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topic: Endangered Environmentalists
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Final cheetah conservationists freed in Iran, but the big cat’s outlook remains grim
- In April, the last four cheetah conservationists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation jailed in 2018 for alleged espionage were released from prison in Tehran; four of their colleagues had been released earlier, while one had died in custody.
- The case had a chilling effect on scientific collaboration and efforts to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), which is today found only in Iran, with fewer than 30 believed to remain in the wild.
- The cheetah faces a range of threats, chief among them vehicle collisions: some 52% of cheetah deaths in Iran are due to road accidents.
- Saving the species will require a comprehensive and coordinated effort, and international scientific cooperation is crucial — but conservation work has been hampered by complex geopolitical dynamics, including sanctions.
Etelvina Ramos: From coca farmer to opponent of the illegal crop
- Etelvina Ramos’ story encompasses the war in the Colombian Amazon. She grew up alongside coca crops, witnessed several massacres, and was displaced by violence due to the illicit, but profitable, crop.
- Now, at 52 years old, she is fighting to replace coca.
- Etelvina Ramos has a mission that is contrary to the interests of the drug trafficking industry: through her work in the Workers’ Association of Curillo (ASTRACUR), she is seeking the approval of a rural reserve. This would make it possible to close the pathway to coca production and illegal mining.
- Due to her work as an environmental and land defender, she frequently faces threats by illegal armed groups. She admits that she has learned to live with the fear of death.
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.
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.
Maydany Salcedo: the environmental defender who catches the ire of armed groups
- In southwestern Colombia, Maydany Salcedo, 49, faces constant threats to her life and that of her family due to her opposition to illegal activities of armed groups in the region.
- She founded Asimtracampic, an organization that works to ensure that no more coca (an addictive plant which cocaine is derived from) is planted in the region, and that deforestation does not increase.
- The organization opposes the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon, illicit crops, oil pollution, deforestation and all activities that pose a risk to the environment and territory.
- A victim of the constant violence in the region since she was raped by guerillas as a child, Salcedo is under 24/7 security protection. Despite these threats, she has not abandoned her dream of creating biological corridors for the vulnerable species that live in Piamonte, among which include the Caquetá titi monkey, which is endemic to the region.
Attack on Pataxó Hãhãhãi Indigenous leaders must be investigated (commentary)
- In January, two leaders of the Indigenous Pataxó Hãhãhãi community of Bahia State in Brazil were brutally attacked by a militia calling for a ‘repossession’ of their land, as police officers allegedly watched.
- One was killed and the other badly injured in the attack, leading to calls from the community and rights advocates for police to be withdrawn from the territory and for the governor to take protective action.
- “Who is at the helm of public security forces in the southern, southwestern, and far southern regions of Bahia? Who orchestrates and steers operations of the military police in this area?” a new op-ed says in asking for a thorough investigation.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Grassroots efforts and an Emmy-winning film help Indigenous fight in Brazil
- The 2022 documentary “The Territory” won an Emmy award this January, shining a light on the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous people and the invasions, conflicts and threats from land grabbers in their territory in the Brazilian Amazon from 2018 to 2021.
- After years of increasing invasions and deforestation in the protected area, experts say the situation has slowly improved in the past three years, and both Indigenous and government officials in the region “feel a little safer.”
- Grassroots surveillance efforts, increased visibility of the problems, and a more effective federal crackdown against invaders have helped tackle illegal land occupiers and allowed the Indigenous populations to take their land back.
- Despite the security improvements, however, the territory still struggles against invasions and deforestation within the region, experts say.
What’s at stake for the environment in El Salvador’s upcoming election?
- Salvadorans will go to the polls on February 4 to choose a president and 60 members of the Legislative Assembly.
- Polls show that President Nayib Bukele, who took office in 2019, will likely win by a wide margin despite constitutional restrictions on running for a second term.
- Environmental concerns include the destruction of coastal habitats by mega-infrastructure projects, the return of the mining industry and the safety of environmental defenders.
When will families of slain Amazon land defenders get justice? (commentary)
- As the world marked International Human Rights Day on December 10, the murders of 32 Indigenous leaders and Amazon land defenders stood as a stark reminder of the persistent and systematic human rights violations faced by Indigenous communities, and the urgent need for systemic change to ensure their individual and collective rights.
- The recent murder of Quinto Inuma Alvarado, Indigenous Kichwa leader and chief of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, is just the latest crime in a list of dozens in the Peruvian Amazon along the border with Brazil.
- “We urgently demand that the state, through its institutions, effectively commits to protecting those who defend their ancestral territories, implementing intersectoral mechanisms that go beyond declarations on paper and translate into concrete and effective actions,” a new op-ed states.
- 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.
‘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.
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.
Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Within six years of each other, Maria Bernadete Pacífico, 72, and Flávio Gabriel Pacífico, 36, mother and son, were killed in the Pitanga dos Palmares quilombo.
- They were community leaders and defended their ancestral territory, home to about 300 families, many of them farmers.
- The quilombo is within an Environmental Protection Area (APA), but it is grappling with deforestation and real estate speculation, and it is surrounded by industries, a prison and a landfill.
- Jurandir Wellington Pacífico, the remaining son of Maria Bernadete who is in hiding with his family out of fear for his life, speaks to Mongabay about the threats the community faces and what has happened since his mother’s death.
Killing of U.S. biologist adds to rising violence against scientists in Mexico
- Gabriel Trujillo, a biologist from the U.S. with roots in Mexico, was shot and killed in the northeastern state of Sonora, Mexico, while collecting plant samples for his Ph.D. research.
- It’s the third fatal incident committed against researchers studying the environment in different parts of Mexico in recent years.
- Biologists from California and Sonora received threats just for looking for Trujillo, who was a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley.
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.”
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.
After Bruno Pereira’s murder, widow Beatriz Matos strives for Indigenous rights
- In an interview with Mongabay, anthropologist Beatriz Matos, widow of Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira, tells of the duties she assumed on Feb. 14 as head of the Department of Territorial Protection and of Isolated and Recently Contacted Peoples inside the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
- Matos tells of her recent return to the Javari Valley, where she and Pereira met, and of the challenges in reverting the destruction of and negligence toward Indigenous rights in the recent past.
- Matos also explains how mapping of isolated peoples in Brazil works and how the department has been structuring itself to carry out this work together with Funai, the National Indigenous Peoples Foundation.
- According to Matos, the current priority is to “work to guarantee safety and protection for Indigenous peoples and their territories.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
A 13-year fight against gold mining in Colombian community marches on
- The Embera Karambá Indigenous community in Quinchía, Colombia, near Medellin, has been resisting large-scale gold mining activities in their region for 13 years.
- The Miraflores mining company began holding meetings with the Embera Karambá community as part of the prior consultation process in 2015; six years after it started exploration activities in the area.
- The governor of the community and a member of the Indigenous Guard have received anonymous death threats and unidentified people surveilling their homes. Since 2019, the Indigenous governor has been receiving protection from the National Protection Unit of the Colombian national government.
- According to the mining company’s communications director, the mining company is making every effort to reach an agreement with the community and guarantee their right to prior consultation. However, consultation should not be used as a tool for opposition, he says.
Scientists call for end to violence against Amazon communities, environmental defenders
- The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) demanded urgent action to stop attacks against Indigenous peoples, environmentalists and communities in a July 14 declaration.
- An alignment between illegal resource extraction and drug trafficking in the Amazon places people protecting resources at increasing risk, according to the association.
- Latin America is the most dangerous region in the world for environmental defenders, and Colombia and Brazil are at the top of the list for killings.
‘We have advanced, but with much pain’: Q&A with Indigenous leader José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal
- José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal heads COICA, an association that represents the Indigenous peoples of all nine countries in the Amazon Basin.
- He says the persecution of Indigenous peoples and destruction of their lands must end, otherwise “we also risk the disappearance of all human beings.”
- In an interview with Mongabay Latam, Díaz Mirabal talks about the threats to the Amazon’s Indigenous peoples, whether any progress has been made, and the disconnect between what governments pledge at environmental conferences and what they really do on the ground.
- “Indigenous leaders know that they are going out to fight, but do not know whether they will return,” Díaz Mirabal says. “And this has happened a lot.”
Disappointment and a few wins, Indigenous leaders react to Nairobi biodiversity talks
- Negotiation talks in Nairobi, Kenya, for the new global agreement to preserve and protect nature ended last week, but parties have not yet come to an agreement over the final draft – including proposals laid out by the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB).
- Disappointed by the progress made at the latest biodiversity meeting after two years of talks, Indigenous leaders and civil society organizations are urging parties to secure land rights, include monitoring components and strengthen the text’s language around their role in meeting biodiversity goals.
- The inclusion of gender equality and environmental defenders in the text, and their access to justice, is seen as a win for Indigenous people, women and environmental defenders. Some proposals by the IIFB are still held within the draft, though several areas are in square brackets.
- The final agreement is set to be adopted in Montreal in December, but at least one more round of negotiations is expected to take place before then. Dates are yet to be determined.
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.
Protect Persian leopards, and their defenders, for World Environment Day (commentary)
- For World Environment Day 2022 on June 5, Jane Goodall and 50 other conservationists published a letter urging protection for Persian leopards and and clemency for seven scientists imprisoned for their work studying the cats.
- In an open letter, the scientists highlight the impact of current conflicts, sanctions, and political tensions on the conservation of the leopard, whose range spans 11 countries, including Iran. It was in Iran where nine conservationists associated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were arrested in January 2018, accused of spying because they were using camera traps. One of the conservationists, Kavous Seyed-Emami, who died in jail. The rest still sit in prison.
- Goodall and her colleagues call for the release of the imprisoned scientists and actions to facilitate international cooperation beyond recent political circumstances.
- This letter is a commentary containing the opinions of its writers and signers, not necessarily of Mongabay.
A look at violence and conflict over Indigenous lands in nine Latin American countries
- Indigenous people make up a third of the total number of environmental defenders killed across the globe, despite being a total of 4% of the world’s population, according to a report by Global Witness. The most critical situation is in Colombia, where 117 Indigenous people have been murdered between 2012 and 2020.
- Conflicts over extractive industries and territorial invasions are a major cause of violence against Indigenous communities. Between 2017 and 2021, there were 2,109 cases of communities affected by extractive industries and their associated activities in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
- Mongabay Latam interviewed 12 Indigenous leaders from nine countries across Latin America and spoke to them about the threats they face and the murders occurring in the region.
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.
Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- The first conference of the parties to the Escazú Agreement concluded with the approval to include the public in the board of directors and finalize the rules surrounding a committee that will oversee compliance with the treaty. These were described as some of the greatest achievements of the conference.
- The Escazú Agreement is a regional treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that promotes access to environmental information, compliance with environmental laws and environmental justice. It is also known as a treaty that addresses the protection of environmental defenders.
- Indigenous and youth groups played a large role in the conference which announced a task force focused on monitoring the situation surrounding environmental defenders in the region.
- Elections for the positions of public representative to channel citizens’ demands will be held in August and any citizen of a country which ratified the Escazú Agreement can register to run.
“We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Adiela Jineth Mera Paz is an Indigenous leader and coordinator with the Cuiracua Mai Yija, the Indigenous Guard of the Siona people’s Buenavista reservation in Puerto Asís, Putumayo, on the Colombia-Ecuador border.
- Indigenous communities have experienced water contamination from nearby oil extraction since 2014, affecting the communities’ health and wildlife corridors, says Mera Paz.
- In this interview with Mongabay, Mera Paz discusses leadership roles taken on by Indigenous women and the growing risks her community faces from armed groups, drug trafficking and the oil giant, Geopark.
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.
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.
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.
Mongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
- A Peruvian cacao company that sued a Mongabay Latam writer for reporting on its deforestation in the Amazon has also targeted others in what lawyers said appears to be a pattern of intimidation.
- Tamshi, formerly Cacao del Perú Norte SAC, had its lawsuit against Mongabay Latam’s Yvette Sierra Praeli thrown out by a court in November.
- A separate lawsuit against four environment ministry officials, including the one who led the prosecution of the company, has also been dropped, although it may still be appealed.
- In a third lawsuit, environmental activist Lucila Pautrat, who documented farmers’ allegations against Tamshi, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fine, but is appealing the decision.
Newly released Cambodian activists honored among Front Line Defenders awardees
- In early November, six young activists associated with environmental advocacy group Mother Nature Cambodia were released from prison after spending up to 14 months behind bars.
- Rights groups are calling on the Cambodian government to drop all charges against the activists and to release 60 other political prisoners who remain incarcerated.
- Front Line Defenders, an international rights group, recently recognized Mother Nature Cambodia in its 2021 awards.
- The young activists say the award serves as a source of motivation for them to continue their work to expose corruption and environmental abuses, including illegal mining, deforestation and pollution.
Peruvian court dismisses defamation case against Mongabay journalist
- A court in Peru has formally dismissed a defamation case filed by an agribusiness company against Yvette Sierra Praeli, a reporter for Mongabay Latam, Mongabay’s Spanish-language bureau that primarily serves Latin America.
- On Monday, the Fourth Criminal Chamber of Lima ruled by majority to dismiss the aggravated defamation claim presented by Tamshi SAC, a plantation company the Peruvian government has prosecuted for “crimes against the environment” in the Amazon.
- The decision brings to an end a case that began nearly a year ago when Tamshi SAC sued Sierra over a story she published on Mongabay Latam about an investigation led by Alberto Yusen Caraza, a member of the Loreto Specialized Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, that resulted in a July 2019 conviction against three Tamshi officials for environmental crimes.
- The decision may have broader implications for environmental journalism in Peru, says Sierra’s attorney.
Podcast: Indigenous rights and the future of biodiversity conservation
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we discuss the importance of Indigenous rights to the future of biodiversity conservation and efforts to build a more sustainable future for life on Earth.
- We speak with Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples and the current executive director of the Tebtebba Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education. Tauli-Corpuz tells us about the Global Indigenous Agenda released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, why it calls for Indigenous rights to be central to conservation efforts, and what she hopes to see achieved at the UN Biodiversity Conference taking place in Kunming, China next year.
- We also speak with Zack Romo, a program director for the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (commonly known by its Spanish acronym, COICA). Romo fills us in on the details of the motion to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025 that was approved by IUCN members at the World Conservation Congress, the rights-based approach that Amazon protection plan calls for, and what the next steps are to making the plan a reality.
Following coup, Myanmar’s Indigenous vow to protect forests ‘until the end of the world’ (commentary)
- The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar contains an expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where a range of wildlife – from tigers and elephants to tapirs – roam, and the Indigenous Karen people consider themselves stewards of this richness.
- In 2012, the Karen and the Myanmar military signed a ceasefire to end 70 years of war in their territory, allowing the Indigenous communities an opportunity to develop new institutions, campaigns, and programs to conserve their resources and forests from destruction by outside interests.
- That ended with the military coup of 2021: “Attacks by the military on Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders means that the forests are at risk – and for this reason we want to say to the world ‘this coup doesn’t just affect our country, but the future of the globe.'”
- This article is a commentary, it reflects the views of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
With Myanmar’s press muzzled, experts warn of surge in environmental crimes
- Myanmar’s military authorities have followed their Feb. 1 coup with a sweeping clampdown on press freedom, including the arrest of reporters, closing of news outlets, and driving of journalists underground or into exile.
- Industry experts say the measures have effectively criminalized independent journalism in the country.
- As conflict and violence spreads throughout the country, monitoring forests, illegal logging and the associated illicit trade on the ground is increasingly risky. Satellite platforms that monitor forest loss will likely become increasingly useful.
- With the loss of the independent press watchdog a reality, experts say they fear the circumstances are ripe for overexploitation of natural resources.
The Kichwa woman fighting drug traffickers and loggers in the Peruvian Amazon
- Marisol García Apagüeño is the first woman to serve in the leadership of her Indigenous federation in the Peruvian Amazon, where she has made it her mission to support the struggle for the recognition and land titling of the Kichwa people.
- Drug traffickers and illegal loggers have encroached onto Indigenous lands and threatened community leaders, including García Apagüeño, for reporting the problems to the outside world.
- Indigenous leaders and legal experts say a key obstacle to driving out the criminal groups is the government’s failure to issue land titles to the Indigenous communities, which leaves them with no legal standing to complain about the invasions.
- García Apagüeño says the communities need government support and economic livelihood alternatives to avoid being co-opted by the loggers and traffickers.
On the Colombian plains, a leader stands up for her people against land theft
- Ana Villa has fearlessly confronted agribusiness multinationals and armed groups that have tried to take over the land where rural communities and Indigenous people live in the Colombian plains.
- She risks her life fighting for the rights of vulnerable communities in the municipality of Cumaribo, a region that serves as the intermediate zone between the savanna and the Amazon rainforest in eastern Colombia’s Vichada department.
- The communities’ support has empowered her to continue her fight in a dangerous region for environmental defenders.
USAID redirects funding in Cambodia as future of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary hangs in the balance
- In June, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it would be ending its assistance to Cambodian government entities through the USAID Greening Prey Lang project.
- In its statement, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said the decision is due to continued and unprosecuted illegal logging and wildlife crimes in the protected area, along with efforts by the Cambodian government to “silence and target local communities” and activists. The Cambodian government, however, maintains that the cessation of funding from USAID was due to the ministry having reached capacity to protect Prey Lang without foreign funding.
- Satellite data show Prey Lang has lost nearly 9% of its forest cover over the past five years, and researchers and activists say its remaining forest is being eyed by logging companies.
- While USAID’s decision to stop funding the Cambodian government has been well-received by many academics and environmentalists, there is fear that the move could give the green light to government-supported logging operations.
Former dam executive found guilty in the killing of Berta Cáceres
- The alleged ringleader of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of murder by a Honduran court on Monday.
- Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the ex-head of the dam company Desa, was found guilty of participating in the assassination of Cáceres. The court decision was unanimous.
- Cáceres was gunned down in her home on March 2, 2016 at the age of 44 after leading opposition to the Agua Zarca dam on the Rio Galcarque, a river that holds spiritual significance for the Lenca people.
- Cáceres was recognized for her activism in 2015 when she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
Rights groups demand end to Cambodia’s persecution of green activists
- A court in Cambodia has charged three activists from the environmental NGO Mother Nature Cambodia after they documented waste dumping in a river near the Royal Palace.
- It’s the latest instance of authorities cracking down on environmental activists in the country, after three other Mother Nature Cambodia staff were convicted in May for planning a peaceful protest against the backfilling of a lake.
- Local and international rights groups have condemned the spate of arrests and called on the international and donor community to bring pressure to bear on the government.
- There’s already been some pushback, with the U.S. government ending its funding of a forest conservation program, and the U.S. ambassador calling on Cambodian authorities to “be responsive to its citizens, not to silence them.”
Outrage as Cambodian court convicts activists for inciting ‘social chaos’
- On May 5, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted and sentenced five activists from the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia: Long Kunthea, Phuon Keoraksmey, Thun Ratha, Chea Kunthin and Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson.
- The activists have been convicted of intending to cause “social chaos” by planning a protest of the government-sanctioned destruction of Phnom Penh’s lakes, which are being filled in for development. The planned one-person march never actually took place.
- Kunthea and Keoraksmey were sentenced to 18 months in prison and Ratha received a 20-month sentence while Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson and Chea Kunthin were sentenced in absentia; each activist was also fined $1,000.
- Observers are crying foul at the convictions and incarceration of the activists and say that the health and lives of Kunthea, Keoraksmey and Ratha – who have been incarcerated since their arrest in September – are at risk due to Cambodia’s crowded prisons and a recent surge in COVID-19 infection rates.
Casinos, condos and sugar cane: How a Cambodian national park is being sold down the river
- Botum Sakor National Park in southern Cambodia has lost at least 30,000 hectares of forest over the past three decades.
- Decades of environmental degradation go back to the late 1990s when the Cambodian government began handing out economic land concessions for the development of commercial plantations and tourist infrastructure.
- NGOs in Cambodia are said to be unwilling to speak out against the destruction of Botum Sakor because they are afraid they will not be allowed to operate in the country if they do.
- The government says economic activity is vital to improve people’s livelihoods and reduce poverty.
Deforestation ramps up in Cambodia’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary
- The forests of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary boast a plethora of wildlife – including several endangered and recently described species.
- But the habitat these animals depend on is disappearing, with 32% of Keo Seima’s primary forest cleared over past 20 years.
- Recent satellite data suggest 2021 is not starting out well for Keo Seima, with higher numbers of deforestation alerts detected than in years past.
- Major drivers of forest loss in Keo Seima include illegal logging and agriculture.
Intimidation of Brazil’s enviro scientists, academics, officials on upswing
- Increasingly, Brazilian environmental researchers, academics and officials appear to be coming under fire for their scientific work or views, sometimes from the Jair Bolsonaro government, but also from anonymous Bolsonaro supporters.
- Researchers and academics have come under attack for their scientific work on agrochemicals, deforestation and other topics, as well as for their socio-environmental views. Attacks have taken the form of anonymous insults and death threats, gag orders, equipment thefts, and even attempted kidnapping.
- A range of intimidation is being experienced by officials, including firings and threats of retaliation for institutional criticism at IBAMA, Brazil’s environment agency, ICMBio, the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation overseeing Brazil’s national parks, and FUNAI, the Indigenous affairs agency.
- “Whose interests benefit from the denial of the data on deforestation… from criminalizing the action of NGOs and environmentalists? What we are witnessing is a coordinated action to make it easier for agribusiness to advance into Indigenous territories and standing forest,” says one critic.
Cambodians fight the ‘cancer’ eating away at Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary
- Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in eastern Cambodia and is home to some of the country’s last large tracts of old-growth rainforest, as well as endangered wildlife and Indigenous communities.
- Like many of Cambodia’s protected areas, Prey Lang is beset by Illegal logging; satellite data show deforestation, which dropped for two years after Prey Lang was gazetted as a protected area in 2016, has been rising quickly since 2019.
- Sources say timber companies are behind the illegal logging in Prey Lang, and that the situation is being facilitated by government corruption and international complicity.
- Meanwhile, environmental activists say they are being jailed for documenting illegal logging operations in Prey Lang and silenced when speaking out against deforestation.
Indigenous rights take a hit under cover of pandemic, new report says
- A new report evaluates the state of human rights among Indigenous peoples in five tropical forest countries: Brazil, Colombia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia.
- One of the key findings is that governments in these countries are prioritizing the expansion of the energy sector, infrastructure, mining and logging, and the development of industrial agriculture close to or inside Indigenous territories, while loosening oversight of land grabbing and illegal deforestation.
- Indigenous peoples have had to adapt their resistance and fight to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid having their rights violated even further.
Over half of global environmental defender murders in 2020 in Colombia: report
- A recent report from Front Line Defenders revealed that in 2020, at least 331 environmental defenders were killed globally.
- The majority of those deaths were among people who worked in the defense of land and environment rights, and the rights of Indigenous peoples.
- Of the 331 murders registered last year, Colombia had the most murders at 177.
Zero convictions as impunity blocks justice for victims of Brazil’s rural violence
- Throughout 2019, the first year of the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, 31 people were killed in a wave of rural violence that activists say was driven by the Brazilian government’s rhetoric.
- Since then, there have been no convictions in any of the cases, and the police are still investigating 19 of the murders; the sole closed case was ruled a drowning, despite evidence of violence against the Indigenous victim.
- Those killed in 2019 were mostly men who lived in Brazil’s Amazonian states, were affiliated with landless workers’ or Indigenous people’s movements, and who died defending their territories.
- “Killers feel they have a license to kill,” says former environment minister Marina Silva. “They listen to the government’s discourse against Indigenous people, environmentalists, extractivist populations, and they feel they’re covered while the victims are helpless and unprotected.”
Indigenous leaders killed in Philippines were ‘red-tagged’ over dam opposition
- The killing of nine Indigenous leaders by police during an operation in the central Philippines on Dec. 30, 2020, has drawn widespread condemnation from environmental and human rights groups, politicians, lawyers, and Catholic bishops.
- Police allege that those killed, and another 16 arrested, were supporters of the NPA, the armed wing of the banned communist party.
- But supporters of the Indigenous Tumandok community on Panay Island say they were targeted for their opposition to two dam projects in their ancestral domain.
- One of the projects, on the Jalaur River, is largely funded through a $208 million loan from the South Korean government.
Cambodian environmental activists reportedly arrested
- Kratie provincial environment officers have reportedly arrested prominent environmental activist Ouch Leng along with Heng Sros, Men Math, Heng Run and Choup Cheang.
- In 2016 Ouch was chosen as a recipient of the coveted Goldman Environmental Prize for his work exposing corruption-enabled illegal logging in Cambodia’s forests.
- This is a developing story and will be updated as we learn more.
No safe space for Philippines’ Indigenous youth as military allowed on campus
- The Philippines’ Department of National Defense has unilaterally terminated an accord that ensured the 17 campuses of the University of the Philippines were off-limits to the military and police.
- The defense secretary justified the move by alleging that insurgents from the banned communist party and its armed wing are using the campuses’ sanctuary status as cover for their recruitment and propaganda purposes.
- The decision has alarmed displaced Indigenous students who are harboring at UP’s Quezon City campus after the military bombed or took over their schools in a counter-insurgency campaign that began in 2018.
- Critics say the move is the latest blow to human rights and environmental activists in the Philippines, following the recent enactment of an anti-terrorism law seen as giving the armed forces free rein to perpetuate abuses in a country already rated as the most dangerous in Asia for environmental and land defenders.
Environmental assassinations bad for business, new research shows
- After years of research, economics experts say they can prove that financial markets respond swiftly and definitively when multinationals are publicly named in connection with the assassination of an environmental defender.
- The researchers analyzed 354 assassinations over two decades connected to mining and extractive minerals projects around the world, noting particularly significant violent action in the Philippines and Peru.
- Once a company is named, the data show that within 10 days the markets respond, hitting the company with a median loss in market capitalization of more than $100 million.
Podcast: What are the tropical forest storylines to watch in 2021?
- Happy new year to all of our faithful Mongabay Newscast listeners! For our first episode of the year, we take stock of how the world’s rainforests fared in 2020 and look ahead to the major stories to watch in 2021.
- We’re joined by Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler, who discusses the impacts of the Covid pandemic on tropical forest conservation efforts, the most important issues likely to impact rainforests in 2021, and why he remains hopeful despite setbacks in recent years.
- We also speak with Joe Eisen, executive director of Rainforest Foundation UK, who helps us dig deeper into the major issues and events that will affect Africa’s rainforests in the coming year.
For Latin America’s environmental defenders, Escazú Agreement is a voice and a shield
- The Escazú Agreement is an unprecedented regional treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that provides access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, and measures to protect environmental activists.
- The treaty’s ratification by 11 countries is the final step for the agreement to enter into force, the end of an eight-year process that has been marked throughout by the deep involvement of civil society groups.
- Experts say the success of the treaty will depend on the political will of the signatory countries, and on the continued efforts of civil society actors to hold those governments accountable.
- The agreement still faces heavy opposition within many countries in the region, from groups who claim that it will compromise state sovereignty, threaten business interests, and open up internal affairs to international interference.
Rainforests: 11 things to watch in 2021
- 2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts. So what’s in store for 2021?
- Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler reviews some of 11 key things to watch in the world of rainforests in 2021.
- These include: the post COVID recovery; the transition of power in the U.S.; deforestation in Indonesia; deforestation in Brazil; the effects of the La Niña climate pattern; ongoing destabilization of tropical forests; government to government carbon deals; data that will allow better assessment of the impact of COVID on tropical forests; companies incorporating forest-risk into decision-making; ongoing violence against environmental defenders; and whether international policy meetings can get back on track.
Notable deaths in conservation in 2020
- It is impossible to capture all of 2020’s losses.
- Every death is of course notable, but this list acknowledges a few of the 2020 deaths that carry special significance to the conservation community.
- The list is grouped into three categories: murders and killings, reportedly COVID-19-related, and other deaths.
- Note: this list only includes deaths that occurred in 2020.
Colombia’s forests lurch between deforestation and the hope for a sustainable future
- More than half of Colombia’s territory is covered in forest, and the country is the second most biodiverse in the world, but suffers from widespread deforestation.
- The highest levels of deforestation are in the Amazon, which makes up two-thirds of Colombia’s forests, with 70% of this deforestation related to land grabbing driven by illegal groups linked to illicit activities.
- Rural reform and access to land are key parts of the peace agreement that ended Colombia’s long-running civil war and are also part of the strategy to fight deforestation; yet only 3% of these commitments been completed since the signing of the accord in 2016.
- Experts say the country needs a much more ambitious forest policy, especially given that its embrace of conservation is undermined by its continued support for extractive activities such as mining and oil drilling.
Brazilian woman threatened by Amazon loggers wins global human rights award
- Rural community leader Osvalinda Alves Pereira is the first Brazilian to receive the Edelstam Prize, a Swedish award given to human rights defenders. She was honored this November for her brave stand against illegal loggers and for her defense of the Amazon agrarian reform community of Areia in Pará state.
- Illegal loggers there have repeatedly threatened Osvalinda and her husband with violence, forcing them out of their community and into urban safe houses. Now the couple has returned to their rural home; threats to Osvalinda and her community have resumed since she received the Edelstam Prize.
- Illegal deforestation, especially the illegal export of rare and valuable Amazon woods, has been strongly aided by the deregulatory policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, according to critics, who also say that the president’s incendiary rhetoric is emboldening illegal loggers and others to violence.
- Still threatened by logging militias in Amazonia, Osvalinda received the award just a week after President Bolsonaro in a speech tried to shift responsibility for the policing of Amazon illegal deforestation away from Brazil and onto its foreign trading partners who are importing timber from the South American nation.
Nazareth Cabrera fights for Colombia’s Indigenous Uitoto with the strength of her words
- She was instrumental in blocking the entry of mining companies into the community, and also advocates for social causes such as the rights of women and children.
- Those who know this powerhouse 52-year-old woman say she is among the “grains of sand” that contribute to the collective process of caring for the Amazon.
Colombian environmental official assassinated in southern Meta department
- Historically, this is a zone of armed conflict in the Amazon with frequent issues related to deforestation and land grabbing.
- Parra was coordinator of the Corporation for the Sustainable Development of the La Macarena Special Management Area (Cormacarena). He was a 20-year veteran of the environmental authority.
- Between January 1 and December 6, 2020, a jaw-dropping 284 environmental leaders and defenders have been assassinated in Colombia.
Years after defeating a giant gold mine, activists in Colombia still fear for their lives
- Residents of the municipality of Cajamarca in eastern Colombia said “no” to what would have been the second-largest open-pit gold mine in the world.
- Now they are afraid that the government will not respect their decision.
- Leaders who promoted the popular referendum that banned large-scale mining in the municipality continue to be threatened. Some of their colleagues have been killed.
Podcast: New Latin American treaty could help protect women conservation leaders — and all environment defenders
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we once again highlight the work of women leaders in Amazon conservation, and look at an international agreement that could help protect environmental defenders in Latin America — one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental activist, especially as a woman.
- We speak with Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and executive director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, or WECAN International, who tells us about some of the most inspiring women she’s worked with who are fighting to protect their communities and their forests in the Amazon, and discusses the groundbreaking Escazu Agreement, which would help protect defenders of the environment across Latin America.
- We also speak with Nicolas Bustamante Hernandez, a contributor to Mongabay who recently profiled an ornithologist and activist in Colombia named Yehimi Fajardo. Bustamente Hernandez tells us how, via the Alas Association she helped establish, Fajardo’s work has led hundreds of Indigenous children in Colombia’s Putumayo department to become avid birders, able to recognize the songs of birds in the region and to more fully appreciate the important role birds play in the local ecosystem.
2020 fires endangering uncontacted Amazon Indigenous groups
- Amazon fires this year are seriously threatening Indigenous territories in which isolated uncontacted Indigenous groups make their homes. Brazil has an estimated 100+ isolated Indigenous groups living within its borders, more than any other Amazonian nation.
- Particularly threatened by fires in 2020 are the isolated Ãwa people who live on Bananal Island in Tocantins state; the uncontacted Awá inhabiting the Arariboia Indigenous Reserve in Maranhão state; and uncontacted groups in the Uru Eu Wau Wau Indigenous territory in Rondônia and Ituna Itatá Indigenous territory in Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation and land conflicts rates.
- All of these Indigenous territories are under intense pressure from land grabbers, illegal loggers and ranchers, with many of this year’s fires thought to have been set intentionally as a means of converting protected rainforest to pasture and cropland.
- Meanwhile, the Jair Bolsonaro government has hobbled IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, defunding it and preventing it from fighting fires, causing one critic to accuse the administration of having “waged war against Indigenous peoples” and of “an ongoing genocide.”
Madagascar shuts down ‘illegal’ gold mine but activists remain in legal limbo
- Earlier this month, Madagascar’s government suspended a controversial gold-mining operation in Vohilava commune in the country’s southeast.
- The project, a dredging operation in the Isaka River that allegedly uses mercury to separate gold from ore, has caused notable damage to the river, local economy, and public health, prompting near-unanimous local opposition.
- A demonstration in September against the mine prompted a visit by officials that led to the mine’s suspension.
- However, prosecutors are investigating six people for involvement in the demonstration, including one who was previously jailed as a result of his opposition to the mining project.
Ecuador Indigenous accuse state of crimes against humanity
- Ecuador’s Indigenous movement has declared this month “Rebel October” to commemorate the violent 11-day anti-austerity protests last year that saw 11 people killed, 63 severely injured, and more than 1,300 protesters arrested.
- Last year’s protests ended after Indigenous leaders forced the government to promise to repeal IMF-imposed austerity measures; but one year later, the government has used the pandemic as an excuse to pass the same measures and increase extractive activities, say Indigenous leaders.
- Indigenous communities also say they have been forgotten by the state during the pandemic.
- The month is also meant to show the government the Indigenous community will continue to fight for its rights.
TIME’s list of 100 most influential people in 2020 includes Indigenous Waorani leader
- Nenquimo is the only female Indigenous leader on the Time 100 list this year, and the second Ecuadoran ever to be named on the list.
- In 2019, Nenquimo and the Waorani community won a lawsuit against the government of Ecuador for fraudulently getting the communities to consent to selling their territory in an international oil auction.
- The Waorani victory set an important legal precedent for other Indigenous communities in the rainforest, and put in motion a movement to redefine national community consent laws.
Park rangers, the guardians of Ecuador’s biodiversity, face job insecurity
- For their part, the rangers say the change creates instability and deprives them of job security.
- Park rangers have been working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, even handing out assistance kits to communities.
- Protected areas account for a fifth of Ecuador’s territory, and include ecologically important areas like the Galápagos Islands and Yasuní National Park.
Forest crimes persist in Peru following Indigenous leader’s murder
- The leader of an Indigenous community in Peru’s Huánuco region was murdered when he went fishing earlier this year. Despite this, criminal groups have reportedly continued to operate in the area.
- The death of Arbildo Meléndez Grandes is one of a series of environmental crimes reported since the COVID-19 state of emergency began in Peru.
- Operations against illegal mining and logging have been carried out in the Madre de Dios, Loreto and Ucayali regions in recent months.
Double blow to Colombian Amazon and Indigenous groups from armed militants, COVID-19
- Staff from the National Nature Parks of Colombia (PNN) have been forced by former FARC rebels and other illegal armed groups to abandon 10 Amazonian parks that cover nearly 9 million hectares (22 million acres) and are home to an estimated 43,000 undiscovered species.
- The absence of PNN staff has negatively impacted surrounding campesino and Indigenous communities, as well as the monitoring of natural resources, threatened species, and climatic and hydrological information, which are all vital for decision-making and generating alerts.
- Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Amazon play a vital conservation role, but COVID-19 has been especially devastating to them.
- Infections have been reported among 33 of the region’s 60 Indigenous groups, 13 of which were already in danger of physical and/or cultural extermination.
2019 was the deadliest year ever for environmental activists, watchdog group says
- In a new report, the watchdog group says that at least 212 environment and land defenders were killed across the world in 2019.
- The deadliest countries were Colombia and the Philippines, with 64 and 43 killings respectively.
- Despite making up only 5% of the world’s population, representatives of Indigenous communities accounted for 40% of those killed.
- Killings related to agribusiness jumped by 60%, to 34 in 2019 – researchers say as consumption of commodities like beef and palm oil increases, so too will deadly conflict over land.
‘Criminalizing’ dissent, martial law fuel attacks on Philippine environmental defenders
- Attacks on environmental and land defenders in the Philippines have escalated under President Rodrigo Duterte, with at least 43 deaths in 2019, watchdog group Global Witness says in its latest report.
- It recorded a total of 119 defender deaths in the Philippines since Duterte took office in mid-2016.
- Martial law in Mindanao, which was only lifted last December, combined with Duterte’s counterinsurgency campaigns and wide-scale anti-drug war, exacerbated the threats against defenders, local groups say.
- A plurality of the casualties in the global tally are in mining and agribusiness; the Philippines registered the most number of deaths in both sectors, the report says.
Canada not walking the talk on its miners’ abuses abroad, campaigners say
- Canada is home base for nearly half of the world’s mining companies, but the country’s efforts to improve corporate accountability for environmental and human rights violations have fallen short, observers say.
- Internal documents show the government has stressed a voluntary approach to regulation, despite campaign promises to address abuses and outcry from campaigners.
- A government spokesperson says Canada has launched new initiatives to safeguard environmentalists and land-rights activists and to promote corporate responsibility.
- A recent Supreme Court decision could open the country’s legal system to allow victims of corporate abuses overseas to sue companies in Canada.
Environmental defenders voice concerns as COVID-19 crisis deepens
- The Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) has collected firsthand testimonies from women who are environmental defenders.
- In the recordings, they share their perspectives on family life, their conservation work, criminal and corporate abuse of the environment, and life at home in the time of COVID-19.
- Local groups are trying to respond to food shortages and lack of personal protective equipment, while also trying to mitigate loss of livelihoods.
Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’
- Socio-environmental activists are an endangered species in the Brazilian Amazon, with regularly occurring assassination-style killings like those of activists Chico Mendes in 1988 and Sister Dorothy Stang in 2005 creating an ongoing climate of fear.
- According to human rights watchdog Global Witness, Brazil in 2017 was the world’s most dangerous country for environmental acivists: 57 out of 201 deaths worldwide occurred in Brazil. Intimidation and murder of activists continues into the present.
- Activist Juma Xipaya saw the village she grew up in fundamentally changed by the building of the Belo Monte mega-dam. When she later exposed corruption and incompetence she faced death threats and now lives perpetually on guard.
- In recent years, Xipaya has been repeatedly pursued by a white pickup driven by two armed thugs, but police fail to respond to her pleas for help. The men eventually made an attempt on her life — a close call that almost killed her and her children.
Court forces Ecuador government to protect Indigenous Waorani during COVID-19
- A provincial court ruled that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Inclusion must better communicate and coordinate with Waorani leaders to get more COVID-19 tests, food and other necessities to communities.
- It also ordered the Ministry of Environment and Water to send a report detailing how it is monitoring illegal mining, logging and drug trafficking activities in the region, and to provide information on COVID-19 protocols for oil companies operating there.
- The lawyer for the Waorani called these industries “vectors of contagion” in the Amazon, as they never stopped during quarantine.
The fire prophet: Dolors Armenteras on saving the Amazon and fighting misogyny in science
- She helped create the first geographic information system for the Humboldt Institute, one of the most important environmental research centers in the country.
- She was also one of the first scientists to predict that, after the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, deforestation would increase rather than decrease in the country.
- She founded a research group in landscape ecology at the National University of Colombia, made up mainly of women who are inspired to overcome the obstacles imposed by the cultural of machismo that still prevails in academia.
In Philippines’ Palawan, top cop linked to assault on environmental officer
- Police on the Philippine island of Palawan reportedly assaulted and arrested government environmental officials trying to serve a vacate notice to settlers occupying a mangrove area.
- Environmental lawyers and conservation officials have condemned the incident, led by Marion Balonglong, the chief of police of Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital, calling it “yet another blow to our environmental enforcement.”
- Cutting down mangroves is prohibited under Philippine laws, and in recent years environmental defenders have come under deadly attacks from suspected illegal loggers; this incident marks the first time they’ve been confronted by the police.
- Suspected illegal loggers killed a village patrol officer in 2017, and a forest ranger in 2019; in May this year, suspected loggers shot and wounded a ranger in a national park.
‘I’ll never be ready for this port,’ locals say of Colombia’s proposed project
- Under the government of President Iván Duque, however, the port looks closer to becoming a reality, as developers say it’s necessary for the future of the country’s economy and development.
- Many locals, who include mostly Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations, tell Mongabay they are concerned the port will bring violence and poverty, much like the port city of Buenaventura, 200 kilometers (120 miles) south.
- Environmentalists say the port will destroy the communities’ local ecotourism economy, the unique breeding grounds for whales and sharks, and thousands of hectares of mangroves, as well as carve up the Chocó rainforest and displace several species of native wildlife and fauna.
Harrowing video shows indigenous Colombians fleeing gunfire
- While Colombia went into national lockdown on March 25, fighting between armed paramilitary groups in the northwest has continued unabated.
- A video shared with Mongabay by If Not Us Then Who? shows indigenous Emberá running from fighting in their town.
- The incident follows a series of murders and displacements of indigenous people in northwest Colombia since the pandemic began.
Deaths, arrests and protests as Philippines re-emerges from lockdown
- Environmental defenders have come under sustained threats during the Philippines’ COVID-19 lockdown, which saw one activist shot and killed by unknown assailants and at least 10 environmental and land defenders arrested.
- The most recent arrest is that of six farmers who opposed coal power projects and land-grabbing cases, while the fatality recorded during this period is an environmental and political activist who was gunned down in his home on April 30.
- President Rodrigo Duterte’s two-month lockdown mobilized the country’s police forces to man checkpoints, where they arrested 120,000 people for violations of quarantine guidelines, human rights activists say.
- Groups have denounced Duterte’s “militaristic approach” as an excuse to crack down on activists, members of the opposition, and land and environmental defenders amid the pandemic.
Farmer dies in custody after being charged in dispute with palm oil firm, prompting COVID-19 fears
- Hermanus Bin Bison was kept in a small jail cell with other inmates in Indonesia even after a doctor found he had a high fever and an abnormal loss of strength.
- The 35-year-old was on trial with two other men for alleged theft, after harvesting oil palm fruit from land that his community claims in Central Kalimantan province.
- They were accused by a plantation company, PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada, that has itself been repeatedly denounced by local authorities for stealing the community’s land.
- The trial of the two co-defendants continues. The company, meanwhile, faces no investigation over alleged land theft.
Twelve rangers killed in latest Virunga Park incident
- Virunga National Park officials say 17 people were killed in a sustained attack not far from the park’s headquarters.
- Armed rebel groups involved in poaching and illegal charcoal production are believed to be responsible.
- Virunga National Park was closed for 8 months from May 2018 following a spate of attacks on visitors by armed groups.
Land conflicts escalate with spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia
- Companies embroiled in land disputes with rural communities in Indonesia appear to be using the lull in oversight during the COVID-19 outbreak to strengthen their claims, activists say.
- Since the first confirmed cases of the disease were reported in the country on March 2, two local land defenders have been killed and four arrested in connection with land disputes in Sumatra and Borneo.
- The national human rights commission has called on companies, including palm oil and mining firms, to cease their activities during this public health emergency.
South American indigenous peoples close territories in response to COVID-19
- Last month, indigenous leaders in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador began to restrict access of non-residents to their communities.
- Also in March, Colombia confirmed the first two COVID-19 cases from among members of indigenous communities. The two individuals belong to the Yukpa tribe, a community of about 250 people in the north of Santander, on Venezuela’s border.
- An indigenous leader in Peru who tested positive for COVID-19 has been the target of attacks on social networks.
- The National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC) has asked the authorities to provide support to the community, which has been forced into crowded conditions and cordoned off by the police.
For Philippines’ displaced indigenous students, COVID-19 is one of many threats
- Students from indigenous communities in Mindanao who moved to Manila to evade armed conflict that forced their schools shut now face a new threat from the lockdown imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
- Access to adequate health services has always been a challenge for indigenous communities in their homelands but displacement puts them at higher risk of contracting diseases like COVID-19.
- Despite the pandemic, displaced indigent students remain focused on their education, seeing it as a way to protect their ancestral lands no matter how far they are from home.
- Land disputes have abounded amid an escalation in armed conflict between government security forces and rebel groups in Mindanao, placing local communities and indigenous schools in the crossfire and forcing them to flee from their ancestral lands.
Calls for justice after latest murder of indigenous Guajajara leader in Brazil
- Zezico Rodrigues Guajarara, a teacher from the Arariboia indigenous reserve in northeastern Maranhão state, was found shot dead on March 31. The motive for the killing remains unknown.
- He is the fifth Guajajara indigenous leader to be slain since November in the lawless frontier region dominated by powerful landowners and logging mafias.
- Indigenous leader Olímpio Iwyramu Guajajara, who is himself under state protection following an earlier killing of a prominent community member, told Mongabay he felt “particularly vulnerable in our territory.”
- Zezico had long reportedly received death threats from both indigenous and non-indigenous people involved with illegal logging. The federal police have been called in to investigate the murder.
Goldman Prize-winning Cambodian activist arrested, released in Cambodia
- Leading Cambodian forest defender Ouch Leng and three others were arrested in mid-March and questioned after a South Korean company they accuse of illegal logging filed a complaint with the police.
- The company says the activists were trespassing; the activists say the company is plundering part of the Prey Lang forest and that one of them was beaten by security guards.
- Although released, the activists fear further retribution for their work monitoring economic land concessions near the forest.
Iran upholds heavy sentences for conservationists convicted of spying
- A court in Tehran this week upheld its guilty verdict for eight Iranian conservationists accused of spying, with sentences ranging from four to 10 years.
- The eight are all affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, a Tehran-based conservation organization that works to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and other species.
- The eight conservationists have been imprisoned since their arrests in January 2018. A colleague arrested at the same time died in custody.
- Rights groups and conservation organizations have condemned the verdict, alleging serious flaws in the judicial process including credible reports of torture and forced confessions.
Two deaths trigger alarm at Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- The body of Homero Gómez González, passionate defender the monarch butterfly and a Mexican reserve designed to protect it, was found on Jan. 29, two weeks after his disappearance was reported.
- Three days later, Raúl Hernández Romero, a tourist guide in the area, was also found dead, with evidence of violence.
- Homero Gómez, like other land-collective members in the area, collaborated in the creation of a model that seeks to help communities make sustainable use of forests.
For Ecuador’s eco agenda, 2019 was a year of setbacks and pushbacks
- Unrest over environmental issues was at the fore of October’s national strike in Ecuador precipitated by economic difficulties, with strong opposition to the expansion of resource extraction.
- The country experienced a mixed 2019 on the environmental front, with indigenous groups winning court rulings to oppose large extraction projects on their land.
- There were also setbacks, however, including lack of compliance on a 2018 referendum to make greater room for uncontacted tribes in Yasuní National Park; persistent criminalization of indigenous activists and environmental defenders; and massive budget cuts for environmental agencies.
For Colombia, 2019 was a year of environmental discontent
- On Nov. 21, 2019, widespread national strikes began to break out in Colombia and have continued on and off since then.
- The protests include public demands over matters like austerity measures and working toward a robust domestic environmental agenda.
- Among the most intense issues for Colombia in 2019 were deforestation, the murders of social, environmental, and indigenous leaders, the debate over fracking, the increase in extractive activities, and restrictions on citizen participation in deciding the latter.
Mongabay editor arrested in Indonesia
- Mongabay editor Philip Jacobson was detained in Indonesia on December 17, 2019 over an alleged issue with his business visa.
- Jacobson was formally arrested on January 21 and is currently incarcerated in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan.
- This is a press release from Mongabay about a developing situation and may be updated.
- As of January 29, Jacobson is still under ‘city arrest’.
Conservationists in peril: Scientists, campaigners risk their lives for their work
Toward the end of 2014, Tanya Rosen, a former New York-based international lawyer, found herself being followed by a car while walking back to her apartment in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. “It was going very slow, and at some point, I stopped and pretended to look at my phone,” Rosen recalls. “And then I noticed the […]
2019: The year rainforests burned
- 2019 closed out a “lost decade” for the world’s tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments, and fires burning through rainforests on four continents.
- The following review covers some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year.
Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Activists and academics have attempted to stop the construction of the Batang Toru hydropower plant in North Sumatra, which is currently being built in the sole known habitat of the Tapanuli Orangutan.
- Critics of the dam have faced defamation charges, visits from intelligence officers, abrupt termination from conservation jobs and warnings that they could lose the right to work in Indonesia. One prominent opponent of the dam died in suspicious circumstances in October.
- Activists in North Sumatra say they feel constantly under threat. Dam developer PT NSHE denies any efforts to silence or intimidate critics, saying the company is “always open to inputs and to collaborate with various stakeholders.”
Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s
- The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. The world looked like it was on track to significantly reduce tropical deforestation by 2020.
- By the end of the 2019 however, it was clear that progress on protecting tropical forests stalled in the 2010s. The decade closed with rising deforestation and increased incidence of fire in tropical forests.
- According to the U.N., in 2015 global forest cover fell below four billion hectares of forest for the first time in human history.
Madagascar: Is NGO-led conservation too conservative to conserve much?
- International environmental NGOs working in Madagascar assume a relatively narrow role of supporting local conservation and development in line with government strategy.
- The nature of the NGOs’ legal relationship with the Malagasy government, which has close ties to the extractive industries, and the restrictions that come with international funding make it difficult for them to take a broader role or push for systemic environmental reforms.
- The result, some critics say, is that international NGOs fail to address the country’s most serious conservation challenges.
- Homegrown civil society groups have more room to operate in Madagascar and do some of the most important conservation work.
Murders of indigenous leaders in Brazilian Amazon hits highest level in two decades
- Erisvan Guajajara, 15 years old, was found dead with multiple stab wounds Friday in the Brazilian Amazon. It is the 10th murder of indigenous people recorded this year.
- The body of Erisvan was found in a soccer field in the town of Amarante, in the Northeast state of Maranhão. And on December 7, two Guajajara leaders — Firmino Silvino Guajajara and Raimundo Bernice Guajajara — were killed in a drive-by shooting in a nearby area.
- Four Guajajara indigenous people have been reported killed in the last two months. In November, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, who was on the frontlines of Amazon protection as part of the indigenous Forest Guardians group, was also murdered. The crimes remain unsolved.
- Seven indigenous leaders were murdered as of December 2019, making it the country’s deadliest year for indigenous leaders in two decades, according to an NGO linked to the Catholic Church. Indigenous leaders have been calling for action to halt increasing violence against indigenous people.
Killings of environmental defenders on the rise in the Philippines
- Forty-six land and environmental defenders have been recorded killed in the Philippines so far this year, according to a tally by Kalikasan PNE, a local green NGO.
- The toll surpasses the 28 deaths that the group recorded in 2018, and the 30 recorded by eco-watchdog Global Witness, which named the Philippines the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders last year.
- Agriworkers and farmers account for the majority of the deaths this year with 29, or 63%, followed by government officials and forest rangers with16 deaths, or 35%.
- Most of the deaths are concentrated in the islands of Negros and Mindanao, where activists have been swept up in security operations unleashed in response to communist and Islamist insurgencies, respectively.
Activists fighting for their lands swept up in Philippines crackdown
- A security crackdown in the Philippines targeting an armed communist insurgency has swept up environmental and land defenders in a raid on Oct. 31.
- International humanitarian and church groups have also been included in the military’s list of “legal front groups” of the outlawed New People’s Army and tied to terror financing.
- Security forces rounded up a total of 63 activists: 57 on the island of Negros and six in Manila. They include leaders of peasant groups, farmers, and anti-reclamation activists.
- At least six of the arrested critical groups are environmental and land defenders advocating for land campaigns on Negros and against the ongoing Manila Bay reclamation.
Philippine officials not spared as attacks on environmental defenders persist
- Days after participating in a raid on illegal loggers, government environmental officer Ronaldo Corpuz was shot and killed by unknown assailants.
- Corpuz is the fifth environmental worker killed this year, with all the deaths linked to illegal logging, in a country that eco watchdog Global Witness has named the deadliest for environmental defenders.
- The killings come amid a largely successful government crackdown on illegal logging activities across the country.
- Environment department secretary Roy Cimatu has condemned the latest killing and renewed calls for lawmakers to approve additional funding to support the department’s enforcement bureau, which aims to arm rangers, among other measures.
‘Guardian of the Forest’ ambushed and murdered in Brazilian Amazon
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a 26-years-old indigenous Guajajara leader was killed on Friday in an Amazon rainforest ambush allegedly by loggers in the Araribóia Indigenous Reserve, one of the country’s most threatened indigenous territories, which is located in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Paulo was a member of “Guardians of the Forest,” a group of 120 indigenous Guajajara who risk their lives fighting illegal logging in the Araribóia reserve. The Guardians also protect the uncontacted Awá Guajá hunter-gatherers — one of the most at risk indigenous groups on the planet.
- Indigenous leader Laércio Guajajara, also a Guardian, was hit by gunfire too, but was able to escape and was later taken to a hospital, said indigenous chief Olímpio Iwyramu Guajajara, the Guardians’ leader. All three Guardians have reportedly been threatened by loggers recently.
- Federal Police and Maranhão state police are investigating the attack, which also reportedly resulted in a logger being killed; Paulo’s body was buried on Sunday. The killing is the most recent in a rising tide of violence against indigenous activists since Jair Bolsonaro took power in January.
Toxic river: Mining, mercury and murder continue to plague Colombia’s Atrato
- Decades of internal conflict have fueled an unprecedented surge in illegal mining in Colombia’s Choco region, decimating the Atrato River basin and provoking an environmental and humanitarian crisis.
- In a landmark ruling in 2016, Colombia’s Constitutional Court granted the Atrato environmental personhood rights just as the country signed historic peace accords, but three years on a new era of conflict is plaguing the Choco region.
- Choco is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, with an estimated 54,850 animal species living in its dense jungle. But open-pit mining operations and large-scale deforestation are a constant threat.
- Mercury and cyanide contamination from industrial mining activities make it the most polluted river in Colombia and a clean-up operation promised back in 2016 has yet to materialize.
Martial law in Mindanao takes deadly toll on land, environmental defenders
- The island of Mindanao has long been the deadliest place in the Philippines for individuals defending their land and environment from extractives and agribusiness interests.
- The threat to these defenders escalated with the imposition in 2017 of a state of martial law across Mindanao, meant to help the government root out terrorists who had seized the city of Marawi.
- Under the pretext of security operations, however, the military has ramped up its targeting of land and environmental defenders, according to the watchdog group Global Witness.
- Global Witness named the Philippines the deadliest country in the world for environmental defenders in 2018, recording at least 30 killings that year.
Oil palm, cattle and coca take a toll on Colombia’s indigenous Jiw
- They illegally grow oil palm as a monoculture, contributing to water shortages for the area’s indigenous groups.
- The Jiw indigenous community also has a land dispute with several families who have settled in their territory.
- The National Land Agency of Colombia has been tasked with resolving the dispute.
Report highlights business, political players behind Philippine environment defender deaths
- Global Witness, an eco-watchdog, has linked businesses and investors, including development banks to the increasing violence against land and environmental defenders in the Philippines, a practice rooted in the country’s “business at all costs” approach, it says in a new report.
- In a previous Global Witness report, released in July, the Philippines was named the deadliest country in the world for environmental defenders after recording 30 deaths in 2018 alone.
- The report calls on international banks and providers of foreign loans and aid to refrain from investing in big-ticket projects that endanger environmental defenders in the Philippines.
‘Pray & continue’: Death of Philippine ranger is latest in legacy of violence
- Forest ranger Bienvinido “Toto” Veguilla Jr. was hacked to death by suspected illegal loggers on the Philippine island of Palawan on Sept. 5.
- He’s the 18th environmental defender slain in the province since 2001, and at least the 31st killed this year in the Philippines, identified in a recent report as the deadliest country for those trying to protect their land and the environment.
- Logging accounts for the third-highest number of deaths related to environmental violations in the Philippines, after mining and agriculture.
- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has called on Congress to pass legislation that would create an environmental law enforcement bureau to better protect rangers.
Latin America saw most murdered environmental defenders in 2018
- Colombia was the deadliest of these, with 24 killings in 2018, followed by Brazil with 20, Guatemala with 16, and Mexico with 14.
- These killings are driven primarily by conflicts over mining; other causes include conflicts over agriculture and the defense of water sources.
On Peru’s border, the Tikuna tribe takes on illegal coca growers
- Members of the Tikuna indigenous people in Peru’s border region with Colombia and Brazil have chosen to guard their forests against the rapid expansion of illegal coca crops, the plant from which cocaine is derived.
- Equipped with GPS-enabled cellphones and satellite maps, they confront loggers and drug traffickers who have threatened them with death.
- The community wants the government to do more to help them, including assisting in their transition to growing food crops from which they can make a legitimate living.
Peru: Invaders claim their first victim at the Macuya Forest Investigation Center
- On June 13, forest defender Julio Crisanto López was wounded by two gunshots as he was leaving the Macuya Forest, and died several days later.
- Since 2017, deforestation in the protected area has destroyed more than 500 hectares of forest according to satellite images.
- Though protected and dedicated to biological research, land traffickers have invaded portions of it, cutting trees and preparing the way for farmers to begin raising crops or cattle.
Peru: Madre de Dios land defenders face trouble whether they report crimes or not
- In the buffer zone of Tambopata National Reserve in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, men and women have resisted the threats of mining and illegal logging for 12 years.
- Operation Mercury 2019, launched to eradicate illegal gold mining, also increased harassment of these environmental defenders. For this report, Mongabay Latam recorded their stories.
- No matter what land defenders do, they still lose: if they report illegal activities on their concessions they are threatened by those who are caught; and when they don’t alert anyone out of fear, the authorities sometimes fine them for not reporting the transgressions.
Goldman Prize winner survives armed attack on Afro-Colombian social leaders
- Last week on May 4, two bodyguards were wounded when armed gunmen tried to storm a meeting of Afro-Colombian activists that included 2018 Goldman Prize winner Francia Márquez.
- The community leaders had been meeting to discuss future actions following a massive land rights protests last month in Colombia’s Cauca region in which one protester was killed by armed forces.
- In March and April, Afro-Colombian activists participated in an indigenous-led protest with 20,000 people against the government’s environmental and social policies.
Historic win by Ecuador’s Waorani could re-shape extraction activities
- The Waorani indigenous community in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest filed a lawsuit against three government bodies earlier this year for conducting a faulty consultation process in 2012 that resulted in putting their territory up for an international oil auction.
- A regional court tribunal ruled in favor of the community, saying the 2012 consultation process violated the community’s rights.
- The ruling is historic, as it gives communities an extra legal tool to demand their right to self-determination and opens the door to reshape the country’s free, prior and informed consent laws.
Indigenous leaders decry Colombia’s deadly crackdown on land protesters
- Protesters have blocked the Pan-American Highway connecting Colombia to Ecuador. Duque has refused to travel to the department of Cauca to meet with indigenous organizations unless the blockade is first lifted.
- Indigenous protesters face a crackdown by the government and violent attacks from illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. The mass collective action now includes 20,000 people from Afro-Colombian communities, student groups, and campesino associations critical of the government’s environmental and social policies.
- Dialogue between the government and the indigenous organizations was temporarily suspended following a police crackdown aimed at breaking the blockades, during which an indigenous protester was reportedly killed.
Panamanian indigenous people act to protect the forest from invading loggers
- The Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia has long been known as an impregnable stretch of rainforest, rivers and swamps inhabited by indigenous peoples as well as guerrillas, drug traffickers and paramilitaries.
- Today the area is undergoing steady deforestation as timber colonists and oil palm entrepreneurs advance across the region, bringing strife and violence to the area’s indigenous residents.
- In Panama, some of the Darién’s indigenous communities are working to reverse this situation. Mappers, a drone pilot, a lawyer, bird-watchers, a journalist and reforesters are carrying out ambitious projects to stop the degradation of the Darién Gap.
Defending the Amazon’s uncontacted peoples: Q&A with Julio Cusurichi
- Julio Cusurichi, a Shipibo-Conibo leader, has been working to protect the peoples and forests of his native Madre de Dios region in southeastern Peru.
- Increasingly, illegal gold miners as well as illegal loggers and drug traffickers are proving to be an existential threat for the indigenous people of the region, which concentrates some of the Amazon’s greatest biodiversity.
- In recent years Cusurichi led a successful campaign to create a legally recognized indigenous territory and helped establish a network of indigenous forest monitors when the government abandoned the effort.
- Now, he is working to gain a greater role for indigenous peoples in governing their territories. “The goal is for indigenous people to be the protagonists,” he told Mongabay on a recent visit to Peru’s capital, Lima. “We have to administer the Amazon regions that are our ancestral territories and not just leave it to the government.”
Iran’s endangered cheetahs and imperiled conservationists (commentary)
- Eight Iranian wildlife conservationists have been imprisoned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps since January 2018, facing charges of espionage. All those in detention — Niloufar Bayani, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani, Amirhossein Khaleghi Hamidi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, Sam Radjabi and Morad Tahbaz — are among the most knowledgeable, experienced, and capable conservationists working in Iran.
- All are accused of spying under the guise of conducting cheetah surveys by using camera traps to collect sensitive information. But camera-traps are an extremely poor tool for spying. They are indispensable for monitoring shy species like Asiatic cheetahs, but the cat must pass within the sensor’s very limited range — around 5-10 meters — to trigger the unit.
- We hope that their body of excellent work is presented during the trials. We also hope that the Iranian authorities consider their profound contribution to conserving Iran’s magnificent natural heritage, and that these authorities agree with us that the future of the cheetah and of conservation in Iran relies on these very people being able to continue their vital work.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Journalists reporting on the environment faced increased dangers in 2018
- Journalists describe some of the threats and dangers they faced in 2018.
- These range from intimidation to legal threats to outright violence.
- At least 10 journalists covering the environment were killed between 2010 and 2016, according to Reporters without Borders — all but two of them in Asia.
For embattled environmental defenders, a reprieve of sorts in 2018
Berta Cáceres, a high-profile environmental activist in Honduras, was assassinated in 2016. While seven men were convicted for her murder less than a month ago, her death is a reminder of the dire conditions that front-line environmental defenders still face around the world. Throughout 2018, environmental defenders in the tropics continued to endure harassment and […]
Indonesian court throws out lawsuit against green expert’s testimony
- A court in Indonesia has thrown out a lawsuit against an environmental expert whose testimony was instrumental in the conviction of a governor over a mining scandal.
- The governor, Nur Alam, had sued Basuki Wasis, an environmental degradation expert, over his assessment of the damage caused by illegal mining resulting from his improper issuance of mining licenses.
- It’s the second lawsuit Basuki has faced and overcome in connection with his role as a government witness in environmental cases. Fellow expert Bambang Hero Saharjo faces a near-identical lawsuit, which is also widely expected to fall flat.
- The judges in Basuki’s case emphasized the need to protect the testimonies of expert witnesses, to allow them to do their job without fear of a legal backlash.
Five wildlife conservationists held by Iran could face the death penalty
- Four conservationists arrested for suspected espionage in Iran in January face charges of “sowing corruption on Earth.”
- The charges stem from the team’s use of camera traps to track the Asiatic cheetah, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guard contends that the accused were collecting information on the country’s missile program.
- If convicted, the conservationists could be sentenced to death.
Peru cracks down after environmental defenders’ murders
- Peruvian police have arrested 12 members of a gang believed to be involved in the murder of four environmental defenders in the Chaparrí ecological reserve.
- The community-run reserve has in recent years been the target of a sustained campaign of land grabs, deforestation and arson.
- The land grabbers appear to be counting on a planned reservoir in the area to boost the value of the land for agricultural use.
- The Peruvian Congress has established a committee to look into the problems there, as threats and attacks against the community persist.
Vietnamese environmental blogger ‘Mother Mushroom’ suddenly released from prison
- Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was released from prison in Vietnam this week without warning and expelled to Houston, Texas with her family. She was at the start of a 10-year prison sentence.
- Quynh gained international fame for blogging about the Formosa environmental disaster in 2016, and was imprisoned for speaking out against the government’s lackluster response to the related death of thousands of fish and other massive impacts.
- Also known by her blogging moniker ‘Mother Mushroom,’ Quynh is just one of a number of other environmental activists and bloggers who remain imprisoned for speaking out about the same disaster.
Latam Eco Review: Millennial trees and Pacific coral larvae
Top recent stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, include a multi-country series on illegal logging, traveling coral larvae, and a treaty to protect environmental defenders. Peru’s millennial trees could disappear in 10 years Peru’s Shihuahuaco trees (Dipteryx micrantha) take hundreds of years to grow but could be lost in a decade. Listed as critically […]
Kenya: Indigenous Ogiek face eviction from their ancestral forest… again
- The Ogiek, traditional hunter-gatherers, have been subject to violent evictions from their ancestral homeland in the Mau Forest Complex of western Kenya since the beginning of British colonial rule.
- The Kenyan government says the evictions are necessary to protect the Mau Forest Complex, an important water catchment.
- In 2017, after more than 20 years of legal wrangling, the Ogiek won a landmark victory when an international court ruled that the Kenyan government had violated the Ogiek’s right to their ancestral land by evicting them.
- However, there are signs that the Kenyan government may be backing down from its pledge to abide by the court’s decision. Activists are warning of “an imminent plan” by the government to evict Ogiek from parts of the forest.
Amid ongoing evictions, Kenya’s Sengwer make plans to save their ancestral forest
- In one of Kenya’s biggest watersheds, the Sengwer indigenous community has struggled to obtain land rights for the forest it has called home for generations.
- The government has been forcefully evicting the Sengwer from Embobut Forest to pave the way for conservation projects funded by international donors.
- The Sengwer, hunter-gatherers, believe that they can protect the forest while living in it better than the government can, using traditional knowledge passed down from their ancestors.
- They have developed a plan to do so, even as another round of evictions looms.
Criminalization and violence increasingly used to silence indigenous protest, according to UN report
- Indigenous peoples are facing criminalization and violence the world over, tactics employed by private businesses and governments seeking to use indigenous lands for their own gain through economic development projects, according to a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on August 27.
- UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said she has seen firsthand a sharp rise in instances of physical violence and legal prosecution against indigenous peoples in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines since her appointment as Special Rapporteur in 2014.
- The Special Rapporteur identifies lack of official recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights as one of the root causes of violence, sometimes even leading to indigenous communities being treated as trespassers on their own traditional territories.
Murder of activist in India highlights growing risk to environmental defenders
- Ajit Maneshwar Naik, a 57-year-old environmental activist who fought against the construction of new dams on the Kali River in the state of Karnataka in India, was killed last month.
- India has one of the highest rates of murders of environmental activists in the world, with 16 activists killed in 2016, up from six in 2015, according to a recent report.
- The city of Dandeli, where Naik worked, is especially notorious for crimes against environmental activists.
Number of murdered environmental activists rose once again in 2017
- According to a new report by London-based NGO Global Witness, 207 activists were killed in 2017, the highest total number since the group started tracking violence against “land and environmental defenders” around the world. Previous reports documented 185 murdered activists in 2015 and 200 in 2016.
- Latin America is still the most dangerous place on Earth to protest the destruction of the environment and violations of land rights, with 60 percent of the killings in 2017 occurring there. In particular, Mexico saw a large increase in murders last year, from three to 15. And Brazil alone was the site of 57 murdered activists — the most deaths Global Witness has ever recorded over the course of one year in a single country.
- But Latin America is hardly alone: every region of Earth saw a growing number of attacks against activists in 2017.
Latam Eco Review: Five newly described snakes named by auction in Ecuador
Among the top stories published by our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, this past week were features about five newly described snake species being named by auction in Ecuador, and news that Bolivia’s Madidi Park could possibly be the most biodiverse park on Earth. The banner image above shows one of the newly described snakes, a Bob […]
Latam Eco Review: Ports imperil Colombian crocodiles
Below are summaries of the most popular stories by our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, from the week of June 11 – 17. Among the top articles: Port projects in northern Colombia threaten the mangrove habitats of American crocodiles. In other news, the Waorani people of Ecuador use camera traps to record an astonishing diversity […]
Indonesia to investigate death of journalist being held for defaming palm oil company
- Muhammad Yusuf, a journalist in Indonesia, reportedly died of a heart attack earlier this month while being held on charges of defaming a palm oil company owned by a powerful tycoon.
- Activists and fellow journalists question the circumstances surrounding Yusuf’s arrest and death, and suspect the company used the defamation charges to silence Yusuf.
- Indonesia’s national commission on human rights has vowed to investigate Yusuf’s death, which his widow has deemed unnatural.
Madagascar: Yet another anti-trafficking activist convicted
- Christopher Magnenjika, an activist working to stem corruption and wildlife trafficking in northeastern Madagascar, was tried, convicted, fined $9 and released earlier this month.
- The charges against Magnenjika include “rebellion” and insulting local officials.
- Magnenjika’s supporters say his arrest and conviction were a pretext for keeping him quiet about the illicit trade in rosewood, a valuable tropical hardwood.
- Magnenjika is one of at least ten Malagasy activists who have faced imprisonment in recent years.
In Peru, coca puts one of the world’s best coffee crops at risk
- Of the more than 8,400 hectares (nearly 21,000 acres) of coffee planted, only 2,330 hectares (about 5,700 acres) remain in operation.
- A buffer zone around Bahuaja-Sonene National Park has been impacted: Drug trafficking has expanded into the protected area, damaging more than 400 hectares (over 980 acres) of important biological corridors.
- Coffee production of the area’s central coffee cooperative, Cecovasa, has dropped from 8.5 million pounds to 600,000 pounds, jeopardizing the group’s survival.
Madagascar court upholds sentence for environmental activist
- In September 2017 a farmer named Raleva questioned a mining company about its permits during a meeting in his village in southeastern Madagascar. He was promptly arrested on charges of impersonating a local official.
- In October, he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, but immediately released on parole — a common tactic in Madagascar that appears to be aimed at silencing opposition.
- On May 22, an appeals court announced its decision to uphold the conviction.
- Advocacy groups are now trying to put together a legal team that can take the case to Madagascar’s Supreme Court.
Latam Eco Review: Peru’s first environmental court
Below are summaries of the most popular stories by our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, from the week of May 14 -20. Among the top articles: an environmental court seeks to stop environmental crimes in the most deforested region of Peru. In other news, with elections around the corner in Colombia, experts take a closer […]
Rangers face a ‘toxic mix’ of mental strain and lack of support
- Wildlife rangers are facing numerous psychological pressures leading to potentially serious mental health implications.
- Rangers tackling wildlife crime and defending natural habitats in parts of Africa and Asia are frequently subjected to violent confrontations inside and outside their work.
- Many rangers see their families as little as once a year, causing immense stress to personal relationships.
- There is currently very little awareness of the mental strain placed on rangers, and a dearth of research into the potential mental health issues they face.
Latam Eco review: Coca threatens world’s best organic coffees
Below are summaries of the most popular stories by our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, from the week of May 7 -13. Among the top articles: the assassination of two activists who opposed the Hidroituango hydroelectric project revives the debate around megaprojects in Colombia. In other news, centuries-old trees cut for parquet floors in Peru, […]
Latam Eco review: An Andean condor chooses her own protected area in Ecuador
Below are summaries of the most popular stories from our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, for the week of April 16 – 22. Among the top articles: Colombian activist Francia Márquez receives the Goldman Prize and Peruvian biologist Kerstin Forsberg wins the Whitley Award. And in Ecuador, a condor’s flight demarcates a protected area. The […]
Nephew of Maya land and rights activist beaten to death in Guatemala
- Héctor Manuel Choc Cuz, an 18-year old Maya Q’eqchi’, was beaten to death late last month.
- Family members suspect the attack may have been an attempt on the life of the victim’s cousin, José Ich, a key witness in two cases dealing with his father’s 2009 murder, allegedly by private security guards of the Fenix nickel mine in El Estor, Guatemala.
- Ich’s mother, Angélica Choc, is a prominent human rights and environmental activist who has fought for years against the Fenix mine.
Indigenous environmental activist killed in Myanmar
- Indigenous and environmental activist Saw O Moo was reportedly killed in Myanmar’s Karen State on April 5.
- According to the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), Saw O Moo, who worked with KESAN as a “local community partner,” was killed by soldiers with the Myanmar military while returning home from a community meeting to help organize humanitarian aid for villagers displaced by renewed hostilities between the military and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), an armed ethnic group.
- Saw O Moo was one of the most active local community leaders pushing for the creation of the Salween Peace Park, a proposed 5,400-square-kilometer protected area to be led by indigenous peoples. “We will never forget his dedication in the ongoing struggle to build peace and protect ancestral lands,” KESAN said in a statement.
Calls for change in handling abuse allegations at top conservation group
- Information provided to Mongabay shows a history of employees at CI who feel twice victimized — first by what they describe as “bullying and harassment,” and a second time by consequences if they report up.
- Although CI advertises myriad policies about workplace ethics and protections, many say they are still afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation.
- Staff also say that they are crippled by uncertainty about privacy rights and fear possibly destroying their careers or being branded a “troublemaker.” Despite that, staff have found ways to tell management time and again that not enough is being done to protect people in their organization.
Indigenous Amazonian women demand end to extraction
- After long journeys by foot and bus, the women gathered in Ecuador’s capitol Quito to protest last week and call for a meeting with Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno.
- After several days of protest, Moreno agreed to a meeting with the group today.
- Amazonian leaders say they plan to discuss their mandate, particularly the sexual exploitation and harassment they face due to extractive activities in the Amazon and the loss of economic opportunity.
UN’s Tauli-Corpuz, accused of terrorism in her native Philippines, plans to keep investigating ‘atrocities’ against indigenous peoples at home
- Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is one of the most prominent figures in the global movement for indigenous rights.
- This month, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration included her name on a list of suspected terrorists, along with a number of other environmental and human rights defenders.
- The Philippines is already the most dangerous country in Asia in which to be an environmental defender, with 41 murders recorded last year. Tauli-Corpuz fears it may be getting worse.
Ecuador: Sarayaku leader Patricia Gualinga defends territory despite threats
- Gualinga was cornered and threatened by an intruder at her home in Puyo, in the Ecuadorean Amazon, after the man broke one of her windows with a stone.
- Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal to Ecuador’s Ministry of Internal Affairs about the threat in a plea for Gualinga’s protection.
- The investigation is still underway, with no word on any suspects or leads.
Indigenous women march in Ecuador, vow to ‘defend our territory’
- Long-experienced at organized activism, women from communities represented at the march are leaders in the struggle for indigenous territorial autonomy.
- Indigenous Ecuadorian women are victimized more than any other group in the country: 67.8 percent have reportedly suffered some kind of gender-related violence.
- The women will remain in Puyo through the week, where they are meeting with government leaders to discuss issues related to their communities.
- Chief among their concerns being addressed: the destructive forces of mining, logging, and other exploitative industries in their territory.
Colombian land defenders: ‘They’re killing us one by one’
- Their fears are well-founded: Colombia is the second-most deadly place in the world for environmental leaders and land defenders.
- Rural resident leaders in the community of Carmen del Darien say that now their lives are under imminent threat because of their work to defend local land from palm oil and cattle ranching.
- In this intimate look into the lives and struggles of environmental activists and community members in Carmen del Darien, Mongabay reports from ground zero in the global grassroots battle to fend off the reach of powerful agribusiness interests.
Honduras arrests alleged mastermind of Berta Cáceres’s murder
- On March 2 Honduran authorities arrested a hydroelectric company executive they say orchestrated the murder of indigenous activist Berta Cáceres two years ago.
- David Castillo Mejía is executive president of Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company building the Agua Zarca dam in western Honduras to which Cáceres had led a formidable opposition.
- Eight others arrested so far in the murder case include a DESA manager and several former members of the military. Among them are the four accused gunmen.
Peru: Law prioritizes highway construction that could threaten indigenous communities
- Experts and indigenous leaders say that Law 30723 would affect protected natural areas and indigenous reserves inhabited by communities who choose to stay isolated.
- According to experts, the law would allow the construction of the Puerto Esperanza-Iñapari Highway, which would affect 275,000 hectares of primary forest.
Environmental defenders increasingly targeted, data shows
- Around the world, 197 people were killed in 2017 for defending or protecting land.
- A partnership between The Guardian and international NGO Global Witness has been tracking and compiling data on the deaths of land defenders since 2002.
- Land defenders are often private individuals and activists protecting nature reserves, natural wealth, and stand up against those who harm the environment.
Scorched earth: Colombia’s ‘refugee farmers’ returning to land
- Many of those returning are victims of a horrific, days-long massacre amid fighting between the Colombian military and FARC in 2000.
- Residents of Montes de Maria now face new threats of deforestation and the impacts of climate change, which has caused wide-scale desertification across the mountainous region.
- The region is part of Colombia’s dry forests, an important eco-system which acts as a buffer zone from floods and a nesting ground for many species.
Robbery or retribution? Police investigate death of prominent conservationist in Kenya
- Esmond Bradley Martin, a 76-year-old American, was found stabbed to death in the home he shared with his wife in a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday.
- Martin had been working in Africa and around the world since the 1970s to stop the slaughter of rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks.
- Colleagues credit Martin with increasing the conservation community’s understanding of the trade of wildlife parts through his often-undercover investigations.
Top Argentine glacier scientist charged over cyanide mine spill
- Argentina has filed indictments against Ricardo Villalba, former Director of the Argentinean Institute of Snow, Ice, and Environmental Research (IANIGLA), and three former Environment Secretaries (Omar Judis, Sergio Lorusso, and Juan José Mussi), for their roles in overseeing the National Glacier Inventory (NGI).
- Villalba, a renowned glacial researcher, is charged with negligence and failure to properly inventory the nation’s glaciers, allegedly resulting in a toxic cyanide spill at the Valadero gold mine, contaminating the Jáchal River in Argentina’s San Juan province. The accusation was made by Asamblea Jáchal No Se Toca, an NGO.
- Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company, operates the Veladero open-pit gold mine, while China’s Shandong Gold Mining Company is part owner. The Veladero mine has had three serious spills since 2015, with the most recent in March 2017.
- Villalba helped draft Argentina’s law creating “mining no go zones” in Argentina’s glacial areas. Fellow scientists have come to the researcher’s defense, saying he is being used as “a scapegoat,” with the mining companies failing to take responsibility for their spills. A federal court is expected to rule this week on the charges.
Madagascar environmental activist convicted, sentenced — and paroled
- At a community meeting on September 27, a farmer named Raleva asked to see the permits of a gold mining company trying to restart work in his village in southeast Madagascar.
- He was arrested and held in prison for about one month. On October 26, a judge sentenced him to two years in prison, and then promptly released him on parole.
- This follows a recent pattern in the country in which activists are often given suspended sentences, seemingly as a way of keeping them quiet.
Another Madagascar environmental activist imprisoned
- Malagasy authorities have held Raleva, a 61-year-old farmer, in custody since September 27 after he asked to see a mining company’s permits to operate near his village.
- His arrest is at least the sixth such case of authorities targeting those opposed to wildlife trafficking or land grabs.
- Environmental activists say they face bribes and threats from traffickers on one side, and jail time and fines from the government on the other.
‘If it’s going to kill us, OK, we’ll die’: Villagers stand firm as Cambodian dam begins to fill
- Cambodia’s largest hydropower project, the Lower Sesan 2 dam, was officially launched late last month.
- Experts fear the dam will lead to a 9.3 percent loss of fish throughout the entire Lower Mekong River Basin, a concern Prime Minister Hun Sen has brushed aside.
- Thousands of people have already been relocated to make way for the dam, but around 100 families intend to stay on their land, despite intense pressure and the risk of inundation.
Indigenous group scores legal victory as dam floods their lands
- A brief legal battle related to the Barro Blanco hydroelectric project in western Panama concluded late last month in a rare triumph for indigenous communities who have opposed the dam’s construction for a decade.
- The dam’s construction company had accused three Ngäbe-Bugle leaders of instigating project delays and causing financial losses during protests at Barro Blanco’s entrance in July 2015. On September 20, a judge acquitted all three defendants of any wrongdoing.
- Nevertheless, the dam is now fully operational and its reservoir has flooded the land of three Ngäbe-Bugle communities.
- Leadership of the Ngäbe-Bugle is deeply divided between members who support the dam and those who oppose it, claiming that they had not been adequately consulted prior to the dam’s approval.
Three years after the tragedy of Saweto, where is the justice and security? (commentary)
- Three years ago this month, my friends Edwin Chota and Jorge Ríos were assassinated along with Francisco Pinedo and Leoncio Quintícima as they hiked through their homelands in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest along the border with Brazil.
- This summer I returned to their community of Saweto and hiked the path where they died. The community now holds legal title to their homelands, but their situation is far from secure. Illegal loggers continue to operate in their territory.
- If the most famous titled community in Peru has neither territorial security nor sustainability two years after receiving title, how will the scores of other recently titled communities fare?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Leading ivory trade investigator slain in Tanzania
- One of Africa’s top ivory trade investigators has been shot dead by gunmen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- Wayne Lotter was the co-founder and President of PAMS Foundation, which set up and supported the elite unit behind more than 2,000 arrests since November 2014.
- He was killed late on Wednesday, while traveling in a taxi from the airport to his rented flat in the quiet suburb of Masaki.
Harsh sentence for blogger may haunt Vietnam’s environmental movement
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – On April 6, 2016 dozens of tons of dead fish began washing ashore along Vietnam’s central coast. The phenomenon continued through the month, turning into what is considered the largest environmental disaster in the country’s history. Fishing communities in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue provinces […]
Audio: Global megadam activism and the sounds of nature in Taiwan
- Activists from around the world attended the conference to strategize around stopping what they see as destructive hydropower projects. As Bardeen relates in her commentary, many attendees at the conference have faced harassment, intimidation, and worse for their opposition to dam projects, but they’re still standing strong in defense of free-flowing rivers.
- We also speak with Yannick Dauby, a French sound artist based in Taiwan. Since 2002, Dauby has been crafting sound art out of field recordings made throughout the small country of Taiwan and posting them on his website, Kalerne.net.
- In this Field Notes segment, Dauby plays a recording of his favorite singer, a frog named Rhacophorus moltrechti; the sounds of the marine life of the corals of Penghu, which he is documenting together with biologists; the calls bats use to echolocate (slowed down 16 times so they can be heard by human ears!); and more!
- All that plus the top news on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast!
Lawyer opposing U.S. resort developer in Baja Mexico jailed 62 days
- An American company plans to build what it dubs Tres Santos: 4,472 houses, a tank to store 400,000 liters of water, and two boutique hotels like one being built on Punta Lobos Beach in Baja California Sur
- At the time of his arrest, lawyer John Moreno Rutowski was representing the fishing community of Punta Lobos, which opposes the project because it supplants the beach and wetland area they’ve used for 100 years
- Four days after Moreno Rutowski’s incarceration, a federal judge confirmed the right of the fishermen to “protect their traditional beach against the threat of displacement brought about by Tres Santos,” according to Moreno Rutowski’s lawyer
- 62 days later Moreno remains in jail on unclear charges
2016 was even deadlier for environmental and indigenous activists than 2015
- According to a new report released today by Global Witness, at least 200 people were killed in 24 countries last year in retaliation for standing up to environmentally destructive industrial projects. That’s up from 185 murders in 16 countries in 2015.
- With at least 33 murders linked to the sector, mining appears to be the most deadly industry to oppose. But killings connected to logging companies are on the rise, with 23 in 2016, compared to 15 the year before. Another 23 deaths were associated with agribusiness projects, 18 with poachers, and seven with hydroelectric dam projects.
- More than half of all killings of environmental activist last year occurred in Latin America. Brazil was once again the deadliest country in the world to be an activist, with 49 murders, many of them committed by loggers and landowners in the Amazon.
Wildlife ecologist killed in Rwandan national park by recently translocated rhino
- “It is with utmost regret that I inform you that Krisztián Gyöngyi was killed this morning by a rhinoceros in Akagera National Park in Rwanda while out tracking animals in the park,” Peter Fearnhead, CEO of the non-profit conservation organization African Parks, announced in a statement.
- According to Fearnhead, Gyöngyi was a rhino specialist who had more than five years of experience monitoring and conserving rhinos in Majete Wildlife Reserve and Liwonde National Park, both in Malawi.
- In a joint initiative of the Rwandan government and African Parks, which employs more than 600 rangers and manages 10 national parks and protected areas in seven countries, 18 Eastern black rhinos were airlifted from South Africa to Akagera National Park.
The Philippines, a nation rich in precious metals, encounters powerful opposition to mining
- Facing conflicting demands from the mining industry and from communities adversely affected by mining, the Philippines has never settled on a stable mining policy.
- Opposition to mining centers around the ecological disruption caused by mines, human rights abuses connected to the industry, and disputes over how profits should be shared.
- The Philippines is believed to hold around $1 trillion worth of mineral resources, but an anticipated mineral boom has so far failed to emerge.
- Recent legal changes cast even more doubt on the mining industry’s future.
DRC’s Garamba National Park: The last giraffes of the Congo
- Today there are only 46 giraffes left in Garamba National Park, in Northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in a nearly 2,000 square-mile area.
- Garamba is situated in a dangerous part of Africa crawling with heavily armed poachers and various guerilla groups.
- Garamba is one of 10 national parks and protected areas in 7 countries managed by African Parks, a non-profit conservation organization.
Anti-trafficking activist held without trial in Madagascar
- Clovis Razafimalala has been working to end rosewood trafficking in Madagascar since 2009.
- He has been imprisoned since September on charges of unauthorized rebellion and burning state files and property during a protest he maintains he did not participate in.
- No trial date has been announced, although one is supposed to be set by May 26.
- Activists say his case raises concern for the civil rights of Malagasy environmental activists.
“We don’t believe in words anymore”: Indians stand against Temer govt.
- Indigenous groups control large reserves in the Amazon and have the constitutional right to more, but agribusiness and land thieves are working with the Brazilian Congress and the Temer administration to prevent recognition of new indigenous territories, and to defund FUNAI, the federal agency representing Indian concerns.
- In response, Brazil’s Indians are launching numerous protests. Last week more than 4,000 indigenous leaders from 200 tribes gathered in Brasilia to demonstrate. They were greeted in front of the Congress building with a police teargas attack.
- Emboldened by government support, ranchers and their hired gunmen brutally attacked a peaceful land occupation by members of the Gamela tribe in Maranhão state in northern Brazil on 30 April with rifles and machetes; 13 Indians were seriously injured.
- In the Amazon, the Munduruku have blocked the Transamazonian highway, creating a 40 kilometer backup of trucks loaded with the soy harvest. In an unusual twist, the truckers met with the Munduruku Wednesday afternoon and expressed solidarity with the Indians, agreeing that the government’s failure to meet the people’s needs is the real problem.
Audio: A deep dive into the study of marine wildlife through bioacoustics
- Here at the Mongabay Newscast, we’re very interested in acoustic ecology, perhaps for obvious reasons: Acoustic ecology, sometimes known as ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is the study of the relationship between human beings and the natural environment as mediated through bioacoustics, or the sounds that are produced by and affect living organisms.
- In order to highlight the findings of this exciting line of research, we’ve created our ongoing Field Notes segment. And in this particular Field Note, which takes up the entire episode, Leah Barclay plays for us several of the underwater recordings she’s made of humpback whales, the Great Barrier Reef, water insects, and more.
- Find all that plus the top news in this episode of the Mongabay Newscast!
Indigenous communities resisting dams in Indonesia claim they face repression, rights abuses
- Developers plan to build a hydropower dam in Seko, a remote sub-district in North Luwu, Sulawesi that is home to several indigenous communities.
- Some residents support the project, but many others have resisted since developers arrived in 2014, launching road blockades and protests.
- Thirteen residents have been imprisoned for involvement in an August 2016 demonstration in which protestors dismantled tents used by company workers and took drilling samples.
- Villagers allege people opposed to the dam have been arrested with force, have had to flee their homes, and that even school children have been beaten.
Illegal trade threatens nearly half the world’s natural heritage sites: WWF
- Poaching, illegal logging and illegal fishing of rare species protected under CITES occurs in 45 percent of the natural World Heritage sites, a new WWF report says.
- Illegal harvesting degrades the unique values that gave the heritage sites the status in the first place, the report says.
- Current approaches to preventing illegal harvesting of CITES listed species in World Heritage sites is not working, the report concludes.
The land is forever: Rodrigo Tot wins Goldman Prize for land-title quest
- Rodrigo Tot is one of this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize honoring global “grassroots environmental heroes.”
- He has been working for decades to secure title to his community’s lands, which are embroiled in an ongoing dispute with mining interests.
- Tot has faced threats to his safety as well as the murder of his son in 2012, in what he believes was retaliation for his land-rights work.
2 wildlife rangers shot and killed by poachers in Congo park
- While out patrolling on April 11, Ari and Afokao heard gunshots.
- The patrol unit followed signs and tracks until they discovered a group of six poachers who were cutting up a freshly slaughtered elephant carcass.
- A shootout followed, in which both Ari and Afokao were fatally shot.
Ex-mine security head cleared of murder, assault against indigenous Guatemalans
- During protests over contested land in 2009 a well-known Maya Q’eqchi’ community leader and mine opponent named Adolfo Ich was killed, another Maya Q’eqchi’, German Chub, was shot and paralyzed from the waist down, and several other community residents were wounded.
- Guatemala’s Office of the Public Prosecutor charged Mynor Padilla, the Fenix mine’s head of security at the time of the protests, with homicide and assault. Padilla maintained his innocence throughout the trial.
- On Thursday a judge in Puerto Barrios acquitted Padilla and ordered his immediate release, instructing the Office of the Public Prosecutor to pursue criminal charges against Padilla’s accusers.
In remote Indonesian villages, indigenous communities fight a hydropower dam
- Seko, in the North Luwu subdistrict of South Sulawesi, is home to Pohoneang, Hoyyane and Amballong indegenous communities.
- Surveys have begun for a planned 480-megawatt hydroelectric dam, part of a broader plan to build 1,154-megawatts of hydropower in the region.The dam has become the center of a bitter fight that has divided families and communities.
- On March 27, a district court sentenced 13 Seko residents to seven months in prison in connection with an August 2016 action against the dam.
- This is the first in a series of two articles on the situation in Seko.
Audio: Meet the ‘Almost Famous Animals’ that deserve more conservation recognition
- The Almost Famous series was created in the hope that familiarity will help generate concern and action for under-appreciated species. Glenn tells us all about how species get selected for coverage and his favorite animals profiled in the series.
- We also feature another installment of our Field Notes segment on this episode of the Newscast.
- Luca Pozzi, an evolutionary primatologist at the University of Texas, San Antonio, recently helped establish a new genus of galagos, or bushbabies, found in southeastern Africa. We play some of the calls made by galagos in the wild, and Luca explains how those recordings aid in our scientific knowledge about wildlife.
Environmental lawyer killed in the Philippines
- Mia Mascariñas-Green, a lawyer with the NGO Environmental Legal Assistance Center who also handled civil and criminal cases, was ambushed in broad daylight.
- Police believe her death was connected to her work on a property-dispute case in the resort island of Panglao.
- The Philippines is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environment and land defenders; according to tallies by rights groups, more than 100 have been killed since 2002.
Attacks on journalists in Myanmar highlight complications, dangers for the media
- Soe Moe Tun’s murder was followed the next day by a roadside attack on journalist Kyaw Thura Myo.
- Myanmar is on the Committee to Protect Journalists list “10 Most Censored Countries” list.
- Reporting on the illegal logging industry in the country has exacerbated security risks in the past year.
Journalist murdered while investigating illegal logging in Myanmar
- A journalist was murdered while investigating illegal logging and timber smuggling in Myanmar.
- On Tuesday, Soe Moe Tun, a local reporter with Daily Eleven newspaper, was found “severely beaten” by the side of a highway in the town of Monywa in Myanmar’s Sagaing region.
- Robbery doesn’t appear to be the motive for the killing.
Wildlife traps threaten lives of Peruvian conservationists
- Conservationist Hugo Vásquez, one of the victims of the wildlife ‘trappers,’ is currently unable to walk. This is the lastest reported case.
- A “trapper” includes a loaded gun, triggered by a trip wire that can be pulled by either an animal or human.
- The new Peruvian Forestry Law has not regulated the threat of traps, said Fernando Rubio, a forestry engineer.
Mongabay Newscast episode 4: Inside scoop on new Netflix documentary “The Ivory Game;” orangutan habitat under threat in Indonesia
- Crosta discusses how Chinese demand is driving the multi-billion dollar trade in ivory, as well as EAL’s project WildLeaks and the undercover investigations in mainland China and Hong Kong that have helped expose the illegal ivory being laundered through legal ivory markets.
- We also speak with Mongabay contributor and Borneo Futures founder Erik Meijaard, who recently wrote a piece entitled, “Company poised to destroy critical orangutan habitat in breach of Indonesia’s moratorium.”
- And of course we cover the top news on Mongabay.com for the past two weeks!
Recognizing environmentalists under threat
- Environmental defenders are under threat: each year hundreds are killed, according to Global Witness.
- Alex Soros, a young philanthropist who established the Alexander Soros Foundation in 2012, believes recognition of these advocates is long overdue.
- Accordingly, each year the foundation honors environmental defenders with the ASF Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Environmental and Human Rights Activism.
Park ranger murdered while trying to protect rare gorillas
- On October 4, a park ranger, Munganga Nzonga Jacques, was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi Biega National Park while trying to protect the park’s rare Grauer’s gorillas.
- Jacques is the second ranger to be killed in Kahuzi Biega in the last six months.
- Kahuzi Biega National Park is believed to be the last stronghold of Grauer’s gorillas, so the murder of Jacques has conservationists worried about the future of the rangers, their families, as well as the gorillas.
Peru’s Goldman Prize winner Máxima Acuña denounces attack
- On the morning of September 18, Máxima Acuña and her husband were attacked and injured by Yanacocha’s security guards.
- The mining company claims they entered the property and removed Acuña’s crop field because it invaded a portion of Yanacocha’s territory.
- The international community and the National Human Rights Coordinator have called for prompt action by the Peruvian state to protect the safety of Acuña’s family.
- Acuña was named the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner after her peaceful defense of the land she purchased in Cajamarca and for stopping Yanacocha mining company from extracting copper and gold as part of its Conga project.
Poaching in Africa becomes increasingly militarized
- Due to skyrocketing consumer demand, particularly from Asia, today’s wildlife traffickers have the resources to outfit their henchmen with weaponry and equipment that often outmatches that of the local park rangers.
- The poachers doing the most damage in Africa today are employed by professional trafficking syndicates, and they enjoy a level of support and financial backing unimaginable during earlier poaching crises.
- The poachers’ arsenal includes the expanding use of military-grade equipment like helicopters, machine guns, infrared scopes, and heavy armored vehicles.
Greenpeace firefighters attacked by armed men in Russia
- A Greenpeace volunteer firefighting team was attacked overnight by armed men in southern Russia, says the activist group.
- In a statement issued Friday, Greenpeace said that a staff member and a volunteer were given medical treatment for injuries sustained in the attack.
- Forest fires are a regular occurrence across Russia’s taiga forests in Siberia and the Russian Far East, but are worsening due to logging, forest management practices, and the effects of climate change.
Dam opponents claim criminalization by Ecuadorian government
- Hidrotambo dam opponent Manuel Trujillo was recently exonerated from terrorism charges for allegedly destroying dam company property, but still faces more than two-dozen other legal cases related to his opposition to the dam.
- Human-rights groups claim the Ecuadorean government has criminalized Trujillo and other local leaders for organizing against the dam as part of a larger pattern in which the administration of Rafael Correa has gone after over 100 community leaders and activists for protesting development projects across the country.
- Activists have taken their case against the Hidrotambo dam to international courts.
Three murders highlight troubles of Iran’s park rangers
- In the final days of June, three Iranian park rangers were shot by poachers, bringing the tally of rangers killed in such instances in the country to 119.
- At least eight rangers have spent years behind bars after being convicted of murder for killing poachers while on the job.
- The Iranian Department of Environment claims the rangers were released during the last year. But the conditions of their release concern environmentalists, who point to flaws in the system meant to protect both rangers and the country’s rich biodiversity.
In Latin America, environmentalists are an endangered species
- At least 185 environmental activists were murdered worldwide in 2015, nearly two-thirds of them in Latin America, according to a June report from the U.K.-based NGO Global Witness.
- The reasons for the killings vary, but many are related to a surge in development in remote parts of the region. There, governments have been granting concessions for hydroelectric dams, mines, and other projects, often without consulting indigenous or farming communities already occupying the land.
- With little government assistance, some members of these communities are opposing environmental destruction on their own and paying the ultimate price.
Olympics to begin amid rising violence against Brazil’s indigenous people
- Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates held a press briefing on August 4, the day before the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.
- They highlighted new data showing that 33 indigenous people and 23 environmental activists had been killed in Brazil this year.
- They pointed to government turmoil and the erosion of protections for activists and indigenous communities as factors in the violence.
Heavy toll for green and indigenous activists among Colombian killings
- A report by the London-based NGO Justice for Colombia documented activist killings across the country between 2011 and 2015.
- On average two activists were killed per week over the five year period, according to the report.
- The figures are “at least” numbers that highlight areas of the country that require increased monitoring to obtain realistic figures; the actual number of killings is likely much higher, according to a Justice for Colombia representative.
- While many assassinations remain unsolved due to corruption or the state’s inability to carry out effective investigations, human-rights watchdogs say the majority is orchestrated by paramilitary groups.
Three Cambodian activists convicted and heavily fined — but free
- Try Sovikea, Sim Somnang, and San Mala have been imprisoned since last August for their activities in a direct-action campaign against companies mining sand in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province.
- A provincial judge found them guilty of instigating threats to destroy property and fined them heavily, but released them from prison on a suspended sentence.
- The three activists, with environmental NGO Mother Nature Cambodia, say they plan to appeal the guilty conviction and fines.
Malaysian land rights activist Bill Kayong murdered in broad daylight
- Sarawak Criminal Investigation Department chief Dev Kumar told The Borneo Post that the case is being classified as a murder.
- Sarawak is plagued by corruption, human rights violations against indigenous communities, and environmental destruction, and activists and indigenous communities who speak out often face repression by the government while violence against them goes unpunished.
- Rick Jacobsen of London-based NGO Global Witness said in a statement that “The brutal slaying of land rights champion Bill Kayong shows the risks faced by activists in Sarawak who stand up to the powerful interests behind land grabbing and environmental devastation.”
Deadliest year on record for environmental activists
- Of the 185 documented cases of environmental activists murdered around the world in 2015, more than half of the killings took place in Brazil (50), the Philippines (33), and Colombia (26).
- Indigenous peoples account for roughly five percent of the world’s population, but they were the victims in almost 40 percent of the 2015 killings documented by Global Witness.
- The mining and extractive industries sector was linked to 42 killings in 10 countries.
Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve
- The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which covers one-fifth of Guatemala, is one of the most important tropical forest areas north of the Amazon.
- The reserve is a gem of biological and cultural heritage, with more than 500 species of birds, numerous endangered and iconic wildlife species, and dozens of ancient Mayan archaeological sites.
- The reserve’s multiple-use zone has generally succeeded at reducing deforestation and providing sustainable livelihoods for communities living there. But deforestation remains a huge problem in the reserve as a whole, pushed along by complex factors, including illegal settlement by landless migrants, oil development, and the presence of drug traffickers, cattle ranchers, and other armed groups.
The assassinations of Mother Nature’s guardians (commentary)
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author.
- Protecting the planet is a dangerous job.
- The risk of murder is higher for environmental activists and wildlife officers than for police officers.
Battling India’s Sand Barons
- Tamil Nadu’s sand is in high demand for the construction industry, causing great damage to the Indian state’s extensive network of rivers. Profits and corruption are high, illegal mining is rampant, and attacks on those opposed to the industry are commonplace, according to S. Mugilan.
- Mugilan has been taking on polluters across Tamil Nadu for more than two decades, and has been attacked, arrested, and jailed for his work.
- He is currently in the hospital, fasting to protest the police preventing him from handing out voter pamphlets opposing two prominent political candidates.
Kenya’s forests squeezed as government pressures environment groups
- The Kenyan government has accused some civil society groups of militancy, terrorism, being espionage fronts for foreign powers, money laundering, tax evasion, or failing to account for donor funding.
- Human rights groups say the accusations are meant to justify deregistering targeted groups, effectively closing them down by paralyzing their operations.
- Attempts to quash civil society are no anomaly among unscrupulous Kenyan politicians, but the extent to which these attempts are harming the country’s fragile ecosystems is new.
In the Crosshairs of Development
- “Treaties that recognize native entitlements to rivers and lands have been broken from the American West to the Amazon when economic interests were at stake. And resistance is often violently suppressed by security forces.”
- “According to John Knox, the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, indigenous peoples who get in the way of development projects ‘are considered almost expendable by the powers that be.'”
- “Our murdered colleagues from Honduras to Brazil bear witness to this shocking reality.”
Cambodia declares protected area in hotly contested Prey Lang forest
- Prey Lang has been the subject of a massive grassroots effort to save it — one that has seen environmentalists and journalists killed.
- Cambodia has launched a big offensive against illegal logging, but some are skeptical that the main operators will actually be targeted.
- Prey Lang was one of five forests to receive the protected status late last week.
5 wildlife rangers shot – 3 killed – by poachers in Congo park
- Elephant poachers killed three wildlife rangers and wounded two more in a shootout yesterday in Garamba National Park.
- All five victims were members of African Parks.
- Garamba – once a stronghold for elephants and other wildlife – has been hard hit by poaching and violence against conservation workers.
Spanish enviros threatened by government and economically stressed citizens
- Spain is one of the EU countries that the Great Recession has most affected. Unemployment rates above 20 percent, brain drain, unchecked corruption, and a fractured society have led to an increasingly risky scenario for activists across movements.
- Recent trends include increasing criminalization of social movements and violence against activists.
- Environmentalists face added pressure from a citizenry under severe economic duress with little tolerance for attitudes that may endanger much-needed jobs.
Indigenous Brazilians under threat from killings and resource projects: UN Rapporteur
- United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz visited Brazil in March.
- In an end-of-mission statement released on March 17, she concluded that indigenous peoples in Brazil are at risk from an alarming uptick in violence as well as from natural-resource development projects that threaten their existence.
- For instance, in 2014, the Catholic Church-affiliated Indigenist Missionary Council documented the killings of 138 indigenous leaders in Brazil, compared to 92 in 2007, according to Tauli-Corpuz. Gunmen opened fire on one indigenous village just hours after Tauli-Corpuz departed.
- Noting the government’s failure to uphold legal protections enshrined in the Brazilian constitution as well as other factors, such as attempts in Congress to weaken legal protections for indigenous rights and the environment, Tauli-Corpuz warned that “The risk of ethnocidal effects in such contexts cannot be overlooked nor underestimated.”
Four get maximum sentence for murder of Costa Rican sea turtle conservationist
- On Tuesday, a Costa Rican court sentenced four of the seven men accused to 74-90 years in jail for murder and kidnapping, but they will each serve a maximum of 50 years as permitted by Costa Rican law.
- They were also sentenced for another robbery, and rape of a Costa Rican woman committed around the same time.
- According to the judges presiding over the case, Mora’s work with sea turtles was the primary motivation for his murder.
Amazon journalist endures, despite decades of threats and harassment
- Since 1987 Lúcio Flávio Pinto has published his own one-man bimonthly newspaper in the Brazilian state of Pará, Jornal Pessoal.
- His independent coverage of the plunder of the Amazon, shady dealings by prominent families, and government corruption earned him national and international accolades over the years, as well as many prominent enemies.
- Pinto has continued his work in spite of numerous death threats, a beating, and dozens of lawsuits that have left him in precarious circumstances.
Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm
- Walter Manfredo Méndez Barrios led a farming cooperative involved in sustainable timber harvest and actively opposed hydroelectric dams in the department of Peten. Reports filed by him contributed to the arrest of wildlife poachers and land usurpers.
- The 36-year-old father of six had been receiving threats since last year, according to media reports.
- His murder on March 16 was just the latest in a string of killings of outspoken community and cooperative leaders, as well as park rangers, during the 26 years since the Maya Biosphere Reserve was created.
Indigenous forest activist released from prison amid Cambodian crackdown
- Ven Vorn, imprisoned since October, was convicted of harvesting forest products without authorization and sentenced to one year in prison. However, the judge suspended the remaining seven months of his sentence, allowing his release.
- Vorn was arrested after leading a successful campaign to halt construction of a hydropower dam in the Chong indigenous people’s homeland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains.
- His release occurred even as other environmental activists from the region remain in prison or in exile, part of a wider crackdown by the Cambodian government against its opponents.
Demands grow for a thorough investigation of Berta Cáceres’ assassination in Honduras
- A report calculates that at least 101 people were assassinated in Honduras alone between 2010 and 2014 in connection to a wave of large mining, agriculture, and dam projects.
- Since last week, Cáceres’ family has asked the Honduran government to join the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the creation of a “commission of experts that supervise, support, and participate on the investigations by the Public Ministry.”
- Cáceres had an order of protection from an international court on human rights, yet she was still regularly harassed and ended up being murdered.
Another environmental activist is killed in Peru over his opposition to a major dam project
- He’d been fielding death threats and insults for years for his activism against a hydroelectric dam project that would take advantage of the Marañón River waters, one of the most important in the Amazon basin.
- The residents of Yagen say Rojas Gonzales had sworn that he would defend the Marañón River with “his own life.”
- The construction of the 574 feet-high Chadín 2 dam is expected to cause the displacement of around 1,000 people and a series of environmental impacts.
Environmentalist gunned down by illegal miners in Peru
- On Thursday night, Alfredo Ernesto Vracko Neuenschwander was gunned down at his home along the Interoceanic Highway.
- Vracko, 58, was a woodworker who led a movement to resist forest invasions by illegal gold miners in Peru’s biodiverse Tambopata region.
- Illegal gold miners are suspected to be responsible for the murder.
Concern grows for jailed Cambodian activists amid civil rights crackdown
- In August authorities arrested three staff members of the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia for their involvement in a direct-action campaign to stop the dredging of sand from the rivers and estuaries of Koh Kong province.
- In October authorities arrested an indigenous Chong activist from Cambodia’s Areng valley who was central to a broad campaign opposing the Areng hydroelectric dam. He is charged with illegally using timber to build a community and visitor center.
- In recent months Cambodian authorities have imprisoned several members of the parliamentary opposition party and other activists, and passed a law requiring NGOs to register with the government and restricting the activities of unregistered groups.
Guatemalan activist murdered after court suspends palm oil company operations
- Reforestadora de Palmas del Petén, S.A. (REPSA) is allegedly responsible for a massive fish kill along a 100-mile stretch of the La Pasión River in June. Massive overflows of organic matter from the company’s palm-oil mill effluent ponds are suspected of causing the asphyxiation of fish and other aquatic life. A government agency referred to the incident as “ecocide.”
- Residents of the municipality of Sayaxché who depend on the river for fish and water have been greatly affected by the incident. Three residents involved in groups seeking justice for the fish kill were allegedly abducted by REPSA workers on September 18. A local teacher who denounced REPSA was murdered the same day.
- The situation in Sayaxché remains tense amid ongoing investigations into the murder and REPSA’s role in the fish kill.
Activist arrested while illegal loggers chop away at Madagascar’s forests
- Last February, Armand Marozafy wrote an email to a foreign consultant alleging that two local businessmen were involved in various illegal activities near Masoala National Park, a vast rainforest threatened by poaching and illegal logging.
- After the email became public, Marozafy was arrested on defamation charges in April.
- He is serving a six-month prison sentence and has been ordered to pay a fine equivalent to three times the annual salary of a Malagasy school teacher.
After crackdown, protesters to march again against Ecuador’s ‘extractivism’
- An alliance of indigenous federations, campesinos, unions, and other groups that oppose proposed constitutional reforms and government policies on a range of issues are planning a new round of protests on Wednesday across Ecuador.
- Environmental issues are front and center, with protesters opposed to the Ecuadorian government’s natural-resource-based development model, which they call “extractivism.”
- The protests are taking place amid a government-imposed nation-wide “state of exception” that suspends basic rights.
Harsh treatment for indigenous Botswanans ousted from Kalahari wildlife reserve
- San and Bakgalagadi people have been evicted from Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve out of concern that the groups’ hunter-gatherer way of life was harming wildlife.
- The groups have been fighting to return for nearly two decades, and are preparing their next legal offensive under the threat of government reprisals.
- They argue that the indigenous groups, making their living on the land with traditional hunting and gathering lifestyles, are far better able to preserve biodiversity than contemporary conservation approaches, such as wildlife-only parks.
Indigenous miners, leaders under threat in Colombia following killing
- Fernando Salazar Calvo, an active member and spokesperson of an association of artisanal indigenous miners in Colombia’s Cañamomo Lomaprieta Indigenous Reservation, was murdered on April 7.
- The association and other indigenous leaders have been fighting to prevent destructive mining by companies and illegal armed groups on the reservation.
- No one has been arrested in connection with Salazar Calvo’s murder.
With assault rifles and legal hijinks, Harper’s government takes on the Canadian environment
They came at dawn. Police officers in riot gear wielding assault rifles and flanked by attack dogs took aim at protesters in the camp. Their targets, the police had been told, were dangerous and possibly armed. The protesters were there to stop an American company exploring for fracking opportunities near the Elsipogtog First Nation in […]
Sea turtle conservationists attacked in Costa Rica
Sea turtle nesting grounds on Pacuare Beach, Costa Rica, where poachers attacked conservationists late last month. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd/Eva Hidalgo. Activists working to protect sea turtles have once again been attacked in Costa Rica. On June 4, volunteers working with the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society interrupted a poacher in the act of stealing […]
Militarization and murders stifle anti-mining movement in Guatemala
A resident of Mataquescuintla, Guatemala, at a November 2014 celebration of the second anniversary of the municipality’s referendum on mining. The referendum was one of many in the region, and residents voted against mining in every one. However, the government was not bound by their decisions. Photo credit: CPR-Urbana / Centro de Medios Independientes. The […]
Damming Dissent: Community leaders behind bars in Guatemala after opposing hydro projects
Mayan women protest hydroelectric dam projects in Santa Cruz Barillas in western Guatemala on March 16, 2014. Local opposition to the construction of dams and other natural resource projects in the area has resulted in a government crackdown on activists. Photo credit: Luis Miranda Brugos / Alba Sud Fotografia. Thursdays are one of two visiting […]
Turkish government bears down on rural resistance to mining and hydro projects
Villagers in the country’s lush Black Sea region face police force, legal hurdles, and more subtle means of suppression in their fight to protect the environment. The Fol Creek Valley outside of Trabzon, Turkey. Residents are fighting plans to build a cement factory, several rock quarries, a gold mine, and three hydropower plants in the […]
‘Green’ hydropower dam fuels charges of gross human rights violations
Children carry a banner commemorating two children allegedly killed in 2013 by an employee of the company that owns the Santa Rita dam. The banner reads in part "They are examples of the struggle for life and land." Photo credit: Peoples’ Council of Tezulutlán. A hydropower project planned on Guatemala’s Icbolay River has resulted in […]
Palm oil activist murdered in Jakarta
Motive not yet clear in nightclub stabbing of Indonesian environmental campaigner Slain activist Jopi Peranginangin posted this photo to his Facebook page in April. (The children are not his.) An Indonesian activist who opposed unbridled oil palm expansion was stabbed to death before dawn this morning outside a nightclub in South Jakarta. Whether the attack […]
Mining and Energy Contracts under Investigation as Corruption Scandals Rock Guatemala
Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Sandra Cuffe Nickel Mine, Lead Bullets: Maya Q’eqchi’ seek justice in Guatemala and Canada The Guatemalan cabinet ministers for the environment, the interior, and energy and mines stepped down May 21 amid corruption scandals and massive protests. Investigations into alleged irregularities in mining, energy, and other environmental project […]
Red tape or repression? NGOs fight for a place in the new Bolivia they helped Evo Morales create
Toribia Lero, an indigenous leader from the faction of the indigenous organization CONAMAQ (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu) that is not recognized by the government sits for an interview. The Danish NGO Ibis’s funding of this organizations is likely one of the reasons it was expelled from the country. Photo credit: Alexandra […]
Nickel Mine, Lead Bullets: Maya Q’eqchi’ seek justice in Guatemala and Canada
Angélica Choc (left), German Chub (front) and other Maya Q’eqchi’ seek justice for human rights violations linked to a Canadian mining company. Photo Credit: Rachel Schmidt German Chub faces the judge as he responds calmly and evenly to question after question during cross-examination. He uses his arms to lift himself up and shift a little […]
Kenya’s Karura Forest, symbol of GreenBelt Movement, suffering death by 1,000 cuts
A signpost showing the U.N. road (Crescent) that passes through the forest. Photo credit: Protus Onyango. The founder of Kenya’s GreenBelt Movement, Wangari Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 because she talked environmental truth to power. She also walked the walk. Especially on a January morning in 1999 when she strode into the […]
Killings of environmental activists jumped by 20 percent last year
Soy field in the Brazilian Amazon. Again this year, Brazil has the highest number of murders of environmental and land defenders. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The assassination, murder, and extrajudicial killing of environmental activists rose by 20 percent last year, according to a new grim report by Global Witness. The organization documented 116 killings […]
Kenya crackdown on terrorism threatens NGOs, wildlife, media
Kenya’s elephants could be among the animals harmed by harsh new laws to hamstring the programs of international environmental groups such as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Photo by Rhett Butler. The terrorist attack that killed at least 147 people at Garissa University on April 2nd was another […]
Mining activist released after being charged with terrorism, rebellion in Ecuador
Yesterday, mining and environmental activist, Javier Ramírez, walked out of an Ecuadorian courtroom with his freedom. Ramírez, who has long fought against a massive state-owned massive copper mine in the cloud forest village of Junin, was arrested in April last year and subsequently charged with rebellion, sabotage, and terrorism among other thing. The judge sentenced […]
Indigenous leader murdered before he could attend Climate Summit
Known for his opposition to Chinese mine project, indigenous leader found bound and buried in Ecuador Days before José Isidro Tendetza Antún was supposed to travel to the UN Climate Summit in Lima to publicly file a complaint against a massive mining operation, he went missing. Now, the Guardian reports that the body of the […]
A tale of 2 Perus: Climate Summit host, 57 murdered environmentalists
New report finds that 83 percent of recent murders of environmental activists in Peru linked to police, military, or private security guards On September 1st, indigenous activist, Edwin Chota, and three other indigenous leaders were gunned down and their bodies thrown into rivers near the border of Peru and Brazil. Chota, an internationally-known leader of […]
‘The green Amazon is red with indigenous blood’: authorities pull bodies from river that may have belonged to slain leaders
Indigenous groups call for land rights in wake of assassinations of Edwin Chota Valera and three other leaders Peruvian authorities have pulled more human remains from a remote river in the Amazon, which may belong to one of the four murdered Ashaninka natives killed on September 1st. These human remains—and those found last week—will undergo […]
4 Ashaninka tribesmen killed by loggers in Peru
9/9/14 update below Four Ashaninka were killed last week by illegal loggers in the Peruvian Amazon, reports El Comercio. One of those killed was Edwin Chota, the leader of the Alto Tamaya-Saweto indigenous community who won fame for fighting illegal loggers. As such, Chota was a top target for assassination, according to a conservationist familiar […]
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Motive not yet clear in nightclub stabbing of Indonesian environmental campaigner Slain activist Jopi Peranginangin posted this photo to his Facebook page in April. (The children are not his.) An Indonesian activist who opposed unbridled oil palm expansion was stabbed to death before dawn this morning outside a nightclub in South Jakarta. Whether the attack […]