position due to the need for Indigenous peoples to participate directly in the country’s public decision-making powers, which she says she believes will also help end prejudice against Native peoples.
- After four years of consistent dismantling of Indigenous policies, she says a task force is working on the main “urgencies and emergencies,” including the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, in northern Roraima state, where a public health emergency was declared Jan. 22 given high levels of death due to malnutrition and diseases, including malaria, as a consequence of 20,000 illegal miners in the area.

‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- In June 2022, Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips were brutally murdered in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay interviewed Nelly Marubo, friend and colleague of Pereira, giving us a sense of who Pereira was from an Indigenous point of view and how he was perceived by the Indigenous people in the area where he was killed.
- Nelly says Pereira first learned from the Marubo and other Indigenous groups how they were patrolling their Indigenous territories; then he introduced modern technologies to help them in their work.
- Nelly rejects the idea that Indigenous experts like Bruno were leading Indigenous groups into conflict with the outside world; rather, he was responding to the urgent needs of the Marubo and other groups across Brazil.
- For her, Pereira has left a strong legacy among the Indigenous Marubo youth.

Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
- On Jan. 17, 17-year-old Nawir Brito de Jesus and 25-year-old Samuel Cristiano do Amor Divino were shot dead in Brazil’s northeastern Bahia state, according to the state’s civil police.
- The crimes reportedly occurred when the two Indigenous leaders were returning to a resettlement farm, located within the limits of the Barra Velha Indigenous Territory, an area recognized in 2008 as being traditionally occupied by the Pataxó people but has since awaited its full demarcation.
- The newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is setting up a crisis office to monitor land conflicts in the region with the Ministry of Justice and other authorities “to guarantee the rigorous investigation and punishment of the criminals, besides, of course, the protection of the Pataxó people.”
- Violence against Indigenous people this year is not isolated to Bahia. On Jan. 9, two Indigenous Guajajara were shot in the head in northeastern Maranhão state, near Maranwi village, close to the town of Arame, as confirmed by the state’s civil police.

Violence in Brazil’s Amazon are also crimes against humanity, lawyers tell international court
- Three organizations, including Greenpeace Brazil, filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) pressing for the investigation into a network of politicians, law enforcement and business executives they suspect are responsible for systematic attacks against land defenders.
- They documented over 400 murders, 500 attempted murders, 2,200 death threats, 2,000 assaults and 80 cases of torture that occurred between 2011 and 2022.
- Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is one suspect in these crimes, yet the organizations say the attacks are part of a larger system operating in Brazil, and will likely continue even when he’s out of office.
- If the criminal court choses to go forward with this case, it will be the first time they investigate crimes against humanity committed in the context of environmental destruction.

In Ecuador, communities protecting a ‘terrestrial coral reef’ face a mining giant
- For nearly 30 years, communities have worked to conserve, restore and defend the cloud forests of the Intag Valley in Ecuador, in what locals say is the longest continuous resistance movement against mining in Latin America.
- The Tropical Andes are considered the world’s most biodiverse hotspot, ranking first in plant, bird, mammal and amphibian diversity; however, less than 15% of Ecuador’s original cloud forests and only 4% of all forests in northwestern Ecuador remain.
- Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer from Chile, plans to open a mine in the Intag Valley that would destroy primary forest and lie within the buffer area of Cotacachi Cayapas National Park — a plan that experts say would be ecologically devastating and not worth the cost.
- Communities are using the presence of two threatened frog species — previously thought to be extinct — at the mining site to challenge the project under the “rights of nature,” Ecuador’s constitutional guarantee that natural ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve.

‘We are digital guerrilla fighters’: Q&A with young Indigenous activist Samela Sateré Mawé
- Samela Sateré Mawé, a leading voice among Brazil’s Indigenous youth, spoke to Mongabay about the importance of social media to Indigenous peoples as a means to carry out their activism.
- Samela also spoke about the videos she produces for an Indigenous audience, which seek to tackle and explain topics that are difficult to understand through conventional media: “Making didactic videos on the internet is about trying to simplify and democratize the news, so everyone can understand what is really happening.”
- Having recently attended COP27, the UN climate change conference, Samela shared her feelings on the event as well as her perspectives for 2023.

Five pressing questions for the future of lithium mining in Bolivia
- As the Bolivian government negotiates business dealings with foreign lithium companies, questions remain about the future of local desert ecosystems and the Indigenous communities that steward them.
- Lithium extraction, often used for lithium-ion batteries, has been known to deplete and contaminate freshwater, impacting wildlife populations and the livelihoods of residents who rely on tourism and salt mining.
- While many community leaders in Bolivia are hopeful they can avoid similar pitfalls in the early stages of development, others are worried that foreign interests will once again exploit the country’s natural resources, leaving many residents in poverty.

In South Africa, a community says no after a coal miner said go
- A South African court has ordered one of the country’s largest coal mines to redo an environmental impact assessment for expanding its footprint by nearly 18 square kilometers (7 square miles).
- The court agreed with residents of Somkhele who said that the pre-2016 public participation process to expand the mine — and extend its productive life — was seriously flawed.
- Communities around the mine are deeply divided; the traditional authority and some residents support its extension and the jobs and income this would provide, while others stand firm against the destruction of their homes and way of life.
- The new EIA process is allowing community members to raise a range of concerns about the mine’s social and environmental impacts.

‘I have anger every day’: South African villagers on the mine in their midst
- Rural families removed from their homes in Somkhele, in northern KwaZulu-Natal province, to make way for a giant coal mine are suffering from collective trauma, a new report has found.
- A psychologist evaluated members of 26 of the 220 families displaced and found alarming levels of clinical depression and suicidal feelings.
- He found they had been traumatized by witnessing the exhumation of family graveyards as well as the loss of both income and cultural space provided by cattle encosures.
- The report, commissioned by a law firm representing opponents of the mine, recommends that the mine rehabilitate polluted land and water resources and make greater financial compensation available to allow families who wish to leave to reestablish themselves elsewhere.

Probe finds Vietnam faltering in bid to curb wildlife trade, animal suffering
- In recent years, authorities in Vietnam have made a series of pledges to curb illegal wildlife trade and the sale and consumption of dog meat.
- However, a new investigation by animal rights groups reveals that protected wildlife species are still being sold at wet markets, where animal suffering and public health risks are rife.
- The findings also indicate the dog meat industry shows few signs of abating, with slaughterhouses and restaurants still doing business despite calls to phase out the industry in major cities.
- Experts say sustained and coordinated efforts from provincial authorities, enforcement agencies and the public will be needed to fully curb the practices throughout the country.

Myanmar communities decry disempowerment as forest guardians since 2021 coup
- Within the shrinking civic space and violent aftermath of Myanmar’s February 2021 military coup, community-level efforts to safeguard Myanmar’s vast tracts of forest from development are buckling under the pressure of rampant resource extraction.
- Representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities recently highlighted the challenges facing IPLCs in the country, many of whom have been displaced by conflict and estranged from their ancestral lands and forests.
- Environmental defenders and Indigenous rights activists are among those targeted for arrest and detention by military-backed groups.
- Activists are questioning how the world can seriously address global climate change when environmental defenders are actively being prevented from taking action.

‘They paid for it with misery’: Q&A with Chile dam critic Jose Marihuan Ancanao
- Jose Marihuan Ancanao, president of the Ayin Mapu La Peña community, spoke to Mongabay’s Maxwell Radwin about the impact of hydropower plants in parts of the Chilean Andes that are home to Indigenous people with a spiritual connection to rivers and the surrounding mountains.
- Marihuan was relocated in the early 2000s by a different hydropower plant and, although relocation isn’t a threat this time around, is witnessing the construction of another mega dam near his community.
- The 90-megawatt Rucalhue power plant has resulted in the felling of nationally protected trees sacred to the Pehuenche and, once finished, would flood some ancestral land.

Dam construction ignites Indigenous youth movement in southern Chile
- Dam construction on the Bío Bío watershed has plagued Indigenous Mapuche-Pehuenche communities in south-central Chile for decades, with many families having to relocate due to flooding of ancestral lands.
- The 90-megawatt Rucalhue hydropower plant, located near the town of Santa Bárbara, is the latest project causing controversy among local communities, who say they’re sick of battling infrastructure projects that disrespect their culture and traditions.
- Young people have been particularly outspoken against the project, staging sit-ins at the work site, sending petitions to government agencies, and helping organize a local plebiscite.
- Hydropower plants, while less polluting than many other forms of energy generation, still require the clearing of trees and the disrupting of river flows, which can have a significant impact on surrounding ecosystems.

Attorney keeps alive legacy of murdered Pará activists, despite death threats
- Ten years after the murder of community leaders Zé Claudio da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, attorney Claudelice dos Santos formally created an institute named after her brother and sister-in-law to support families at risk because of their social-environmental activism in Amazonia.
- Santos earned a law degree in order to fight for the issues that have become life-and-death matters for activists in southeastern Pará. In this historically violent region, Zé Claudio and Maria were fighting against the illegal activities of farm owners, loggers and land-grabbers inside the rainforest.
- Known for defending standing forests, land reform and extractive community rights, the couple had received innumerous threats before they were murdered for their activism.
- Eleven years later, the attorney still receives threats for defending this legacy and seeking justice: The two perpetrators of the crime are in prison but the man convicted of hiring them remains free.

Brazil’s biggest elected Indigenous caucus to face tough 2023 Congress
- In Brazil’s Oct. 2 general elections, five self-declared Indigenous candidates were elected as federal deputies and two as senators, the highest number in the country’s history. The most celebrated victories were those of prominent Indigenous activists Sônia Guajajara and Célia Xakriabá, who were elected as federal deputies.
- Experts, activists and celebrities cheered the “Bancada do Cocar”(Feathered Headdress Caucus) to halt the escalating anti-Indigenous and anti-environmental agenda in the legislative power since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019.
- The success of the Indigenous and other left-wing caucuses will depend on the outcome of the presidential runoff on Oct. 30, given a more conservative elected Congress with more seats of supporters of Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby in both the lower and upper houses, experts say.

Podcast: Science that saves free-flowing rivers & rich biodiversity
- Rapid biological surveys are a well-known way to establish the richness of an ecosystem and advocate for its conservation.
- A corps of scientists and conservationists has used such surveys to prove that the rush to build thousands of new hydroelectric dams in southern Europe threatens to drown a rich heritage, with impressive results.
- A proposal to dam one of the last free-flowing rivers in Europe was halted on the basis of one such survey, in addition to much conventional activism, and the group has since turned its focus to other threatened rivers in the region.
- “It might be the highest density of trout species on Earth,” podcast guest Ulrich Eichelmann says of these rivers, which also host a wealth of bugs, bats, birds and beauty — plus a deep cultural heritage.

Southern Philippine coal project moves ahead despite community opposition
- Heavy machinery has begun operating at a coal mining site on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
- The concession is held by three subsidiaries of Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp., which estimates the mine will produce 180 million metric tons of coal and plans to build a mine-mouth power plant.
- The project has been opposed by environment activists, the local Catholic Church and some tribal groups, who say it threatens the environment, food and water security and will displace Indigenous people in the area.
- Opponents of the project also say that San Miguel’s plans to strip mine run afoul of a provincial ban on open-pit mining.

How an Indigenous family under siege became a symbol of resistance in the Amazon
- Neidinha, Almir and Txai Suruí are leading the fight against invaders destroying two of the most threatened Indigenous territories in the Brazilian state of Rondônia: the Sete de Setembro and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reserves.
- Indigenous territories in Rôndonia have been the target of a recent wave of illegal activities such as land invasions, illegal mining and illegal logging, while their defenders have been threatened and even killed.
- The violence faced by defenders of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory has been captured in the documentary “The Territory” (“O Território”), released in Europe and the U.S. in August and in Brazil in September, in which part of the production team was made up of local Indigenous leaders.

Ecuador’s Indigenous Siekopai communities sue for title in protected area
- Approximately 800 Siekopai occupy territory in the Western Amazon along the Ecuador-Peru border but haven’t been able to obtain a constitutionally guaranteed title to their ancestral land in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.
- After years of requests, they decided to file a lawsuit against the government in hopes that they will finally gain control of Pë’këya, the ancestral and spiritual home of their peoples.
- The Siekopai are world renowned for their knowledge of local flora and fauna, which they use in many of their traditional ceremonies.

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, five inspirational conservation stories in the U.S.
- Today, people across the U.S. are observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day, juxtaposed against Columbus Day which is celebrated at the same time, to honor Indigenous peoples and their cultures.
- From conserving some of the last old-growth redwood forests in California to halting oil drilling in the Alaska’s arctic, Indigenous tribes see their participation and knowledge as key to bringing solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises.
- To mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Mongabay rounds up five of this year’s most inspiring solutions-based stories in the U.S.

With rights at risk, Indigenous Brazilians get on the ballot to fight back
- A record 186 Indigenous candidates are running in Brazil’s general elections in October, up 40% from the 2018 elections.
- Candidates and activists say the surge is pushback against the increased attacks on Indigenous rights, lands and cultures under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- There’s currently only one Indigenous member in the 594-seat National Congress, a body whose lower House has overwhelmingly supported legislation considered detrimental to Indigenous rights and environmental protection.
- Only two Indigenous individuals have ever been elected to Congress, but Brazil’s main Indigenous coalition hopes to improve this representation with a coordinated campaign to support Indigenous candidates.

Indigenous leader’s court win halts one of Australia’s ‘dirtiest gas projects’
- Indigenous community members from the Tiwi Islands off the northern coast of Australia took Santos Limited to court, arguing that the company did not adequately consult traditional owners in its plans to drill in the Barossa offshore gas field.
- A federal court threw out the approval granted by Australia’s offshore energy regulator, noting that all relevant stakeholders were not consulted.
- The drilling to develop the $3.6 billion Barossa gas project could threaten the Tiwi peoples’ food sources, culture and way of life, opponents say.
- If the Barossa project goes ahead, it could become one of Australia’s dirtiest gas projects emitting around 5.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly, estimates from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis show.

Activists welcome decision to revoke permit for controversial Philippine gold mine
- On Sept. 15, local officials in the southern Philippine municipality of Tampakan revoked the business permit for mining firm Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), which is seeking to develop a massive copper and gold mine in the area.
- Local officials cited alleged fraud and misrepresentation by the company, noting that it categorized itself as a mineral exploration manufacturer while an assessment found it to be operating as a general engineering contractor.
- The company also recently filed a court petition against the local government, which is seeking to collect 397 million pesos ($6.9 million) in accumulated taxes and surcharges. Local officials deny any link between the tax dispute and the permit revocation.
- Local activists have hailed the revocation of the permit as a victory in a decades-long campaign against the mine.

Why is there no Planet B? (commentary)
- A popular slogan at climate change demonstrations is a play on humanity ‘not having a Plan B’ after Earth, so for Climate Week, two astrophysicists explain why that is.
- There are around 300 billion stars in our galaxy, with 60 billion planets similar to Earth, but none of them is quite the way we need it to be in order to survive.
- Not even Mars is workable, they say: it has 100 times less air and it’s primarily carbon dioxide. It’s also as cold as the Antarctic, so we cannot escape our ecological problems: “Earth is our unique and only home in the cosmos,” they write.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Thailand’s contentious plan to curtail bottom trawling unfolds in slow motion
- To rebuild its dwindling fish stocks, Thailand has implemented a series of reforms to its fishing sector since 2015, reining in illegal fishing while curtailing catches and the size of its commercial fishing fleet.
- In July, the Thai government announced a ban on new registrations for bottom trawlers, a particularly destructive and indiscriminate kind of fishing vessel, coupled with a $30 million buyout program for them and other gear types.
- Small-scale fishers say the reforms don’t go far enough to protect fish stocks, while commercial fishers say the new rules are hobbling their industry and should be scrapped.

Sri Lanka eyes major compensation case over X-Press Pearl sinking
- Sri Lanka has received $2.5 million in the third interim payment for the sinking of the X-Press Pearl cargo ship in June 2021, giving it a total of just $7.85 million for the worst maritime disaster in the country’s history.
- These payments from the Singapore-flagged vessel’s insurer are mainly to reimburse the government for the cost of the emergency response operations and for direct damages and cleanup.
- Environmental lawyers say the government can and should pursue a much larger compensation claim for the environmental damage wrought.
- The X-Press Pearl sank off Sri Lanka’s western coast after catching fire, in the process spilling its cargo of hazardous chemicals and billions of plastic pellets that continue to dot the country’s beaches.

Vietnam’s Human Rights Council bid under fire after environmentalists jailed
- Fifty-two winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize have signed on to a letter calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to vote against Vietnam’s bid for membership.
- The letter cites the imprisonment of Nguy Thi Khanh, founder of Hanoi-based GreenID and Vietnam’s first Goldman Prize winner, on tax evasion charges, as well as the case of Dang Dinh Bach, an environmental lawyer and former director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center, also imprisoned on tax-related charges.
- Noting that the UN General Assembly has declared a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to be a universal human right, the letter asks how Vietnam will uphold this right with these experts behind bars and many in civil society concerned about the possibility of more arrests.

Indigenous Brazilians demand justice as 4 killed in escalating violence
- Two Indigenous Guajajara men were killed on Sept. 3 in Brazil’s Maranhão state and a 14-year-old Guajajara boy shot and hospitalized, Indigenous leaders and rights groups say.
- The day after, a 14-year-old Indigenous Pataxó boy was also allegedly gunned down and a 16-year-old shot and wounded as they sought to retake a farm that had reportedly been established illegally within their territory in Bahia state.
- On Sept. 11, another Indigenous Guajajara was murdered in Maranhão. In the past 20 years, more than 50 Guajajara individuals have been killed in the state, with none of the alleged perpetrators ever going on trial, advocates say.
- Indigenous groups and advocacy organizations are demanding justice for these and earlier killings, and have raised concerns about escalating violence against native peoples throughout the country.

Illegal fishing, worker abuse claims leave a bad taste for Bumble Bee Seafood
- A new report published by Greenpeace East Asia has found that Bumble Bee Seafoods and its parent company, Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF) of Taiwan, are sourcing seafood from vessels involved in human rights abuses as well as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices.
- It found that 13 vessels supplying seafood to Bumble Bee violated Taiwanese fishery regulations, and were even on the Taiwan Fisheries Agency’s (TFA) list of vessels involved in IUU fishing, and that many supply vessels were involved in issues of forced labor and human trafficking.
- Both Bumble Bee and FCF have sustainability and corporate social responsibility policies in place.

‘Brazilians aren’t familiar with the Amazon’: Q&A with Ângela Mendes
- Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance.
- In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
- She also reflects on the culture of impunity that allowed the masterminds of her father’s murder to evade justice, and which she says persists in Brazil today.
- But she also holds out hope for change, noting that Brazilians are largely concerned about the environment, but that they need to channel this concern into concrete actions, including in the national elections coming up in October.

Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.

Big Oil’s capture of IPCC assessment for policymakers ‘shakes our faith’ (commentary)
- Although the IPCC’s technical summaries on climate change are a key resource for assessment and future projections, the group’s recent recommendations for policy makers appear to have been influenced by fossil fuel stakeholders.
- “The public needs to know that representatives from oil and gas industries, as well as fossil fuel-dependent governments, were writing this report,” a new op-ed states.
- With billions of dollars moving toward technology-driven carbon removal schemes that benefit the fossil fuel industry’s favored status quo, climate philanthropy must increasingly support climate justice, a just transition to renewable energy, and grassroots activism.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Sumatra villagers protest iron mine allegedly operating despite stop order
- An iron ore mining company in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island has continued operating despite the local government telling it to halt its activities, local villagers say.
- An inspection by provincial authorities had found the company, PT Faminglevto Bakti Abadi (FBA), to be lacking permits and posing risks to the environment and nearby communities.
- The company’s reported violation of the order has prompted locals to set up camp outside the concession as an act of protest.
- The villagers are demanding the government to revoke the concession, citing ongoing and potential damage to the environment and their livelihoods.

Fighting extractive industries in Ecuador: Q&A with Indigenous rights activist María Espinosa
- Human rights defender Lina María Espinosa has been an outspoken critic of Ecuador’s push for increased mining and oil development. But her work has also made her a target of death threats.
- This year, national protests by Indigenous communities pushed the government to revoke a decree that would have expanded oil investment. It also announced major reforms to the country’s mining plan.
- But Espinosa and members of CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) say the government needs to do more. This month, they’ll sit down with government officials to negotiate future policies.

Crime and no punishment: Impunity shrouds killings of Indigenous Amazonian defenders
- According to information collected by 11 environmental and human rights organizations, 58 Indigenous people were killed in the Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadoran and Peruvian Amazon between 2016 and 2021.
- Most of the investigations are ongoing and lawyers report delays and irregularities in the processes.
- The likely perpetrators in most of the killings are linked to illegal activities such as drug trafficking, mining, land grabbing and illegal logging.
- In the case of Brazil, experts also point to the state as being potentially involved in these murders.

Cambodian government cancels development of Phnom Tamao forest amid outcry
- Cambodia’s prime minister has intervened to stop the destruction of a forest outside the country’s capital, but not before developers managed to clear between 500 and 600 hectares (nearly 1,250-1,500 acres) in a week.
- More than half of the Phnom Tamao forest had been parceled out to politically connected tycoons, prompting widespread condemnation from conservationists, environmental activists, and the general public.
- Environmental activists and local communities have welcomed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s order canceling all the developments in the forest, but say the damage already done is extensive.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Farmer-to-farmer agroecology: Q&A with Chukki Nanjundaswamy of Amrita Bhoomi Learning Centre
- The Amrita Bhoomi Learning Centre in southern India is one of dozens of education hubs around the world providing a space for farmer-to-farmer training in agroecology.
- In a wide-ranging interview with Mongabay, the center’s Chukki Nanjundaswamy discusses their model of agriculture, its Gandhian roots, and how it grew out of the rejection of Green Revolution farming techniques that rely on chemical inputs and expensive hybrid seeds.
- Nanjundaswamy shares some of their innovative approaches to growing food without inputs, plus clever techniques to thwart notorious pests like fall armyworm, which is also prevalent in Africa.

Indigenous activists in Borneo claim win as logging firm removes equipment from disputed area
- After NGOs captured satellite and drone imagery they said showed timber firm Samling operating in deep forest and culturally sensitive sites in the Malaysian Bornean state of Sarawak, Indigenous activists filed a police report and planned to mount a blockade July 16.
- According to Penan Indigenous organization Keruan, the firm removed its equipment by July 15, a move the organization counts as a win for forest conservation.
- The area is slated for inclusion in the Upper Baram Forest Area (UBFA), a new conservation project led by the government and approved by the International Tropical Timber Organization.
- Samling denies encroaching on recognized Indigenous land, and said the UBFA has not been approved by the government or discussed with the company, which holds the timber concession for the most of the forest included in the project area.

Violence persists in Amazon region where Pereira and Phillips were killed
- Armed illegal gold miners on July 15 threatened government rangers near the site where British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed in June.
- Days after the threats, federal prosecutors charged three men in the killing of Phillips and Pereira, but activists and lawmakers say the investigation needs to be expanded to identify the possible involvement of criminal organizations.
- Activists say threats against government officials, including Pereira, have happened for decades, but that the situation has grown dire under President Jair Bolsonaro.
- The government’s weakening of environmental agencies and Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric have created a sense of impunity, emboldening criminals in the Amazon to retaliate against activists and environmentalists who expose their illicit activities, experts say.

‘The sea means everything’: Q&A with deep-sea mining opponent Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
- New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has spent more than two decades serving in leadership roles, using her positions to advance social justice issues and to campaign for the protection of the marine environment.
- A key issue that Ngarewa-Packer is currently working on is a push to ban deep-sea mining in the global ocean, a proposed activity that would extract large amounts of minerals from the seabed.
- Ngarewa-Packer previously worked with other Māori activists, NGOs and community members to block consent for a deep-sea mining operation in her home district of South Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Ngarewa-Packer talks about why it’s critical to protect the deep sea from mining, what ancestral teachings say about protecting the ocean, and why she feels hopeful about the future.

Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- On June 17, a Hanoi court sentenced Nguy Thi Khanh, arguably Vietnam’s best-known environmental advocate, to two years in jail for tax evasion.
- Vietnam’s foreign ministry has refuted claims that Khanh’s arrest and sentencing were linked to her anti-coal advocacy, but the move against her has sent a chill through NGOs in the country.
- Activists say Khanh’s imprisonment is a step back for climate change action in Vietnam, and casts doubts on the government’s commitment to reduce emissions and move toward a green development strategy.

Sri Lankan environmental policy failures helped fuel people power revolution
- Mismanagement of environmental concerns contributed to the unpopularity and eventual resignation, in the face of popular protests, of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president.
- While Rajapaksa’s main legacy is the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, he also leaves behind a multitude of failed environmental policies, critics say.
- Uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, creating opportunities for land grabbing through amendments to the law, and dismissing environmental concerns have all impacted the country, with some of these policies expected to have lasting effects.
- With Sri Lanka’s economic hardship deepening and driving the population of 22 million into “survival mode,” environmental activists are warning of even more intensive exploitation of natural resources.

In Thailand’s deep south, a fight to stop quarrying in a global geopark
- Activists in the southern Thai province of Satun have for years protested against plans to open a quarry in the limestone mountain Khao Toh Krang.
- The limestone mountain sits just outside a UNESCO global geopark, notable for its Paleozoic fossils and karst landscape, and is also flanked by villages and a large school.
- Officials say the quarry will promote jobs and ensure a local source of construction material, but opponents say a group of planned quarries threaten the geopark’s UNESCO status as well as cultural and archaeological sites and the health of nearby residents.

Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- For the first time in Brazil, the killing of an Indigenous land defender is expected to be tried before a federal jury — escalated to that level because of what prosecutors say was an aggression against the entire Guajajara Indigenous community and Indigenous culture.
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was killed in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in November 2019; two people have been indicted to stand trial in the case.
- The impending trial stands out amid a general culture of impunity that has allowed violence against Indigenous individuals and the theft of their land — including the killings of more than 50 Guajajara individuals in the past 20 years — to go unpunished.
- It could also set an important legal precedent for trying those responsible for the recent killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira.

Andean eagles have managed to adapt to fragmenting habitats — for now
- A new study looked at black-and-chestnut eagles’ (Spizaetus isidori) ability to survive in fragmented forests in the Andean regions of Colombia and Argentina.
- Researchers found that the eagles were able to fly between fragmented forests on different mountain ranges and survive better than terrestrial predators
- However, juvenile eagles had higher mortality rates than their adult counterparts, suggesting that conservation efforts should be focused on ensuring young eagles survive into adulthood.

Amazon rainforest activist under threat in Brazil plans to flee his home
- Erasmo Theofilo, an agroecologist, founded a farmers’ cooperative in one of the most hostile corners of the Amazon to defend landless and poor rural workers and promote sustainable farming practices.
- He has been the target of death threats, ambushes and attempts on his life for his work in the municipality of Anapu, in Pará state, where U.S.-born nun Dorothy Stang was killed for her activism in 2005.
- Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office at the start of 2019, land conflicts and deforestation in the Amazon have surged, with a recent report showing that Pará is the most dangerous for land rights defenders.
- Theofilo told Mongabay he believes he will never be safe in Anapu again, even if the land conflicts are resolved, and is planning to leave for good with his family.

We’re winning with climate activism, ‘just not fast enough,’ says Goldman Prize winner Julien Vincent (commentary)
- 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Julien Vincent shares his thoughts on the power of people to make change, even against the most entrenched of forces like climate change denialism.
- “From my vantage point in such a wealthy and privileged part of the world, I get frustrated by in-activism…But I remind myself that it’s in the interests of our opponents to keep the public in a state of apathy, confusion and disempowerment.”
- “There is one thing I want to impart more than anything: the power people have to create change is mind-blowing, and that power is our greatest asset,” he writes in a new op-ed.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Mining company destroys Indigenous cemetery during expansion in Honduras
- Indigenous residents living near the San Andres mine in western Honduras were devastated to learn that a centuries-old cemetery was dug up in the middle of the night, making it nearly impossible for some families to find their loved ones.
- The mass exhumations come after nearly a decade of community-level and legal battles between the Maya Chortí and Minerales de Occidente (Minosa), a subsidiary of Toronto-listed mining company Aura Minerals.
- The controversy highlights the fact that the national government hasn’t yet upheld its promise to close open-pit mining concessions.

Deaths of Phillips and Pereira shine light on a region of the Amazon beset by violence
- Brazilian police reported on June 15 that they had found the bodies believed to be those of Brazilian Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips deep in the western Amazon.
- The bodies were found not far from where the pair disappeared on June 5, in the Vale do Javari region, considered the most violent region of Brazil, where criminal groups vie to seize land occupied by Indigenous and traditional communities.
- Similar conflicts occur all over the Amazon, with some land grabbers admitting that they will, if necessary, use violent methods to achieve their goals.
- The Brazilian Senate has launched an investigation into the disappearance of Pereira and Phillips, but observers say it’s unlikely to deliver the far-reaching change required to tackle the violence.

At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury
- When the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, the world’s biggest, was designated 30 years ago, the Brazilian army cleared out the illegal gold miners operating there.
- Today, miners are back in force, encouraged by the anti-Indigenous and anti-environment rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has vowed to open up the reserves to mining.
- The illegal activity has destroyed forests and contaminated rivers with mercury and has also brought with it violence, disease and death for the 27,000 Yanomami living in the heart of the Amazon.
- As it marks the 30th anniversary of its establishment, the Yanomami reserve faces of the prospect of losing up to a third of its area to mining — a very real prospect if a key Bolsonaro bill clears Congress.

Indigenous community mounts legal challenge to Thai coal mine development
- Villagers in northern Thailand have filed a lawsuit against authorities who approved an allegedly faulty environmental impact assessment for a coal mine project that they say would destroy farmland, divert watercourses, and affect long-term human health.
- The project has been in the planning pipeline for two decades, but only became public in 2019; the Indigenous Karen community in Kabeudin village has opposed the coal mining project ever since.
- The lawsuit alleges the 10-year-old EIA was conducted and approved with virtually no participation from potentially impacted communities and omitted crucial information about the environment and the natural resources on which the community depends.
- Observers say the case is an example of the rural population’s growing awareness of their rights and of legal processes that hold companies and government departments accountable to the law and to climate commitments.

Meet the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroots activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2021 prize winners are Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez from Ecuador; Chima Williams from Nigeria; Julien Vincent from Australia; Marjan Minnesma from the Netherlands; Nalleli Cobo from the United States; and Niwat Roykaew from Thailand

Investors force Home Depot to review wood-sourcing policy over logging concerns
- Some of Home Depot’s plywood is allegedly sourced from vulnerable forests in Ecuador’s Chocó region and the Brazilian Cerrado, and conservationists and investors have pressured the home improvement giant to clean up its supply chain.
- At the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting last week, a proposal passed requiring Home Depot to reevaluate policies related to sustainability certifications of wood suppliers.
- Although the proposal doesn’t technically force the company to change its policies, conservationists are confident it will lead to tangible action.

Environment award stokes urge to save Indonesia’s karst landscape
- A youth group that started out as a rock-climbing club has reached new heights in its efforts to stop the illegal mining of the Citatah karst landscape in Indonesia’s West Java province.
- The karst’s limestone is coveted for cement production, but its destruction has led to groundwater depletion, air and noise pollution, land erosion, animal extinction, and farmland loss.
- The Citatah Karst Care Youth Forum was last year recognized by Indonesia’s environment ministry for its work in conserving what remains of the landscape.
- Since its founding in 2009, the forum has staged public awareness campaigns, helped build a nascent “geotourism” industry, and engaged mining companies to conserve and restore local ecosystems.

Ousted anti-mining mayor heads back to Philippine city hall after landslide win
- In July 2021, Mary Jean Feliciano, mayor of Brooke’s Point in the Philippine province of Palawan, was suspended from her post without pay after the country’s Ombudsman’s office ruled she had overstepped her authority in her actions against a nickel mining firm operating in the municipality.
- While still under suspension as mayor, Feliciano launched a successful vice-mayoral campaign, winning a landslide victory in the May 9 elections.
- Feliciano’s running mate also won over the pro-mining interim mayor.
- Feliciano says the vice-mayoral post will allow her to resume her fight against attempts to change local land use policies, which currently have not zoned any of the municipality to allow for mining.

Small-island fishers petition Indonesian president to end coastal dredging
- Fishers on a small island off Indonesia’s Sumatra have called for an end to coastal dredging that they say has decimated their daily catch.
- Sand dredging along the north coast of Rupat Island ran from September to December last year, stopping due to protests by fishers.
- The fishers have petitioned Indonesia’s president and the energy minister to revoke the dredging company’s permit, and are backed by an environmental group’s findings of high rates of shoal erosion in the area.
- The government has issued 1,400 dredging permits throughout Indonesia as of November 2021, covering an area of almost 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) and affecting some 35,000 fishers, according to activists.

‘The wheels came off’: South Africa court nixes coal mine extension
- A South African judge has declared a 2016 decision to allow one of the country’s largest coal mines to expand invalid, saying it failed to secure consent from affected communities.
- The country’s minister for mineral resources and energy will now have to review an appeal by some community members against the expansion — jeopardizing the mine’s expansion.
- The mine’s operation has divided the community, with tensions remaining high after houses of local residents who oppose the mine were burnt down earlier this year.

Fisher groups are the marine militia in Indonesia’s war on illegal fishing
- Indonesia has a vast maritime area, but not enough personnel to patrol and monitor for illegal and destructive fishing.
- To address this gap, in recent years the government has incentivized fishers and other coastal communities to form monitoring groups that are responsible for patrolling their local waters.
- In the Raja Ampat archipelago in the country’s east, Mongabay meets some of the people who have volunteered for the task of protecting their waters from blast fishing and cyanide fishing, among other violations.

Amid war, Ukrainians are tracking Russia’s crimes against the environment
- With civilian and political welfare as the Ukrainian government’s number one priority, environmental destruction has largely been overlooked during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- But civilians and experts alike have rallied together to record more than 100 separate instances of “crimes against the environment,” with the aim of bringing Russia to justice under international courts after the war.
- From the destruction of fuel and gas depots to the long-term effects of ecosystem services on Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of the world,” environmental impacts can also become humanitarian crises, activists warn.

A seagrass restoration project to preserve the past may also protect the future
- Linani Arifin, 40, is a resident of West Yensawai village in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, where the coastal ecosystem has been declining due to climate change impacts and development.
- Almira Nadia Kusuma is a young marine scientist who has studied seagrass for years.
- Together, they lead a group of teenagers in West Yensawai in a project to replant seagrass, aiming to protect the village from coastal erosion.
- Globally, seagrasses are disappearing at rates that rival those of coral reefs and tropical rainforests, and Indonesia is considered an important country for seagrass conservation.

Court setback doesn’t sway Indonesian villagers fighting a mining firm
- Residents of remote Sangihe Island in Indonesia will mount an appeal after their lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island was thrown out by a court on a technicality.
- Their case centered on concerns that the operations of PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS), linked to Canada-based Baru Gold Corp., would cause widespread destruction on their island home.
- They alleged in their lawsuit that there were several administrative violations that should have nullified the contract issued to TMS by the government, but the court said the matter was out of its jurisdiction.
- The same court issued a similar dismissal in a previous case involving a coal-mining company, but an appeal by the plaintiffs in that instance led to the company’s permit being revoked; given that precedent, the Sangihe islanders say they still have a fighting chance.

Iwan Dento, ‘hero’ of South Sulawesi’s karst mountains
- For more than a decade, environmental activist Iwan Dento has opposed the mining of the limestone karst formations in his homeland of Maros, Indonesia.
- Until 2013, the karst mountain area of Rammang-rammang was mined for marble and limestone, but local resistance led to protective regulations and the establishment of an ecotourism area.
- For his dedication to defending the karst and establishing ecotourism, Iwan Dento has been nominated for several top honors for environmental preservation by both the government and the private sector, and is seen as the “hero” of Rammang-rammang.

Saving old-growth forests: Q&A with Amazon Watch’s Leila Salazar-López
- A new documentary called “The Last Stand,” released on Earth Day 2022, goes inside the protests against the logging of the Fairy Creek old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada.
- Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch, an NGO dedicated to fighting deforestation and protecting the rights of Indigenous communities in the world’s biggest rainforest, spoke in the film about the larger implications of cutting down old-growth forests.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Salazar-López talks deforestation in the Amazon, the flaws of carbon offset policies, and the important role that Indigenous and local people play in conserving the last of Earth’s old-growth forests.

History on the walls: Graffiti brings Manaus’s Indigenous roots to light
- Graffiti artists are painting murals recounting the history of Indigenous people and honoring their culture in the capital of Amazonas, the Brazilian state with the largest Indigenous population.
- Indigenous community leaders say they hope the movement will increase the visibility of Indigenous people living in cities, who often face poverty, housing insecurity and stigma that discourages many from maintaining their culture and identity.
- Fearing cultural erasure, Indigenous activists are urging Indigenous people to embrace their ancestry and identify themselves as Indigenous in Brazil’s next census, expected to begin in August 2022.
- As Indigenous people in cities reclaim their identities, occupying public spaces through street art is playing a key role in the fight to make Indigenous people in urban areas more visible.

Forest loss shows stopgap decrees failing to protect Brazil’s isolated Indigenous
- Decrees issued by the Brazilian government to protect Indigenous territories from outside threats have failed to deter illegal deforestation and may even be encouraging invaders who are betting on them not being renewed, critics say.
- In the first two months of this year, 116 hectares (287 acres) were deforested for cattle pasture and mining in Indigenous lands supposedly protected by these decrees, according to Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples.
- Despite the figure representing an 83% reduction in deforestation from a year ago, Indigenous rights groups say deforestation continues to threaten isolated Indigenous peoples, especially in the absence of government action against the illegal occupation of their lands.
- Ancestral land rights are at the heart of protests currently underway in Brasília, where thousands of Indigenous people have converged for the country’s largest annual Indigenous demonstrations.

More than half of activists killed in 2021 were land, environment defenders
- An analysis by Front Line Defenders and the Human Rights Defenders Memorial recorded at least 358 murders of human rights activists globally in 2021.
- Of that total, nearly 60% were land, environment or Indigenous rights defenders.
- The countries with the highest death tolls were Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
- Advocates say the figure is likely far higher, as attacks on land and environment defenders in Africa often go unreported.

Photography, nature, truth and war: Q&A with top photographer Ami Vitale
- Mongabay contacted award-winning photographer and former war correspondent Ami Vitale to hear her thoughts about the power of photography at this pivotal time in places like Ukraine.
- In a new interview, Vitale shares her views and also news of a photography sale that she and other National Geographic photographers have donated prints to, toward providing relief to victims of the war.
- “Photography can remind us all that we have a lot more in common than we often realize. If we…dig beneath the headlines and take the time to understand, a universal truth emerges. We are all connected to one another,” she says.
- Photos from the print sale are available until May 10th.

In West and Central Africa, palm oil investors buckle under community pressure
- In the late 2000s, a commodity boom spurred a rush of land deals in West and Central Africa for palm oil development, raising fears of deforestation and land grabbing.
- A new report by the financial risk analyst Chain Reaction Research says most of the deals have since failed, with 27 representing 1.37 million hectares (3.39 million acres) of land having been outright abandoned
- Researchers say that cross-border campaigning and resistance by community land rights organizations is a major reason why the industry has faltered in Africa.

Greek conservationists collaborate to protect endemic species in face of climate change
- Across Greece, conservation NGOs are working in close collaboration to study and save numerous endemic species found nowhere else.
- Often working in areas famed for Greek mythology like Mount Olympus and Mount Oiti, the plants and animals now need what seems like divine intervention to survive the ravages brought by climate change.
- Why so many endemic species? Greece has “an amazing diversity of climates and also soils. This creates an amazing diversity of life,” one conservationist tells Mongabay.

Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.

Campaigners against dog meat trade take on one Indonesian city at a time
- An estimated 7% of Indonesia’s 270 million people eat dog meat, a practice the World Health Organization has linked to the spread of rabies.
- Dog Meat Free Indonesia, an advocacy group, is campaigning city by city to get authorities to crack down on the trade, appealing to animal welfare, public health, and religious sensibilities.
- Authorities at the national and subnational levels have in recent years responded by issuing regulations effectively banning the sale of dog meat for human consumption.

‘I am pro-mining’: Indigenous opposition to Philippine mine project falters
- A planned $5.9 billion copper and gold mine in the southern Philippines has faced opposition since reserves were first confirmed in the 1990s, with more than two dozen people killed since then in conflicts relating to the project.
- Most affected by the conflict are the Indigenous Blaan; the planned mine project stretches across the ancestral lands of five tribal councils, and will require the eviction of around 5,000 people
- For decades, clans and even families have been split over their opposition or support for the mining company, which has promised to support education, health, livelihood and development projects in affected communities.
- With the national government in Manila pushing pro-mining policies to jump-start the pandemic-hit economy, and as pressure mounts within families and communities, some of the mine’s staunchest opponents are reconsidering their stance.

More coffee, less gold: Sumatra farmers alarmed over revival of mine project
- A recent stock exchange filing indicates that a gold mining project in Sumatra’s Gayo Highlands may soon be revived after being stalled due to popular opposition.
- The Linge Abong concession also overlaps onto the Leuser Ecosystem, the largest remaining swath of intact rainforest in Sumatra, and home to critically endangered tigers, orangutans, rhinos and elephants.
- Farming communities here who grow the world-renowned Aceh Gayo coffee, and who would be directly affected by the mine, have called on the authorities to shut down the project for good.
- “A lot of people live and prosper from Gayo coffee. Don’t let the lives they’ve built off of coffee farming be destroyed just for the sake of gold mining,” said a village head.

Mexico’s top court cancels mining concessions near Indigenous communities
- Two controversial mining concessions on Indigenous land were canceled after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that residents were not consulted.
- The municipality of Ixtacamaxtitlán, located in the state of Puebla in central Mexico, has around 7 million ounces of gold and 1.4 billion ounces of silver that a Canadian firm wanted to extract.
- While the case is a major win for the Tecoltemi community, the ruling didn’t set a new precedent for understanding Mexico’s mining law, suggesting that similar issues could arise in other Indigenous communities near mining concessions.

Jordan scrambles to save rare Red Sea corals that can withstand climate change
- In Jordan, researchers, activists and fishers are hopeful that their coral reefs — and the life they support — can survive climate change.
- Corals in this northern part of the Red Sea have been shown to be far more resilient to warming ocean temperatures than corals elsewhere.
- Even though they cover only 0.2% of the ocean floor, coral reefs support about 25% of all marine life.

Crackdown on villagers highlights heavy hand of Indonesia’s ‘strategic’ projects
- The heavy-handed arrest of 67 people, including 13 children, by police in Indonesia has shone a spotlight on long-simmering opposition to a planned mine in Central Java province.
- Those arrested are residents of Wadas village, the site of a planned mine that would provide the rocks needed to build a nearby dam.
- The villagers have opposed the mining plan for years, citing environmental and social concerns.
- Rights groups and legal aid advocates accuse the police of using excessive violence, but the government says the project will go ahead regardless.

A mayor in the Philippines took on a mine, and lost her job over it
- When nickel mining firm Ipilan Nickel Corporation began felling trees in a protected forest in its concession area in Brooke’s Point, Palawan, Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano moved aggressively to stop them.
- After sending cease-and-desist orders and failing ultimately to prevent the felling of 7,000 trees, she used her authority to shut down the company’s operations and demolish onsite facilities.
- The company fought back, claiming it had the legal right to cut trees on the concession, and that Feliciano’s actions amounted to an abuse of authority.
- The Philippine Ombudsman sided with the company, ruling in July 2021 that Feliciano be suspended without pay for a year.

In Indonesia, a ‘devious’ policy silences opposition to mining, activists say
- Activists in Indonesia have highlighted what they say is an increase in arrests of people protesting against mining activity since the passage of a controversial mining law in 2020.
- They’ve singled out the law’s Article 162 as “a devious policy” that’s meant to quash all opposition to mining activity, even at the expense of communities and the environment.
- Of the 53 people subjected to criminal charges for opposing mining companies in 2021, at least 10 were charged with violating Article 162, according to one group.
- Groups have filed a legal challenge against the law, seeking to strike down Article 162 and eight other contentious provisions on constitutional grounds.

Full steam ahead for Tren Maya project as lawsuits hit judicial hurdles
- The Mexican government is building a multibillion-dollar tourist train line that will run 1,525 kilometers (948 miles) across the Yucatán Peninsula.
- The government agency overseeing construction says the project will bolster the rural economy in southern Mexico by creating jobs, and claims an 80% approval rate in many communities.
- However, the construction allegedly threatens to destroy one of the most biodiverse areas of the country, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and will lead to the relocation of many Indigenous communities.
- Advocacy groups helping communities file 25 lawsuits against the project say that judicial hurdles and a rebranding of the project as being a “national security” matter complicate their chances of success.

Attack on environmental lawyer’s home alarms DRC rights defenders
- Armed men, including two dressed in police uniform, attacked the home of Congolese lawyer Timothée Mbuya earlier this month and told family members they were sent to kill him.
- Mbuya is also facing a defamation lawsuit after publishing a report alleging encroachment of a protected area by a farm owned by former DRC president Joseph Kabila.
- Campaigners say both the lawsuit and the violent assault on the lawyer’s home fit a pattern of harassment of environment and human rights activists in the country.

As Malaysian state resumes log exports, Indigenous advocates warn of fallout
- Effective Jan. 3, the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo has ended a ban on exporting unprocessed logs.
- The ban was put in place in 2018 in a bid to bolster the state’s timber processing industry; critics warn that overturning it will lead to an increase in both legal and illegal logging in the state’s remaining forests.
- Any increase in logging will especially affect the state’s forest-dependent Indigenous communities, including groups that are trying to assert legal rights to their ancestral land.
- The decision to end the export ban comes as the Sabah Forestry Department makes a push to convert 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of degraded forest into timber plantations.

Analysts point to logging and mining to explain Solomon Islands unrest
- In November 2021, Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, was wracked by riots that left three people dead and the city’s Chinatown in ashes.
- The unrest was stoked by the prime minister’s decision to end diplomatic ties with Taiwan and instead side with Beijing, stirring up anti-Chinese sentiment, as well as tensions between Guadalcanal province, where the capital is located, and Malaita, the country’s most-populous province but also one of its least-developed.
- However, some analysts say the true causes of discontent lie in the cozy relationships between officials and the foreign logging and mining firms that are ravaging the country.

Guinea-Bissau turtle hatchery addresses unusual problem of too many eggs
- Five percent of all green sea turtles nest on the beaches of tiny Poilão Island, in the Bijagós Archipelago off Guinea-Bissau, leading to some nests being laid on top of each other.
- Sea turtle monitors are rescuing these “doomed clutches” of eggs and relocating them to less crowded beaches.
- In the future, they hope the sea turtle hatchery will provide educational opportunities that strengthen protection of sea turtles.

Philippine groups slam ‘cruel Christmas gift’ as open-pit mining ban is lifted
- On Dec. 23, Philippine Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu issued an order overturning a 2017 ban on open-pit mining.
- This follows an April 2021 decision by President Rodrigo Duterte to lift a 2012 moratorium on new mining agreements.
- The move has been welcomed by the mining industry, but slammed by environment and Indigenous rights groups as “a cruel Christmas gift” and “another blow against an already gasping state of our Philippine environment.”

Josefina Tunki: ‘If we have to die in defense of the land, we have to die’
- Josefina Tunki, the first woman to preside over the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA), an Indigenous association in Ecuador, faces death threats due to her opposition to mining on Indigenous lands.
- The Ecuadoran government has granted 165 concessions to mining companies — for copper, gold and molybdenum — that covers 56% of PSHA territory in the Condor mountain range in southeastern Ecuador.
- Tunki’s election as president of the PSHA has revealed structural sexism, but it has also shown hope to a generation that sees women like her in positions of power.
- This report is part of a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam and La Barra Espaciadora (The Space Bar).

Conservation deaths in 2021
- Between the pandemic, natural disasters worsened by human activities, and violence against environmental defenders, 2021 was another year of significant losses in conservation.
- The following is a list of some of the deaths that occurred in 2021 that were notable to the conservation sector.

California is the world’s number one importer of Amazonian oil, report finds
- California is the biggest importer of oil from the Amazon rainforest, with Ecuador being the largest exporter, a report from Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch finds.
- The report comes months after Indigenous organizations filed a motion to protect 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 and the Ecuadorian president announced plans to double the country’s oil production.
- Ecuador’s ministry of the environment and water told Mongabay that it is “encouraging extractive activities to compensate for biodiversity loss” and that it is adapting secondary legislation to further comply with Indigenous rights and environmental regulation.

How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.

Deadly raids are latest case of abuse against Indigenous Batwa in DRC park, groups say
- The number of attacks by security forces on Indigenous Batwa villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park has tripled in the past four weeks, according to the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP).
- DRC soldiers and park rangers are accused of burning several Batwa villages to the ground, killing one man and possibly a pregnant woman, and injuring at least two other women during raids that continued until mid-December.
- Indigenous rights groups have demanded a formal investigation into the reports, and called on park funders to pay attention to alleged crimes committed using their money.
- Park officials have denied that there are any Batwa communities officially living inside the park, and say the target of the raids is an armed man that carried out a deadly attack in the city of Bukavu.

‘Everyone is capable’ of climate action, say Kevin Patel and Julia Jackson
- Earlier this week climate activists Kevin J. Patel and Julia Jackson published a commentary in Newsweek that effectively accused the Biden Administration of betraying their climate commitment at last month’s U.N. Climate Change Conference by proceeding with an auction of 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling.
- Patel and Jackson have personal reasons for their climate activism: Patel has suffered life-long heart issues due to poor air quality in Los Angeles, while Jackson lost her home in Sonoma to a wildfire in 2019. Both run non-profits focused on rallying young people around climate action.
- Patel founded OneUpAction International in 2019 to empower traditionally marginalized youth communities with resources to press for change. Jackson, whose parents created a global wine company that emphasizes sustainability, founded Grounded in 2017 to identify and amplify solutions to planetary problems.
- Patel and Jackson spoke about their activism, their recent Newsweek commentary, and other issues in a December 2021 exchange with Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler.

Deep-sea mining regulator’s latest meeting on rules only muddies the water
- Delegates of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the multilateral body in charge of deep-sea mining in international waters, met recently in Kingston, Jamaica, and discussed whether to adopt a set of rules — or mining code — to allow deep-sea mining to commence in as little as 18 months.
- Deep-sea mining is a controversial activity that was pushed closer to the horizon when Nauru triggered a “two-year rule” that would theoretically require the ISA to grant an exploitation license within two years, no matter what mining regulations are in place.
- Most ISA member states appeared to be in favor of pushing forward with the mining code, but others questioned the feasibility of this approach, according to observers who attended the meetings.
- The ISA has a dual mandate to give nations equal opportunity and access to mine the seabed as well as to protect the ocean from mining’s harmful effects, but some experts say the ISA’s leadership holds favorable views of mining.

Indonesians protesting against mines run growing risk of ‘criminalization’
- Indonesians defending their lands against mining operations are frequently met with criminal persecution on dubious charges, observers say.
- The people of Jomboran village on the island of Java are the latest example, with police questioning them for staging a protest at a mining site near the village.
- In 2020, 69 Indonesians were “criminalized” in with cases involving disputes with mining companies, according to data from the watchdog NGO Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam).

Can a new wave of climate fiction inspire climate action? (commentary)
- Storytelling about the climate crisis–called climate fiction or ‘cli-fi’–has generally focused on end-of-the-world stories that serve as a warning. But can they inspire change?
- Research has found that the majority of cli-fi is associated with negative emotions which can lead to apathy, which is the enemy of action. But stories can get through to us in ways that facts aren’t able to.
- Could this mean that we need different types of cli-fi stories to inspire change? A new op-ed argues that it may be time to add new stories to this potentially world-changing genre.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

First Nations unite to fight industrial exploitation of Australia’s Martuwarra
- The Fitzroy River in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, one of the country’s most ecologically and culturally significant waterways, is facing proposals of further agriculture and mining development, including irrigation and fracking.
- In response, First Nations communities in the region have developed different methods to promote the conservation of the river, including curating cultural festivals, funding awareness campaigns, and working with digital technologies.
- First Nations land rights are held along the length of the Fitzroy River, the first time this has occurred across an entire catchment area in Australia.
- The catchment is the last stronghold of the world’s most “evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered” species, the freshwater sawfish (Pristis pristis) and is home to the threatened northern river shark (Glyphis garricki).

In Latin America, the law is ‘a tool to silence’ environmental defenders
- Environmental defenders across Latin America are being sued and arrested as they protest against agribusiness, mining and energy projects on their lands.
- In most cases, government authorities are the ones pursuing criminal charges against these defenders, which range from obstructing public roads to terrorism and murder.
- Experts say that this criminalization serves one purpose: to demobilize defenders using fear, exhaustion, stigmatization, and even social and financial ruin.

In Colombia, threatened women of the Wayuú community continue to fight rampant mining
- The Wayuú Women’s Force, founded in 2006, is an Indigenous organization that denounces the coal mining that has dammed and contaminated rivers, leaving much of La Guajira without water.
- Members of the organization have received death threats but continue to train women to stand up for their human rights.
- In addition to their work in La Guajira, the Wayuú women are developing ways of holding companies all over the world accountable for their negative environmental impact.

Indigenous communities in South Africa sue, protest off-shore oil and gas exploration
- Thousands of South Africans, including Indigenous communities, mobilized in a national protest last Sunday against Shell’s planned seismic survey in search for oil and gas reserves off the country’s eastern Wild Coast – with more protests planned this weekend.
- Two court applications were submitted last week challenging the government’s license for oil and gas exploration, and demanded their constitutional right to a safe and healthy environment, as well as their Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
- Activists and communities fear the surveys and possible oil extraction will impact marine life and pollute coastal ecosystems which the Indigenous Xhosa rely on for their livelihood and traditional rituals.
- On Thursday, the Minister of Minerals Resources and Energy underlined the government’s support for oil exploration, criticizing environmental protesters for actions seen as “apartheid and colonialism of a special type.”

Betty Rubio, the tech-savvy Kichwa leader defending threatened territory
- In 2018, Betty Rubio became the first woman president of her region’s Indigenous federation, a role in which she faces threats from narcotrafficking, logging and illegal mining.
- The Kichwa leader says her grandfather warned her about the risks of deforestation, so today she’s participating in an environmental monitoring project to detect illegal activities in the Amazon.
- In Peru, where only 4% of presidencies in Indigenous communities are held by women, Betty tries to encourage her female colleagues to take leading positions in their organizations.

In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- The government of Laos plans to build a 1,460-megawatt hydroelectric dam upstream of the ancient city of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- The dam is part of the government’s aim to bring in revenue by selling electricity to its neighbors; the country already has 78 dams in operation, including the Xayaburi mega dam 130 kilometers downstream from Luang Prabang.
- Public dissent is muted within the one-party state, but experts and downstream countries are raising the alarm about the dam’s potential impacts on the heritage site and the broader Mekong ecosystem.

Governor rails against ‘bioterrorists,’ ‘carbon cowboys’ destroying PNG’s forests
- Gary Juffa, governor of Papua New Guinea’s Oro province, is one of the country’s most outspoken critics of the logging industry.
- Juffa said he’s had to resort to the courts to force out three logging firms operating in his province, and called on the international community to fight illegal loggers in PNG.
- While critical about the slow pace of global deforestation agreements, Juffa said he’s optimistic about the possibilities of carbon finance for his country; other PNG activists are more skeptical.

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia