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Bird populations are mysteriously declining at an Amazon park in Ecuador & beyond
- The number of individual birds found at the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve has dropped by half, according to a study published earlier this year.
- Other studies have shown a similar trend in preserved rainforests, pointing to habitat deterioration and pesticides as the usual causes of widespread bird decline in the Northern Hemisphere, but this does not explain the phenomenon in tropical sites.
- Researchers point to a few possible causes for the declines, such as signs of reduction in insect abundance, but climate change is the common suspect in all cases.
NZ funding helps Indigenous farmers in Indonesia protect forests, boost incomes
- Two Indigenous villages in Indonesian Borneo have received initial funding of nearly $15,000 from the New Zealand government to improve their livelihoods while protecting their ancestral forests.
- Residents of the Dayak villages of Setawar and Gunam mostly grow oil palms, but also still rely on their ancestral forests for making medicinal herbs, producing handicrafts and carrying out traditional rituals.
- The funding, channeled through the Farmers For Forest Protection Foundation (4F), will go toward programs such as training and deployment of forest guards, forest management support, and implementation of good agricultural practices.
On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Indigenous women in Indonesian Borneo often have to combine domestic responsibilities with food cultivation, known as behuma in the dialect of the Dayak Pitap community in South Kalimantan province.
- Swidden agriculture relies on burning off discarded biomass before planting land in order to fertilize soil and limit pest infestations. But a law enforcement campaign to tackle wildfires has seen criminal prosecutions of at least 11 Borneo women for using fire to grow small-scale food crops from 2018-2022.
- Dayak women and several fieldworkers say the practice of burning is safe owing to cultural safeguards against fires spreading that have been passed down families for centuries.
- Indonesia’s 2009 Environment Law included a stipulation that farmers cultivating food on less than 2 hectares (5 acres) were exempt from prosecution, but Mongabay analysis shows prosecutors and police have pressed charges against small farmers using other laws.
Secrets from the rainforest’s past uncovered in Amazonian backyards
- Riverbank communities in Amazonas and Rondônia are helping to piece together the puzzle of human presence in the rainforest over the last 10,000 years with archaeological remains found in their backyards and nearby their homes.
- Preserved in household museums, pottery fragments compose a collective project drawing together scientists and communities seeking to understand Amazonia’s past.
- Ancestral soils known as Amazonian Dark Earths with remains of farming and food preparation are offering clues about how humans transformed the forest over time
Indigenous leader’s killer is convicted in Brazil, but tensions over land remain
- Bar owner João Carlos da Silva was on April 15 sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of Indigenous land defender and teacher Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau four years earlier.
- Ari’s murder became symbolic of the struggle land defenders in Brazil face when protecting their ancestral territories, including constant threats and sometimes deadly violence.
- The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory faces fresh threats after a national lawmaker claimed its current boundaries are wrong and vowed to reduce the area in favor of local cattle ranchers and farmers.
- It’s one of several territorial setbacks that Indigenous lands across Brazil are currently facing; others include a territory in Paraná state whose demarcation process has been suspended, and one in Bahía state that could potentially be auctioned off.
Pro-business parties accused of holding back Indonesia’s Indigenous rights bill
- Pro-business political parties in Indonesia have deliberately stalled the passage of an Indigenous rights bill for more than a decade, lawmakers and activists allege.
- These parties fear ceding control of natural resources to Indigenous communities by giving them land rights, they add.
- Lawmakers trying to push the bill through have identified the PDI-P and the Golkar Party as the main opponents of the bill, but others say it’s the entire ruling coalition: seven parties that control 82% of seats in parliament.
- Indigenous activists say the bill is urgently needed to formalize Indigenous land rights and stop the hemorrhaging of customary lands and forests to commercial, industrial and infrastructure projects.
New ban threatens traditional fishers in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state
- Legislation in effect since Jan. 1 has banned fishing in Mato Grosso state rivers for five years, with heavy opposition from environmental defenders and traditional fishers.
- The bill affects part of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, the Cerrado savanna and part of the Pantanal wetland, one of the largest continuous wet areas on the planet.
- Experts consider fishers in the region guardians of the rivers and fear the bill could eliminate traditional fishing in the state.
Indigenous Philippine village rejects gold mine, cites flawed consultation
- Itogon-Suyoc Resources Inc. (ISRI), one of the Philippines’ oldest mining firms, is seeking permission to mine gold from the mountains of Itogon, a municipality in the mineral-rich, majority Indigenous north of the country.
- Mining on Indigenous land requires a consultation process, and Itogon communities rejected the company’s application in 2022, citing concerns including water contamination and loss of access for traditional mining activities. The company applied for a new round of consultations in 2023, which resulted in an agreement to allow mining in the area.
- Elders from Dalicno, the village that will be most affected if the mining proceeds, say they weren’t informed about the 2023 consultations. The agreement has yet to receive final approval due to irregularities including a lack of photographs or attendance sheets to prove that community consultations actually took place.
- Proponents of the mine say those opposing it do so only out of self-interest, while ISRI says existing small-scale mining in the area is more environmentally degrading than the company’s planned operations.
Apologies aren’t enough, Indigenous people say of Brazil dictatorship’s crimes
- After the Brazilian state apologized for the crimes perpetrated during the military dictatorship, the Krenak and Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous peoples are demanding the demarcation of their territories.
- The Krenak were tortured during the military regime, while the Guarani-Kaiowá were enslaved by farmers; both were forced from their lands.
- Violations also affected Indigenous peoples such as the Avá-Canoeiro, who were driven to the brink of extinction by years of persecution.
Indigenous Bolivians flee homes as backlash to mining protest turns explosive
- Indigenous communities have been threatened and attacked for protesting mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change in the community collective of Acre Antequera.
- The collective, or ayllu, is an Indigenous territorial structure made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture.
- But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater.
- While protesting earlier this month against the harmful impacts of mining, several women in the community said dynamite was thrown into their homes and their children weren’t allowed to attend school.
2024 Goldman Prize Winner Murrawah Johnson: First Nations must be at the forefront of creating change
- Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, an Indigenous Wirdi woman and Traditional Owner from the Birri Gubba Nation, has been awarded the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize in the category of climate and energy.
- Johnson is the co-founder of Youth Verdict, an advocacy group that successfully won a court case against Waratah Coal in Queensland, Australia. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the significance of this case for First Nations rights in Australia, as well as the legal implications for similar cases in the future.
- The case Waratah Coal Pty. Ltd. vs. Youth Verdict Ltd. & Ors (2022) resulted in the Land Court of Queensland recommending a rejection of a mining lease in the Galilee Basin that would have added 1.58 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over its lifespan.
- The case also set multiple precedents in Australia, including being the first successful case to link the impacts of climate change with human rights, and the first to include “on-Country” evidence from First Nations witnesses.
Goldman Prize honors Brazilian investigation linking JBS & deforestation
- Marcel Gomes, the executive secretary at investigative journalism outlet Repórter Brasil, is one of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize winners.
- Gomes coordinated an international investigation in December 2021 on JBS’ beef chain, using a powerful data platform on Brazilian livestock, investigative teams in different countries and a grassroots network of Indigenous communities, local NGOs and small-scale farmers.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Marcel Gomes said the Repórter Brasil series pressured big European retailers to stop selling illegally sourced JBS beef and public authorities to monitor big beef companies.
- Also known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Environmental Prize honored five other environmental activists on April 29.
Latest Peruvian oil spill cuts Indigenous communities from life-giving river
- On March 5, a collision between two oil barges in the Peruvian Amazon led to an oil spill in the Puinahua River, near Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a protected region of rainforest.
- Since the spill, local Indigenous communities, who almost exclusively depend on the river for their livelihoods, have been unable to collect water or fish due to fear of contamination.
- The impacted communities are awaiting compensation for their losses, yet face a deadlock as environmental assessments, which could take weeks, must be conducted first before payments are made.
- The ecological, economic and social impacts of the oil spill have not yet been published; for decades, the Peruvian Amazon has been subjected to hundreds of oil spills and leaks, which experts say have wreaked havoc on the basin.
Tribes turn to the U.N. as major wind project plans to cut through their lands in the U.S.
- Last week a United States federal judge rejected a request from Indigenous nations to stop SunZia, a $10 billion dollar wind transmission project that would cut through traditional tribal lands in southwestern Arizona.
- Indigenous leaders and advocates are turning to the U.N. to intervene and are calling for a moratorium on green energy projects for all U.N. entities “until the rights of Indigenous peoples are respected and recognized.”
- Indigenous leaders say they are not in opposition to renewable energy projects, but rather projects that don’t go through the due process and attend their free, prior and informed consent.
- According to the company, the wind transmission project is the largest clean energy infrastructure initiative in U.S. history, and will provide power to 3 million Americans, stretching from New Mexico to as far as California.
Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
- The number of fires shows no signs of easing as Brazil’s Roraima faces unprecedented blazes, and several Amazonian countries, including Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela, registered record-high outbreaks in the first quarter this year.
- Fire outbreaks in primary (old-growth) forest in Brazil’s Amazon soared by 152% in 2023, according to a recent study, rising from 13,477 in 2022 to 34,012 in 2023.
- Fires in the mature forest regions are the leading drivers of degradation of the Amazon Rainforest because the biome hasn’t evolved to adapt to such blazes, according to the researchers.
- The fires are a result of a drought that has been fueled by climate change and worsened by natural weather phenomena, such as El Niño, which has intensified dry conditions already aggravated by high temperatures across the world, experts say.
Activists file last-gasp suit as Indonesia fails again to pass Indigenous bill
- Lawyers for Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance have initiated legal proceedings against the government for its failure to pass a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights.
- The suit seeks to compel Indonesia’s parliament to expedite passage of the bill, which has remained deadlocked for more than a decade amid intransigence by elected representatives.
- “It still needs to be discussed,” a senior parliamentarian from the Golkar party said earlier this month.
- However, few expect any progress over the next few months, with a new parliament to be sworn in on Oct. 1 and a new president on Oct. 20.
Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
- The state of Pará has created two new conservation areas along the Amazonian coastline, placing almost all of its mangroves under federal protection.
- The two reserves mean that an additional 74,700 hectares (184,600 acres) have been included in the largest and most conserved continuous belt of mangroves on the planet.
- The process to create the reserves took more than 13 years and faced several setbacks; the final outcome has been celebrated by environmentalists as a victory for local communities and biodiversity.
- The new extractive reserves allow resident populations to engage in traditional and sustainable extractive practices such as fishing and hunting, while keeping out big businesses, such as commercial aquaculture or logging.
Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.
In largest ever study, Indigenous and local communities report the impacts of climate change
- Indigenous peoples and local communities are reporting a series of tangible and nuanced impacts of climate change, according to a new study.
- The study collected 1,661 firsthand reports of change in sites across all inhabited continents and aggregated the reports into 369 indicators of climate change impacts, including changes in precipitation, plant cultivation and marine ecosystems.
- Existing measures to track climate change impacts are barely able to relate to the diverse and complex ways in which local people experience and observe environmental changes, according to the authors. For instance, instrumental measurements might capture changes in rainfall patterns but miss crucial relationships between climate change awareness, sensitivity and vulnerability.
- This research constitutes the largest global effort by Indigenous peoples and local communities to compile and categorize local observations of climate change and its impacts.
International hesitancy to adopt environmental regulations threatens Indigenous rights
- In recent years, state and corporate actors have been hesitant to adopt measures to reach climate and biodiversity goals, in some cases watering down regulatory frameworks or pulling out of voluntary commitments.
- Industry experts, the private sector and environmental organizations say this is not surprising, but for different reasons: Some argue the measures are too difficult to meet, while others say parties are putting profits before sustainability.
- The EU has struggled to pass its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), a new legislative framework that aims to enhance the protection of the environment and human rights. Meanwhile, major banks and financial institutions are pulling away from various voluntary frameworks, such as Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
- Critics warn that a lack of such regulations could deprive Indigenous peoples of important protections to safeguard and guarantee their rights.
The environmental mismanagement of enduring oil industry impacts in the Pan Amazon
- The history of extractivism in the Pan Amazon shows that environmental damage has been commonplace, only now there are new demands from the parent companies that influence all service providers involved.
- In this section, Killeen explains that any hydrocarbon project (whether oil or gas) entails a high risk of social conflict with the communities living next to exploration and exploitation areas.
- The governments of countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil must ensure that there is real environmental responsibility for the oil spills that are damaging ecosystems and the livelihoods of communities.
Indigenous efforts to save Peru’s Marañon River could spell trouble for big oil
- In March, the Federation of Kukama Indigenous Women in the Parinari district of Loreto won a lawsuit against the oil company Petroperú and the Peruvian government, protecting the Marañon River from oil pollution.
- Since the 1970s, the exploration of oil reserves in the Peruvian Amazon has resulted in hundreds of oil leaks and spills, compromising the health of Indigenous communities.
- While the defendants have already appealed the decision, a favorable ruling in higher courts could force oil and gas companies to answer for decades of pollution in the Peruvian Amazon.
New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms
- In the face of growing demand for critical minerals, Indigenous organizations developed a guide to help Indigenous communities implement their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) when investors visit their lands for potential mining projects.
- Of the 30 metals and minerals needed to feed these technologies, about 54% are on and near Indigenous and peasant lands, according to a study published in Nature.
- The guide helps communities mold the FPIC framework to their governance and value systems and provides them with a “menu of options,” including preparations in advance of investor meetings, how to work through the negotiation process, steps to consider after a decision and a framework to agree on benefits of a project.
- By not following the FPIC process, companies open themselves up to operational, political, legal, reputational and investment risk when Indigenous activists protest their activities, a legal expert says.
What’s really at stake in the Venezuela-Guyana land dispute? (commentary)
- Venezuela recently deployed military forces to the Guyanese border in what may be an attempt to annex part of the smaller country’s national territory.
- Media coverage has generally focused on the rich natural resources of the area which Venezuela may be interested in– including oil, gold, and diamonds–but others including the region’s Indigenous peoples say its ecological role is just as important for Guyana to protect.
- “If we truly value this land – not only for its natural resources but for its unique beauty, its cultural and biological diversity, and its outsized role in combating climate change – then we must defend it from foreign interests and extractive industries in equal measure,” argues a Goldman Prize-winning Indigenous leader from the region in a new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Report links pulpwood estate clearing Bornean orangutan habitat to RGE Group
- NGOs have accused PT Mayawana Persada, a company with a massive pulpwood concession in Indonesian Borneo, of extensive deforestation that threatens both Indigenous lands and orangutan habitat.
- In a recent report, the NGOs also highlighted links that they say tie the company to Singapore-based paper and palm oil conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE).
- RGE has denied any affiliation with Mayawana Persada, despite findings of shared key personnel, operational management connections, and supply chain links.
- The report also suggests the Mayawana Persada plantation is gearing up to supply pulpwood in time for a massive production boost by RGE, which is expanding its flagship mill in Sumatra and building a new mill in Borneo.
‘Planting water, eating Caatinga & irrigating with the sun’: Interview with agroecologist Tião Alves
- In an interview with Mongabay, Brazilian agroecologist Tião Alves tells how he has been teaching thousands of rural workers to survive in the Caatinga biome, severely afflicted by drought, climate change and desertification.
- At the head of Serta, one of the most important agroecology schools in the Brazilian Northeast, he teaches low-cost technologies that ensure food security with a minimum of resources, both natural and financial.
- Currently, 13% of the Caatinga is already in the process of desertification, the result of a combination of deforestation, inadequate irrigation, extreme droughts and changes in the global climate.
Fanned by El Niño, megafires in Brazil threaten Amazon’s preserved areas
- Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.
- In February alone, the number of hotspots detected in this northernmost Amazonian state hit an all-time high of 2,057.
- According to IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, 23% of the outbreaks recorded in Roraima are in Indigenous areas, affecting at least 13 territories.
- The Roraima state government says controlled fires in private areas are allowed with a permit, but the large number of fires this year indicates criminal activity.
Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- The Moa Indigenous community live in a remote region of Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, on the fringe of a national park established in the 1990s.
- The society’s customary rules and norms mandate matrilineal aspects, including that women in the community have responsibility for a type of subsistence farming known as pampa.
- Forestry economics professor Syukur Umar says a crucial boundary change made by the government has led to sudden shifts in the community’s forestry.
E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration underscores Indigenous rights as a conservation solution (commentary)
- The E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration calls attention to the key role of Indigenous peoples to (as well as the challenges they face from) climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation programs.
- A word meaning ‘gill of the manta ray’ and released ahead of COP28 last year by Asian Indigenous leaders, the E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration is a reminder of what remains undone toward upholding the rights of Indigenous communities.
- Commitments at the global level to recognize Indigenous knowledge and protect communities’ rights must also be reflected in regional and national policy frameworks, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Why language is central to the survival of cultures and communities
- More than half the world’s languages could go extinct by 2100, The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues says.
- Roughly 4,000 of the world’s 6,700 languages are spoken by Indigenous communities and contain knowledge key for conservation and human health, but multiple factors threaten their existence along with their speakers’ cultures.
- Joining the podcast is Jay Griffiths, author of ‘Wild’ and other seminal books about how language and relationship are central to cultural survival, and why connection to the land is a universal human right.
- The guest also draws parallels between humans, nature and culture: “There’s great research that suggests that we learned ethics from wolves [of taking] an attitude to the world of both me the individual, and of me the pack member,” she says.
Squeezed-out Amazon smallholders seek new frontiers in Brazil’s Roraima state
- As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
- The isolated south of Roraima state has become a priority destination for these migrants, who buy land from informal brokers with questionable paperwork; much of the land has been grabbed from the vast undesignated lands of the Brazilian government.
- Although the appetite for land grabs has diminished since the start of the Lula administration, the region has seen an increase in deforestation in recent years.
Indonesian nickel project harms environment and human rights, report says
- A new report highlights land rights violations, deforestation and pollution associated with a massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera.
- Community members accuse the developers of the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) of land grabbing and of polluting rivers and the sea.
- The Indonesian government has billed its nickel policy as a push toward clean energy, but mining of the metal has resulted in at least 5,331 hectares (13,173 acres) of deforestation on Halmahera alone.
- The report calls on global automakers sourcing their nickel from IWIP to exert pressure on the miners and smelters to prevent environmental and human rights harms.
Megafires are spreading in the Amazon — and they are here to stay
- Wildfires consuming more than 100 square kilometers (38 square miles) of tropical rainforest shouldn’t happen, yet they are becoming more and more frequent.
- Because of its intense humidity and tall trees, fire does not occur spontaneously in the Amazon; usually accidental, forest fires are caused by uncontrolled small fires coming from crop burning, livestock management or clear-cutting.
- Scientists say the rainforest is becoming increasingly flammable, even in areas not directly related to deforestation; fire is now spreading faster and higher, reaching more than 10 meters (32 feet) in height.
In Brazil’s soy belt, community seed banks offer hope for the Amazon
- In Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso, monoculture has replaced large swathes of the Amazon rainforest and ushered in changes in climate patterns, including severe droughts and scarce rains, according to climate experts.
- Traditional and Indigenous peoples are looking to counter the impacts of large-scale soy plantations in the region by setting up community seed banks and reforesting degraded lands with species native to the Amazon.
- Experts say seed initiatives could play a key role in restoration efforts as Brazil scrambles to rehabilitate 60,000 square kilometers (23,160 square miles) of deforested land by 2030 and agribusiness faces global demands to reverse the damage it has inflicted on the Amazon.
- Seed banks could also help restore the biodiversity being lost in the Amazon, preserve species central to Indigenous cultures, and mitigate climate change, locally and globally.
Andes community-led conservation curbs more páramo loss than state-protected area: Study
- In the central highlands of Ecuador, land managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities is associated with improved outcomes for drought adaptation and páramo conservation, according to a new study.
- The study finds that páramo areas managed by communities in this region are better protected than those under the care of the state.
- Due to the advance of the agricultural frontier in the highlands, approximately 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of páramo are lost every day, which threatens the water supply of the entire region.
- Community-led land management that incorporates inclusive participation, traditional knowledge and the cultural values of those who inhabit the areas, coined by reseachers as “social technology,” can aid in the conservation of the páramo.
Critics decry controversial bill that loosens deforestation restrictions in Peru
- On Jan. 10, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to the country’s forest and wildlife law, which loosens restrictions on deforestation and may affect the rights of Indigenous peoples, experts warn.
- According to opponents of this amendment, this change in legislation could pave the way for a large expansion of deforestation across Peru’s forests, with the Amazon at risk.
- Proponents of the bill argue that it will bring stability to the Peruvian agricultural sector and offer legal security to those dedicated to agricultural production.
- A group of civil society organizations and lawyers have filed a motion with the Constitutional Court, arguing the new revision violated the Constitution.
Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- A recent study warns that the ongoing construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo could destabilize the population of endangered proboscis monkeys currently thriving in the area.
- President Joko Widodo has characterized the development as green and with a minimal environmental impact, but concerns have arisen over the potential threat to the nearby Balikpapan Bay mangrove ecosystem that’s home to proboscis monkeys and other threatened wildlife.
- Scientists have advocated for sustainable development practices and emphasized the importance of respecting local biodiversity while constructing the new city, Nusantara.
- Their recommendations include legal protection for affected areas, habitat restoration, and collaboration with local stakeholders to mitigate the environmental impact.
New guidebook supports U.S. tribal nations in adopting rights-of-nature laws
- A new guidebook aims to assist tribal nations across the United States in adopting legal frameworks that recognize the rights of nature.
- The growing rights-of-nature movement seeks to protect the environment by legally acknowledging its inherent right to exist and thrive independent of human use.
- The guide examines real-world challenges and pathways for passing laws and includes case studies of tribes that have enacted rights-of-nature laws through constitutions, ordinances and resolutions.
- The guide contains practical guidance on steps like surveying community perspectives, holding educational gatherings, and forming planning committees.
African Parks vows to investigate allegations of abuse at Congolese park
- In late January, the Daily Mail published allegations that rangers working with African Parks at Odzala-Kokoua park in the Republic of Congo had beaten and raped Baka community members.
- In a statement, African Parks said it had hired the U.K.-based law firm Omnia Strategy to investigate the allegations, which were raised in a letter sent to a board member by the advocacy group Survival International last year.
- African Parks said it became aware of the allegations through that letter, but in 2022, a local civil society group in the Republic of Congo released a statement accusing rangers of committing “acts of torture.”
In the Brazilian outback, the half-century Kapinawá struggle for sacred ground
- The Catimbau Valley, in the backlands of Pernambuco state, is one of the most biodiverse areas in the Caatinga dry forest and also an archaeological treasure, with the second-largest collection of rock inscriptions in Brazil.
- It’s also the sacred and ancestral territory of the Kapinawá, a people who discovered their Indigenous identity in the mid-1970s amid a war against land-grabbers.
- Part of the Kapinawá lands became an Indigenous territory, while the remaining area was later transformed into a national park in 2002; those who live there complain about the numerous restrictions they now face.
- While fighting to reclaim their lands, the Kapinawá turn the Caatinga into a laboratory for experiments in agroecology, combining biodiversity preservation and food production.
New fund supports Indigenous-led land management in biodiverse area of Bolivia
- A new funding mechanism aims to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous groups in the region, including the Tacana, Lecos, T’simane Mosetene and San José de Uchupiamonas Indigenous peoples, who also contributed to the creation of this fund, along with the Regional Organization of Indigenous People of La Paz (CPILAP).
- The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) launched the new funding mechanism, in collaboration with Bolivia’s Foundation for the Development of the National System of Protected Areas (FUNDESNAP); the new mechanism will channel conservation funds to Indigenous organizations in the Madidi Landscape.
- The Madidi Landscape is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial protected areas in the world, where scientists have recorded the most plant, butterfly, bird and mammal species.
- The new fund, announced Oct. 30, has so far attracted $650,000 in initial support from the Bezos Earth Fund.
First ever U.S. Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area declared in California
- The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Resighini Rancheria, and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community designated the first ever Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the U.S. along the northern California coast.
- The tribes plan to steward nearly 700 mi2 (1,800 km2) of their ancestral ocean and coastal territories from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California.
- As sovereign nations, the tribes say they’re not seeking state or federal agencies’ permission to assert tribally led stewardship rights and responsibilities; rather, they want to establish cooperative relationships recognizing their inherent Indigenous governance authority.
- The tribes aim to restore traditional ecological knowledge and management practices that sustained the area’s natural abundance before colonial disruption.
Lula’s ambitious green agenda runs up against Congress’s agribusiness might
- With reduced support in Brazil’s Congress following the 2022 elections, the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been unable to prevent the passage of bills dismantling environmental safeguards in favor of agribusiness interests.
- Throughout 2023, the agribusiness caucus managed to push through legislation undermining Indigenous rights to land and slashing regulations on pesticides.
- The same election that brought Lula back to power in Brazil also led to a conservative Congress that’s more right-wing, better-organized, and aware of its powers, according to experts.
- One bright spot is a drop in Amazon Rainforest deforestation, a headline figure for Lula’s international diplomacy; but more progress is needed to give Brazil a prominent place in international environmental advocacy, experts say.
Jokowi’s land reform agenda stalls as conflicts nearly double, report shows
- Land conflicts in Indonesia have nearly doubled under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as his administration pursues an investor-first economic agenda that has sidelined local communities and the environment, a new report shows.
- There were 2,939 pending disputes affecting 1.75 million households in the nine years to date of the Jokowi administration, compared to 1,520 disputes involving 977,000 households during the 10 years of the previous administration.
- The report by the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) says the government has largely failed in its reform agenda, having previously promised to register community-owned lands and redistribute expired concessions back to communities.
- A key driver of land disputes are infrastructure projects that the Jokowi administration has designated as projects of “national strategic importance,” which gives the government eminent domain rights to evict entire communities.
Promise of full demarcation for isolated Amazon tribe rings hollow for some
- The 23-year struggle to declare a territory for the isolated Kawahiva people of the Brazilian Amazon could finally conclude this year after the government announced the closing stages of the demarcation process will begin soon.
- The physical demarcation will formally define the boundaries of the 412,000-hectare (1.02-million-acre) territory in Mato Grosso state, home to some 45-50 Kawahiva, which is a crucial step before a presidential declaration recognizing the Indigenous territory.
- However, some Indigenous experts remain skeptical the territory will ever be fully demarcated in the face of ever-present delays and structural problems within the Indigenous affairs agency.
- The territory sits within the “Arc of Deforestation” in the southern part of the Brazilian Amazon, which is slowly moving north as cattle ranchers, miners, loggers and soy growers clear forest for more land.
Historic land win for Ecuador’s Siekopai sets precedent for other Indigenous peoples
- Following 80 years of displacement, Indigenous Siekopai communities regained ownership of their ancestral Amazonian homeland on Ecuador’s border with Peru.
- The provincial court of Sucumbíos ruled in favor of the community, saying the environment ministry must deliver a property title for 42,360 hectares (104,674 acres) to the Siekopai, as well as a public apology for its violation of their collective territorial rights.
- The ruling is historic because it’s the first time an Indigenous community whose ancestral territory lies within a nationally protected area will receive title to the land.
- According to experts, this new ruling may change the approach communities use to obtain their ancestral lands in Ecuador, and the country may see more communities filing similar lawsuits to obtain lands locked away for state conservation.
False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous groups cede forest rights for sketchy finance
- Several companies registered in Latin American countries claiming to have U.N. endorsement have persuaded Indigenous communities to hand over the economic rights to their forests for decades to come, a Mongabay investigation has found. The companies share commercial interests across various jurisdictions, and have not been able to demonstrate experience in sustainable finance projects.
- Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were promised jobs and local development projects in exchange for putting on the market more than 9.5 million hectares (23.5 million acres) of forests. According to community sources, the claims of U.N. backing were the main selling point for agreeing to put their forests on the market. All three U.N. entities cited by the companies have rejected any involvement.
- Mongabay has found that the methodology employed for valuing natural capital has not been used before; there are no public details regarding its scientific and technical basis; and the company that created the methodology refused to share information about it.
- Experts have raised concerns that a lack of regulation in the fast-growing sustainable finance industry is allowing abuses against communities that act as guardians for critical ecosystems.
Amazon chocolatiers: Biofactory offers ‘new way of living’ for forest communities
- The Surucuá community in the state of Pará is the first to receive an Amazonian Creative Laboratory, a compact mobile biofactory designed to help kick-start the Amazon’s bioeconomy.
- Instead of simply harvesting forest-grown crops, traditional communities in the Amazon Rainforest can use the biofactories to process, package and sell bean-to-bar chocolate and similar products at premium prices.
- Having a livelihood coming directly from the forest encourages communities to stay there and protect it rather than engaging in harmful economic activities in the Amazon.
- The project is in its early stages, but it demonstrates what the Amazon’s bioeconomy could look like: an economic engine that experts estimate could generate at least $8 billion per year.
Reports allege abuses by Glencore in Peru and Colombia, and the banks funding them
- Mining giant Glencore continues to commit serious environmental and human rights violations in its mines in Peru and Colombia despite public promises to respect human rights and the environment, according to three news reports by advocacy organizations.
- The reports document cases of air and water pollution, extensive environmental damage, lack of consultation with communities, and restricting access to land.
- European banks and investors, including Groupe BPCE, HSBC, Abrdn and BNP Paribas, hold the largest investments in Glencore, pumping $44.2 billion into the company between 2016 and 2023.
- Glencore denies the allegations made against it and says it has continued to make progress on its climate targets and remains on track to meet its environmental and human rights commitments.
Photos: Top species discoveries from 2023
- Scientists described a slew of new species this past year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squid, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons.
- Experts estimate less than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to local and Indigenous people and have a common name.
- Many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction as soon as they are found, and many species may go extinct before they are named, experts say.
With half its surface water area lost, an Amazonian state runs dry
- Water bodies across the Brazilian state of Roraima have shrunk in area by half over the past 20 years, according to research from the mapping collective MapBiomas.
- Today, locals are facing even drier times amid a severe drought in the Amazon, which has led to record-low levels of water in the rainforest’s main rivers.
- Since 1985, Roraima’s agricultural area has grown by more than 1,100%, with experts pointing to crops as one of the state’s main drivers of water loss.
How a 160-year-old pelt piqued new findings on Indigenous ‘woolly dog’ breed
- Researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History recently studied and analyzed a 160-year-old pelt of an extinct woolly dog, part of a breed that Indigenous Coast Salish communities cared for for thousands of years.
- For the first time, the study sequenced the woolly dog’s genomes to analyze the species’ ancestry and genetics and the factors contributing to its sudden disappearance at the end of the 19th century.
- Based on the genetic data, they estimated that woolly dogs biologically evolved from other breeds about 5,000 years ago.
- Researchers say numerous socio-cultural factors are likely responsible for the species’ disappearance. Chief among them were the impacts of European colonization.
Little achieved for Indigenous groups at U.N. climate summit, delegates say
- At this year’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, Indigenous delegates numbered more than 300, but were left generally disappointed with the outcomes of the event.
- The final agreement had little inclusion of Indigenous rights and excluded an Indigenous representative from sitting on the board of the newly launched loss and damage fund.
- Indigenous groups say two big climate mitigation strategies, the clean energy transition and carbon markets, should include robust protection of Indigenous rights and consent.
- Despite setbacks, Indigenous leaders say they’re working on increasing their presence and influence at the next climate conferences, including upping their numbers to 3,000 delegates, creating a large international Indigenous Commission, and taking part in the summit’s decision-making.
Ecuador court ruling leaves a legal gray area in environmental consultation
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court struck down a controversial decree that tried to reform how environmental consultations for large-scale infrastructure projects are carried out with communities.
- Environmental and Indigenous groups had filed a motion with the court, calling the decree unconstitutional, and the court agreed, saying consultation processes can only be regulated through an organic law issued by the National Assembly, not through an executive decree.
- However, in a rare move, the court also deferred its ruling, allowing the decree to remain in place until after the National Assembly creates the needed laws.
- Lawyers say the ruling doesn’t clear up the confusion, and the multiple interpretations of the Constitution, that lie at the heart of Ecuador’s consultation processes.
Outcry as Brazil Congress overrides president to revive anti-Indigenous law
- Brazil’s Congress has pushed through a new law that includes several anti-Indigenous measures that strip back land rights and open traditional territories to mining and agribusiness.
- It includes the controversial time frame thesis, requiring Indigenous populations to prove they physically occupied their land on Oct. 5 1988, the day of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution; failure to provide such evidence will nullify demarcated land.
- The decision provoked outrage among activists, who say the new law is the biggest setback for Indigenous rights in Brazil in decades.
- Both President Lula and the Supreme Court have previously called the measures in the bill unconstitutional and against public interests, and Indigenous organizations announced they will challenge the law.
New tool aims to make nature-based solutions projects in SE Asia a better sell
- A coalition of conservation NGOs has introduced a new tool aimed at helping local communities in Southeast Asia apply more effectively for funding for nature-based solutions projects.
- The group, which includes Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy, says the region has massive potential for projects to absorb carbon and protect wildlife, but that access to funding remains a huge gap.
- The new NbS tool is designed to help project managers put together project documentation that includes data analysis that should make it easier for donors to immediately identify the benefits from the projects being proposed.
- The tool isn’t limited to helping package nature-based solutions projects; proponents say it can also be used to put together the paperwork needed for other community-led initiatives that require data documentation and analysis.
‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars
- Researchers have launched a new book that catalogs hundreds of plant species from Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that have known medicinal uses.
- The book draws on the knowledge of Indigenous communities who have found a use for these plants over the course of generations, and whose livelihoods and cultures are closely intertwined with the fate of these species.
- The book also serves to highlight the imperiled situation of Prey Lang and its native species as deforestation by politically linked timber-trafficking networks continues to destroy vast swaths of this ostensibly protected area.
- “If the current trends of deforestation continue,” the authors warn, “an immense body of knowledge about nature will be lost, reducing the resilience and adaptability of future generations.”
Activists slam ‘independent’ probe by Indonesian palm oil giant into violations
- A report commissioned by Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari into alleged violations allegedly by its subsidiaries on the island of Sulawesi failed to investigate key issues such as community rights, NGOs say.
- The investigation was triggered by multiple media and NGO reports on the long-running conflict between three AAL subsidiaries and local communities in Central Sulawesi province who allege the companies grabbed their land.
- The investigation failed to verify whether AAL’s subsidiaries had obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local and Indigenous communities before operating in the area, according to Walhi and Friends of the Earth US.
- Instead, the verification focused on proving whether the communities in the area had legal permits to their land that overlaps with AAL’s concessions, resulting in biased and inaccurate findings, the NGOs say.
Community tropical forest management linked to social & environmental benefits: Study
- A study shows that forests in 15 tropical countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities are associated with improved outcomes for carbon storage, biodiversity and forest livelihoods.
- The study finds that the positive outcomes were most likely observed when formal management institutions were in place and Indigenous and local communities had influence in defining their rights and roles in forest use and management.
- The findings suggest that governance reforms, like supporting Indigenous and local community rights or roles to manage forests, can play a role in supporting both human and environmental goals in tropical forested landscapes.
- However, giving local people formal rights is just a starting point, the lead author says; other procedures and support need to be in place to determine whether people actually get those rights and if they are able to use them to good effect.
Indigenous groups rebuke court OK for palm oil company to raze Papua forests
- Indigenous Awyu tribal members in Papua lambasted a court decision that effectively greenlights palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari’s plans to raze 26,326 hectares (65,000 acres) of primary forest that sit on ancestral lands.
- If developed in full, the project would replace 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies.
- The impending deforestation would subsequently release at least 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is 5% of Indonesia’s estimated annual carbon emissions.
Despite progress, small share of climate pledge went to Indigenous groups: report
- A report from funders of a $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference found that 48% of the financing was distributed.
- The findings also show that only 2.1% of the funding went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, despite petitions to increase direct funding for their role in combating climate change and biodiversity loss.
- This is down from the 2.9% of direct funding that was disbursed in 2021.
- Both donors and representatives of Indigenous and community groups call for more direct funding to these organizations by reducing the obstacles they face, improving their capacity, and respecting traditional knowledge systems.
Sieged by mining and megaprojects, the Munduruku push for land rights in the Amazon
- In the face of threats from illegal mining and major infrastructure projects, the Munduruku people of the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory have for years performed annual “self-demarcation” expeditions to protect the land and press for official protection.
- The land is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
- The Munduruku say they now hope that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will sign its protection, which, given the vast array of threats to their land and culture, they say can’t come soon enough.
Kenyan pastoralists fight for a future adapted to climate change (commentary)
- Pastoralism provides much of the milk and protein consumed in Kenya, but it faces a perilous future especially from climate change but also a lack of infrastructure and land rights.
- Recent droughts have exacerbated the challenges, leading to conflict between pastoralist communities struggling to find enough forage and water for livestock.
- Fresh ideas and new programs are arising to help ease the situation in areas of northern Kenya, from where this dispatch originates.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Collaboration key to rediscovery of egg-laying mammal in Papua’s Cyclops Mountains
- Collaboration between international and local researchers, conservation authorities, NGOs and Indigenous groups was key to the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and multiple unidentified species.
- “I think the trust between the expedition team and the community was important in the success of the expedition, and a lack of trust may have contributed to former searches being less successful,” said University of Oxford researcher James Kempton who proposed the expedition in 2019.
- The highlight of the expedition was camera-trap images of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, distantly related to the platypus, which scientists hadn’t seen since 1961 and which they’d long feared was extinct.
- The expedition also found the Mayr’s honeyeater, a bird scientists haven’t seen since 2008; an entirely new genus of tree-dwelling shrimp; countless new species of insects; and a previously unknown cave system.
How Indigenous peoples and local communities can make the voluntary carbon market work for them (commentary)
- The voluntary carbon market has the potential to address $4.1 trillion in nature financing gap by 2050 and support Indigenous peoples and local communities — when done right, argue a cohort of Indigenous leaders in a new commentary.
- The voluntary carbon market can work for and support Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs), and them for it, but these communities have not been adequately engaged or consulted to participate in this carbon market.
- The Indigenous leaders announce the new IPs and LCs Voluntary Carbon Market Engagement Forum that is taking shape and will try to address these IPs and LCs’ priorities. The Forum is now coordinating open calls for Governing Board members and Forum partners.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
The coveted legacy of the ‘Man of the Hole’ and his cultivated Amazon forest
- Tanaru, also known as The Man of the Hole, was an Indigenous person who survived several massacres that decimated his relatives in the state of Rondônia, in the Brazilian Amazon, in the 1980s and 1990s.
- He was the last of his group and refused contact with non-Indigenous Brazilian society and with other Indigenous people for decades, and he died peacefully in 2022.
- Tanaru’s dramatic story was told in Corumbiara, a documentary by Vincent Carelli, who hoped to capture Tanaru’s footage to persuade the Brazilian state to recognize the land as an Indigenous territory.
- Now Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.
Last of the reef netters: An Indigenous, sustainable salmon fishery
- Reef net fishing is an ancient, sustainable salmon-harvesting technique created and perfected by the Lummi and other Coast Salish Indigenous people over a millennium.
- Rather than chasing the fish, this technique uses ropes to create an artificial reef that channels fish toward a net stretched between two anchored boats. Fishers observe the water and pull in the net at the right moment, intercepting salmon as they migrate from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River near present-day Washington state and British Columbia.
- Colonialism, government policies, habitat destruction, and declining salmon populations have separated tribes from this tradition. Today, only 12 reef net permits exist, with just one belonging to the Lummi Nation.
- Many tribal members hope to revive reef net fishing to restore their cultural identity and a sustainable salmon harvest but face difficulties balancing economic realities with preserving what the Lummi consider a sacred heritage.
End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara
- Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo for a documentary film nine months before his death, returned to Arariboia in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
- “If those invaders had managed to kill us both, me and Paulo, they were going to hide us in the forest. Who would find us? Nobody was ever going to find me or Paulo again in a forest of that size,” Laércio says of his will to warn the guardians about Paulo’s murder, even as he suffered four gunshot wounds.
- Justice may soon be on the horizon for the Guajajara people: Paulo’s case will be the first killing of an Indigenous defender that will go before a federal jury, likely in the first half of 2024, after a court in late October denied a motion by those accused to try the case in state court.
Glencore’s coal expansion plans face shareholder and Indigenous opposition
- Swiss-based mining giant Glencore says it plans to challenge the proposed listing of a heritage site, the Ravensworth Homestead, that could deter the planned expansion of its Glendell coal mine.
- Glencore, the largest coal producer in Australia, faces criticism from shareholders for its lack of transparency on how it plans to meet its climate targets, especially in light of proposed thermal coal mine expansions in the country.
- Listing the homestead, which is a culturally significant site for the Indigenous Wonnarua people, is now being reconsidered by heritage officials after a process that sources say has dragged on.
- The Glendell mine is one of several that could increase their emissions under a loophole in the government’s revised “safeguard mechanism” that’s intended to bind the mining sector to a reduction in emissions.
Calls grow to repurpose land squandered in Cambodia’s concession policy
- The mismanagement of large swaths of Cambodia’s land by the country’s elites under the policy of economic land concessions has displaced thousands of rural families and accounted for 40% of total deforestation.
- With even the government seeming to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of ELCs as an economic driver, calls are growing to return the land to dispossessed communities or repurpose them in other ways.
- One expert says the role of local communities will be central to the success of any reformation of the ELC system and will need to be carefully considered to avoid the pitfalls of the old system.
- Another proposes giving land currently owned by nonperforming ELCs to agricultural cooperatives managed by communities, placing more negotiating power in the hands of farmers rather than concessionaires.
Independent project steps in as government slow to map Indonesian ancestral lands
- An independent initiative in Indonesia, the Ancestral Domain Registration Agency (BRWA), has ramped up its efforts in mapping customary lands by identifying 26.9 million hectares (66.5 million acres) — an area twice the size of Java — of land claimed by Indigenous communities.
- But the government’s efforts in recognizing these customary lands is lagging behind, with only 3.73 million hectares (9.21 million acres) formally recognized; that’s just 14% of what the BRWA has mapped.
- And this formal recognition is still largely limited to local governments, with the central government having only issued land certificates for customary lands in two provinces, 12 hectares (29 acres) of land certified in West Sumatra and 699.7 hectares (1,728 acres) in Papua.
Amazon drought: Much damage still to come (commentary)
- The Amazon Rainforest is being hit by three kinds of drought at once: an “eastern El Niño,” a “central El Niño” and an “Atlantic dipole.”
- Together, these drought conditions extend to almost the entire Amazon, and they are expected to last until at least mid-2024.
- These phenomena are all aggravated by global warming.
- This is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay. It is an updated translation of a text by the authors that is available in Portuguese on Amazônia Real.
Amazon recovery offers hope of big rewards but poses equally big challenges
- While deforestation rates have plunged, up to 80 million hectares (198 million acres) of the Brazilian Amazon have already been destroyed, most of it on private and undesignated public lands.
- Reforestation pledges have promised to replant more than 12 million hectares (30 million acres) in the coming decade.
- Carbon credit enthusiasts say they believe the market could inject billions into the region and pay for reforestation.
- Experts are skeptical that either of these plans would work at the scale needed, as landowners often see value in clearing the forest.
World Heritage Site listing for Ethiopian park leads to eviction of farming community
- The new designation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Ethiopia will also come with the relocation of the more than 20,000 people living inside Bale Mountains National Park, say park officials.
- Home to a wealth of biodiversity, the park has experienced a dramatic increase in illegal human settlements, which park officials and conservationists say threatens its natural resources, forest cover, and habitat for rare and endemic species.
- Community members have mixed feelings about the planned relocation, with longtime residents mostly opposing it due to attachment to the land and fear over their livelihoods, and others open to receiving fair compensation in exchange.
- The relocation strategy is still in its initial stages and hasn’t officially been shared with communities, though UNESCO and Ethiopian officials underline the importance of consulting the locals and supporting their livelihoods.
Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.
For 1st time, Indonesia government recognizes ancestral forests in Aceh — but only some
- The Indonesian government has recognized 22,549 hectares (55,700 acres) of ancestral forests in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra — the first time for the region.
- In total, Indigenous communities in Aceh seek recognition of 144,497 hectares (357,060 acres) of customary forests, and thus activists are calling for the government to recognize the rest of the forests.
- The communities welcome the recognition, saying it will give them legal protection to manage their forests in a sustainable manner.
People and nature suffer as historic drought fuels calamitous Amazon fires
- The state of Amazonas, the largest in Brazil, recorded 3,181 fires from Oct. 1-23, an all-time record for this month, according to monitoring by Brazil’s space agency, INPE.
- Surrounded by fires, Manaus, the state capital, has been shrouded in a thick layer of smoke, increasing the number of medical emergencies for respiratory problems.
- Researchers writing in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution say fires have become the main factor in the degradation of the Brazilian Amazon, threatening to undo the results of environmental protection policies.
- Water levels in the Solimões, Negro, Madeira and other great Amazonian rivers have dropped to unprecedented levels, forcing families to live on boats and drag themselves through the mud in search of water and food.
Lula partially blocks anti-Indigenous land rights bill, but trouble isn’t over
- Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva partially blocked a controversial bill that dramatically violates Indigenous rights, a month after the Supreme Court ruled out its core article.
- While some Indigenous activists lament that the bill wasn’t fully rejected, many hail the partial veto as a win for human rights and the protection of the Constitution.
- The vetoed bill now returns to Congress, where Lula’s decision will be upheld or rejected; if rejected, the time frame bill will be enacted, in a major blow to Indigenous rights and environmental protection, experts say.
- The veto sparked outrage among Brazil’s powerful rural lobby, which vowed to reject Lula’s changes to the bill, although any decision made in Congress can be challenged in the Supreme Court.
Indigenous Suruí turn invaders’ crop into high-quality Amazonian coffee
- The Indigenous Paiter Suruí people of Brazil have reclaimed the coffee farms established by invaders on their land, in the process opening up a new source of livelihood and strengthening community bonds.
- Through training and partnerships, this Indigenous community has learned how to process coffee beans to specialty standards, yielding a high-quality and highly valued product.
- Today, coffee production is a significant source of income for 132 families of various Indigenous ethnicities living in Rondônia state.
- Growing coffee has also become an opportunity for the Suruí to tell their own story, through ethnotourism and the training of Indigenous baristas like Celesty Suruí.
Deforestation surges in hotspot of critically endangered Bornean orangutans
- Deforestation within a pulpwood concession that overlaps with key orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo has escalated in recent months.
- Concession holder PT Mayawana Persada cleared 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of forest between January and August, or 40 times the size of New York’s Central Park, of which 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) were areas identified as orangutan habitat.
- In July alone, the company cleared 4,970 hectares (12,300 acres), the highest monthly deforestation figure recorded.
Indigenous seed collectors grow a network of restoration across Brazil
- Nearly 150 Indigenous seed collectors from the Amazonian Bioeconomic Seed Network, the first of its kind in the state of Rondônia, traveled to neighboring Mato Grosso state to meet with Brazil’s oldest network of seed collectors, the Xingu Seed Network.
- In the absence of a government-led program, exchanges like these between existing grassroots groups have been the best way to help newer networks gain expertise and consolidate themselves as organizations, with technical training and management strategies.
- The seed collector networks are the base of the ecological restoration chain and will play an essential role in enabling Brazil to reach its goal of restoring 12.5 million hectares (30.9 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030 — vital in the fight to avoid climate breakdown.
- Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change says it hopes to implement a national plan of action this year aimed at filling the gaps in the restoration chain, by expanding forest cover, incentivizing certain sectors of the economy, and developing financial mechanisms.
Brazil’s Indigenous communities turn to native beekeeping to recover nature
- Indigenous territories located in different Brazilian biomes — the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest — are hosting beekeeping projects aimed at both generating an income and restoring local ecosystems.
- The community projects show how these efforts, associated with agroecological food production, can improve quality of life, especially in the face of climate change impacts.
- The movement began four years ago with a crowdfunding campaign to establish beekeeping in the Amazon, and today includes 53 traditional communities involved in native beekeeping across the country.
Brazil strikes intruders of Amazon’s most deforested Indigenous land
- On Oct. 2, federal agencies descended upon the Native Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacajá territories in the state of Pará in an attempt to remove non-Indigenous people from the land.
- Human rights activists praise the move as Indigenous communities within these lands continue to struggle against soaring levels of deforestation and decades-old conflicts with outsiders.
- Insiders say that federal agencies are temporarily relocating Indigenous people to villages far from invader settlements to ensure their safety.
- The Parakanã people from the Apyterewa Territory lament that local authorities in Pará are rallying in Brazil’s capital Brasília to suspend operations and allow the illegal invaders to remain on the land.
Indonesian police slammed after protester demanding rightful land is shot dead
- Indonesian police have reportedly shot dead one protester and injured two others in a flareup of yet another land dispute between communities and outside investors.
- Residents of the mostly Indigenous Dayak village of Bangkal in Central Kalimantan province have since Sept. 16 protested over palm oil company HMBP’s failure to allocate land to them as required by law.
- Police claim the protesters attacked security forces in the Oct. 7 clash, but video and witness accounts from the ground strongly suggest otherwise.
- Activists say the Bangkal case is emblematic of how the Indonesian government prioritizes commercial interests over those of communities, including using excessive force against protesters.
Indonesia’s Mandalika project a litany of violations for Indigenous Sasak
- A new investigation has revealed myriad problems plaguing the resettlement and compensation process for Indigenous Sasak families affected by a tourism development project on the Indonesian island of Lombok.
- According to the report by local and international NGOs, the project has impoverished the communities, who have been forced to resettle far from their coastal homes without being properly consulted from the beginning.
- Despite the numerous human rights violations, the project’s main funder, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the project’s developer, the state-owned Indonesian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), insist to conclude the resettlement process in September.
- Activists have called on the AIIB and ITDC to not rush the process without properly consulting with affected communities and remedying the rights violations they’ve suffered and continue to suffer.
Amazon drought cuts river traffic, leaves communities without water and supplies
- Falling water levels in the rivers and lakes of the Brazilian Amazon are restricting the flow of ships and boats, the main form of transport in the region and the only means of access to health and education facilities for many communities.
- This year’s drought is exacerbated by two simultaneous natural events, the main one being El Niño, that inhibit the formation of rain clouds, further reducing the already low rainfall recorded during the dry season.
- More than 100 Amazonian river dolphins were found dead in a lake in Amazonas state, likely due to high water temperatures and low water levels, according to researchers.
- The state of Amazonas is preparing for the worst drought in its history, which will affect 500,000 people by the end of October; the federal government has created a task force to mitigate the impacts, promising to send water, food and medicine.
Ken Burns discusses heartbreak & hope of ‘The American Buffalo,’ his new documentary
- Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns about his upcoming documentary, “The American Buffalo,” which premieres in mid-October.
- The buffalo was nearly driven to extinction in the late 1800s, with the population declining from more than 30 million to less than 1,000, devastating Native American tribes who depended on the buffalo as their main source of food, shelter, clothing and more.
- The film explores both the tragic near-extinction of the buffalo as well as the story of how conservation efforts brought the species back from the brink.
- Burns sees lessons in the buffalo’s story for current conservation efforts, as we face climate change and a new era of mass extinction.
Rechargeable battery industry needs better mining regulations, report says
- A report from Oxfam looks at companies extracting “transition minerals” for use in rechargeable batteries, a major player in the fight against climate change.
- Many of the companies have flawed or lacking standards for negotiating with local and Indigenous communities, who often don’t have the power to reject mining projects that have negative environmental impacts.
- The report urged companies to publicly commit to respecting the individual and collective rights of Indigenous peoples and to document the results of all community engagements.
New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Mobi, a new online interactive map, draws information from public databases, government statistics and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats that uncontacted Indigenous peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The exact location of uncontacted communities is deliberately displaced on the map to avoid any subsequent attacks against them from those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The tool can help Indigenous agencies deploy more effective protective actions to fend off threats such as diseases and environmental destruction, which can wipe out vulnerable populations.
- Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that ranks uncontacted populations according to the severity of threats against them, which can promote stronger public policies.
From Orinoco to Amazon, Indigenous Warao struggle in search of refuge
- An estimated 700 Indigenous Warao people from Venezuela’s Orinoco Delta now live in the Amazon Delta city of Belém in Brazil, having fled there from the economic crisis in their home country.
- In Belém, the Warao live in poor housing conditions, face problems communicating, and suffer prejudice when searching for jobs; without access to natural resources, most of them survive by begging for money on the streets.
- In 2023, a Belém city councilor worked closely with the Warao to pass legislation in record time on migration policies addressing these and other issues faced by refugees to the city.
- To date, Belém remains the only city in Brazil with specific legal protection for Indigenous refugees.
Peruvian Amazon: Wounds remain after 50 years of oil spills on Achuar land
- Achuar Indigenous people from the community of José Olaya live near sites impacted by oil-related activity in and around their territory. According to reports by Peru’s environmental authority, toxic metals like cadmium, arsenic and lead have been detected in the area.
- Journalists from Mongabay Latam traveled to four areas — Shiviyacu, Forestal, Huayuri and Teniente López — where there were pipelines, puddles of oil, barrels with potential contaminants and oil-covered creeks and plants.
- According to the environmental authority, José Olaya is the location of eight of the 171 “impacted sites” that the Peruvian government has registered so far. There are 3,170 environmental liabilities caused by oil in the rest of the country.
First Nation and scientists partner to revive climate-saving eelgrass
- Seagrass meadows, of which eelgrass is a key species, are some of the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the ocean, and play a crucial role in sequestering carbon.
- But eelgrass is disappearing rapidly around the globe, and in Canada, questions remain about where exactly these meadows are distributed, and how effective they are at storing carbon.
- A collaborative project between marine biologists and Indigenous Mi’kmaq communities is attempting to answer these questions in eastern Canada while also restoring lost eelgrass meadows.
- The project could help with eelgrass’s long-term survival in the area, as researchers identify eelgrass populations that are more resilient to climate change, and communities work toward eelgrass conservation.
Brazil Supreme Court quashes time frame proposal in win for Indigenous rights
- Brazil’s Supreme Court voted against the highly controversial time frame proposal, a legal challenge that would have stripped Indigenous rights and opened up traditional territories to mining and agribusiness.
- Indigenous people and organizations hailed the decision as a victory for human rights in Brazil after years of protesting against the legal challenge.
- Activists remain cautious, however, as ministers seek to reach a middle ground between ruralists and Indigenous people, which could affect demarcation processes and encourage economic activities on traditional land.
- The points proposed for a possible agreement include compensating non-Indigenous people for land granted to Native communities and allowing economic activities such as agribusiness on traditional territories.
São Paulo Indigenous community pins its territorial hopes on a new village
- Members of São Paulo’s Jaraguá Guarani Indigenous community have founded a new village on land they claim is ancestrally theirs.
- The Guarani are seeking recognition from the Brazilian government for a total of 532 hectares (1,315 acres) of land in the São Paulo area that’s home to some 800 Indigenous people.
- But a bill working its way through Congress could nix that claim; if passed, any claims to land occupied after the cutoff date of Oct. 5, 1988, would be rejected.
- Government officials including the minister of Indigenous peoples and the head of the Indigenous affairs agency recently visited the Guarani village to offer support, but said no official demarcation will happen this year.
Amazonian Indigenous leaders call for 80×2025 at Climate Week (commentary)
- As the world gathers in New York for Climate Week, Indigenous leaders are calling on UN delegates, environmental organizations, and the research community to back a stronger goal for Amazon protection.
- A central element of the “Amazonia For Life” campaign endorsed by 511 Indigenous nations across Amazonia and 1,200 organizations around the world, it calls on governments to protect at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025.
- “As a mother, a grandmother and a voice for a coalition of Indigenous peoples…I urge every state and each one of you to join us in our fight to protect at least 80% of Amazonia by 2025,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In Roraima, Indigenous communities forge sustainable solutions amid threats
- Sustainable farming, mercury-free fishing and circular trade are among the strategies Amazon Indigenous peoples have been developing to survive in one of the most hostile states for Indigenous people in Brazil.
- Territorial and Environmental Management Plans (PGTAs) are one of the Indigenous-led tools for communities to create strategies to manage their natural resources and provide income for families in their territories.
- For long-term survival, these sustainable initiatives require investments, but previous experience has shown that a top-down approach is often counterproductive.
- But even as they achieve successes with various initiatives, monoculture agribusiness, illegal mining and land grabbing continue to threaten their livelihoods.
Indigenous peoples undersupported on frontline of hotter, drier, fiery world
- It’s official: This has been the warmest June-July-August on record, and much attention has focused on the urgent need to achieve climate resilience in impacted urban areas. But how are rural Indigenous communities around the world living with these new extremes?
- Indigenous peoples — from Africa to the Arctic to Central America — report unprecedented heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfires, extremes that are impacting the wildlife they hunt, the plants they gather, crops they grow, livestock they raise, and their very survival.
- Given that many Indigenous peoples live close to the land and depend directly on local resources, they’re especially vulnerable to the massive changes now sweeping our planet.
- But while Indigenous peoples are considered by many researchers and activists to be Earth’s best land stewards, their communities aren’t receiving the funding or resources necessary to adapt to a hotter, drier, stormier, fiery world, often due to the lack of access to their traditional lands.
‘The forest is so much more than money’: Q&A with Fijian carbon project ranger Jerry Lotawa
- Jerry Lotawa grew up in Drawa village in the forested highlands of Fiji’s largest island, and is now putting his ecological knowledge to use as lead ranger for the country’s first verified forest carbon project.
- The Indigenous-led project protects 4,120 hectares (10,181 acres) of rainforest that’s under threat from logging and clearing for agriculture, through a 30-year conservation lease that stretches across land belonging to eight mataqali (clans).
- The project has been selling carbon credits since 2018, with the proceeds distributed to the mataqali according to the amount of land they set aside for conservation, and each clan then choosing whether to share the money equally among its members or to hold it collectively for larger projects such as education and infrastructure.
- According to Lotawa, the project has helped locals to better understand the importance of their forest in maintaining their lives and livelihoods, and to pursue economic activities that don’t negatively impact the ecosystem.
Photos: Fiji’s first Indigenous-owned carbon credit project
- Fiji’s first verified forest carbon credit project is based in the Drawa rainforest on the country’s largest island, and has been earning income for its Indigenous landowners for five years now, in exchange for keeping their forests standing amid pressure from logging companies to fell its ancient trees.
- To make sure the project offers a compelling alternative to quick cash from logging permits, alternative livelihood opportunities are important ways to provide day-to-day income for individuals, alongside the cash from carbon credits that’s disbursed to mataqali (clans) on a quarterly basis and often used for collective projects.
- A number of local young men have been trained as rangers to monitor the protected areas, while other villagers, mostly women, are benefiting from their roles in a growing rainforest honey business — though scaling up the business to a more lucrative level remains a challenge.
Hundreds of oil spill sites threaten Amazon Indigenous lands, protected areas
- An investigation by Mongabay Latam found that at least 109 spill sites overlap with 15 protected natural areas in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. There are a further 561 environmental liabilities in areas belonging to 50 native communities.
- More than 2,897 kilometers (1,800 miles) of oil pipelines cross 65 natural reserves and 140 Indigenous territories across these countries.
- Contaminants close to water sources threaten both human and environmental health, as well as agricultural areas that communities depend on for their foods.
Indonesia awards biggest Indigenous forest claim yet to Bornean Dayaks
- The Indonesian government has officially recognized the biggest swath yet of forests that fall under the ancestral domain of an Indigenous group, awarding rights to nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) in Borneo.
- It took the government 11 years to grant this recognition to the 15 Indigenous Dayak communities that had applied for it, according to the nation’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN.
- There are many more customary forests yet to be recognized in the region, with activists calling on the government to speed up the recognition process.
Big promises to Indigenous groups from new global nature fund — but will it deliver?
- On August 24, 2023, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) ratified and established the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund to help developing countries meet their targets set up as part of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
- The new fund promises to invest 20% of its resources to directly support initiatives led by Indigenous peoples and local communities to protect and conserve biodiversity.
- While Indigenous communities welcome the move and are hopeful the new allocation will help them achieve their targets, they are skeptical about the barriers to accessing the funds, including delays and lack of knowledge.
- Some Indigenous representatives urge the GEF to rethink documentation requirements, the need for capacity building in the communities, and respect the individual community’s differences while designing the modalities for the GBFF.
Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
- Cambodia expanded the coverage of its protected areas by 1.06 million hectares (2.62 million acres) in July and August, a flurry of subdecrees shows.
- However, civil society groups have expressed skepticism about the lack of consultation involved in the process and the ability of authorities to police this much larger area, given the ineffective enforcement of existing protected areas.
- Much of the newly protected land appears to be corridors neighboring existing protected areas, where homes and farms are already established.
- This has raised concerns about a surge in conflicts over land and access to natural resources, particularly affecting Indigenous communities.
Ecuador referendum halts oil extraction in Yasuní National Park
- Millions of people participated in a nationwide referendum to determine whether crude oil should remain in the ground indefinitely at a site inside Yasuní National Park in Ecuador’s eastern Amazon.
- More than 5.2 million people voted in favor compared with 3.6 million against, solidifying protections for Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation.
- The referendum took place alongside presidential and legislative elections as well as a referendum on halting mining in the Chocó Andino de Pichincha. That referendum received nearly 70% support from voters.
The deceptions of the Amazon Summit in Belém (commentary)
- The summit of the eight Amazon countries held in Belém produced many statements of good intentions but no concrete commitments.
- No agreement was reached either on ending oil extraction in the Amazon or on ending deforestation, not even only “illegal” deforestation.
- Urgent but politically difficult topics were not discussed, such as foregoing plans to build roads opening rainforest areas and the need to end the legalization of land claims on government land.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Amazon Summit nations agree on saving rainforest — but not on conservation goals
- Leaders of eight Amazonian nations signed the Belém Declaration on Aug. 8, strengthening regional coordination and laying out a list of intentions to save the rainforest.
- Environmental organizations lament the lack of consensus over zero-deforestation targets among the nations and criticize the failure to mention fossil fuel exploration in the declaration.
- The declaration strongly asserts Indigenous rights and recognizes the need to protect their territories, however, activists expressed frustration that no specific goals or targets were defined.
- Alongside the Amazon nations, the two Congos, Indonesia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also signed another declaration on Aug. 9 demanding that developed countries fulfill their promises of extensive climate change financing.
Brazilian authorities launch probe into ‘Amazon’s largest single deforester’
- The suspect, Bruno Heller, destroyed 6,500 hectares (16,100 acres) of Amazon Rainforest for cattle ranching — an area larger than the island of Manhattan — according to authorities.
- The public forests illegally invaded in the Novo Progresso region of Pará state were divided into smaller properties and registered in the Rural Environmental Registry in the name of stooges, several of them were Heller’s relatives.
- Areas along the BR-163 highway that runs through this part of Pará have long been a target for land grabbers, but the criminal business became more attractive after land prices rose with the highway fully paved in 2019.
- Experts say the high availability of unallocated public forests boosts land grabbing and deforestation and that these areas must be allocated quickly — such as for protected areas, reserves, or Indigenous lands — to discourage illegal occupation.
Amazon Summit sparks hope for coordinated efforts from the rainforest nations
- From Aug. 7-9, eight Amazonian nations will meet in Brazil hoping to agree on future joint strategies that will protect the rainforest while sustainably developing the region.
- A pre-summit in the three days before the event will unite thousands of civil society representatives to thrash out proposals that will be delivered to the heads of state to guide their discussions and decision-making.
- Experts and conservationists have hailed the event as Brazil’s most critical environment summit so far this year and could be a turning point for the future of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Some organizations demand greater Indigenous inclusivity in the Amazon Summit debate, although experts believe Amazonian populations will play an important role in shaping policies during the three-day conference.
Ecuador pig & poultry farm pollution sparks protest amid IDB, IFC loans
- A new report reveals how, in 2021, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank) awarded multimillion-dollar loans to Pronaca, one of the largest companies in Ecuador, for it to expand its pig and poultry farms in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas.
- Complaints over the company’s environmental practices have been made for at least the last 20 years.
- Tsáchila Indigenous communities and environmental organizations claim that no prior consultation took place, that details of the expansion of the company’s operations are unknown, that no requests for environmental permits have been made and that there are no data available on the appropriate waste management methods necessary to avoid water and air pollution.
In Indonesia’s Aceh, Indigenous communities seek recognition of their forest rights
- The Indonesian government is set to recognize community claims to ancestral forests in Aceh province, on the island of Sumatra, for the first time in history.
- Thirteen Indigenous communities in Aceh are seeking recognition of their rights to 144,497 hectares (357,060 acres) of customary forests, an area nearly the size of London.
- The Ministry of Environment and Forestry says there are still some challenges, like unclear boundaries, that could prevent the issuance of the legal titles for the customary forests.
On Indonesia’s Seram Island, a massive oil find lies beneath sacred land
- In the east of Indonesia’s Seram Island, an Australian energy firm announced in July encouraging results from a survey of hydrocarbon deposits, describing the find as holding “world-class potential.”
- Members of Seram’s Bati indigenous community told Mongabay the drilling had disturbed sites they have considered sacred for generations.
- A representative of PT Balam Energy said the company had held talks with customary representatives.
Divided by mining: Vale’s new rail track fractures an Amazon Indigenous group
- In 1985, mining giant Vale opened a railroad that cuts through the Mãe Maria Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Since being built, the railroad has driven away game, cut off access to important water bodies and disrupted the Indigenous peoples’ way of life by introducing compensation money paid by Vale into the daily life of the villages.
- Now, the mining giant has secured permission to build a second railroad track.
- Indigenous leaders say that not only will the railroad extension cause greater environmental damage, but also that the company reached the agreement by using “divide and conquer” tactics over the years and by applying other maneuvers they consider unethical.
Indigenous villagers still lack safe land, water & food after 2019 dam burst
- In January 2019, a burst tailings dam in Brumadinho Valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil, devastated the territory surrounding the Paraopeba River, including the land inhabited by the Pataxó and Pataxó Hã-hã-hãe Indigenous groups.
- Part of the community remained in the original village of Naõ Xohã, where today the river remains unfishable and the soil is contaminated by heavy metals. Changes in eating habits have led to an epidemic of diabetes, intoxication and allergies in the community.
- As Vale did not fund a relocation program, other Indigenous families moved to slums on the outskirts of the city of Belo Horizonte, where they lived in precarious structures and underwent racial discrimination by people in the city.
- In 2021, a local Japanese-Brazilian association donated land to build a new village called Katurãma, where the Indigenous people in Belo Horizonte were able to move; still, they have dealt with lacking resources and threats from land-grabbers and wildcat miners.
A standing Amazon Rainforest could create an $8 billion bioeconomy: Study
- The Brazilian Amazon could create an $8 billion bioeconomy each year by preserving the rainforest, promoting sustainable agricultural practices and commercializing regional products, a new study has found.
- If current deforestation and emission trends continue, the Amazon faces irreversible degradation that will devastate Brazil and beyond, experts warn.
- Growing the bioeconomy depends on elevating Indigenous knowledge and providing local communities the tools to produce and sell hundreds of forest-grown products.
- It will take an investment of more than $500 billion by 2050 to implement a new economy, but the costs of not doing this “could be much higher,” say the study authors.
A powerful U.S. political family is behind a copper mine in the Colombian rainforest
- Two members of the Sununu family, a powerful U.S. Republican Party dynasty, are among the directors or shareholders of Libero Copper, a copper mine promoted in the Colombian Amazon. John H. Sununu, a powerful former governor of New Hampshire and former White House chief of staff to George Bush Sr. is one of its ultimate beneficial owners. His son Michael Sununu sits on the mining company’s board of directors.
- The government sees the mine as strategic to the clean energy transition by providing copper used in electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines. However, Libero’s two Sununus are known in the U.S. as skeptics of the scientific consensus that climate change is man-made, raising questions now that they are at the helm of a ‘green energy’ mining project in the midst of such a fragile and strategic biome as the Amazon rainforest.
- In order for Libero Copper’s project to become a reality, the company says it requires not only an exploitation license and an environmental permit from the Colombian government, but also that authorities lift the protected area status of part of the deposit. The reason is that one-fifth of the copper that the mining company seeks to extract is buried under a protected natural area known as a nationally protected forest reserve.
- The prospect of this mine is a cause of concern for the Indigenous communities in its area of influence, especially the Inga reservation of Condagua to the north and Kamentsá Biya of Sibundoy to the west, who fear disruption of critical waterways and the destruction of their territory.
Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area brings Indigenous communities into the fold
- Indigenous communities in the Lower Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia have taken ownership and management responsibilities of the Tama Wildlife Reserve through the creation of the Tama Community Conservation Area (TCCA).
- The TCCA, spanning 197,000 hectares (486,000 acres), is Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area.
- The area is home to diverse wildlife, including the endemic black-winged lovebird, and is inhabited by the Mursi, Bodi, Northern Kwegu and Ari communities.
- The TCCA will be managed by a community council; however, guidelines on farming activities, natural resource use and preventing human-wildlife conflict have not yet been established.
Q&A with Sydney Possuelo, the most prominent specialist in isolated indigenous peoples in Brazil
- In an interview with Mongabay, one of the country’s leading Indigenous affairs experts tells how he helped change national policy toward the isolated peoples of Brazil, with whom he now avoids contact at all costs.
- Sydney Possuelo, now 83 years old, began his career as an explorer during the expeditions of the Villas-Bôas brothers, creators of Xingu Indigenous Park.
- He went on to join Funai, the federal agency for Indigenous affairs, working there for 42 years, including as its president in the 1990s.
- In this interview, he talks about the main achievements for Indigenous peoples in recent years, the future of isolated peoples in Brazil, and why he doesn’t agree with the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
The counterstrike: Brazilian Congress moves to block Lula’s environmental agenda
- The Brazilian Congress approved a series of actions to dismantle the president’s ambitious environmental agenda, including attacks on Indigenous people’s rights and stripping powers of ministers.
- Among the changes is the approval of the controversial time frame thesis for Indigenous lands, which can reduce new demarcations, shrink approved territory and open Indigenous areas for mining and infrastructure projects.
- Some of the actions can be reversed by the Senate, Lula and the Supreme Court, but experts see the move as a major defeat for the president.
In Nepal, Chepang take up the challenge to revive their cultural keystone tree
- In Nepal, the Chepang people have long relied on the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea or Indian butter tree) for timber, fuelwood and butter.
- According to folklore, the Chepang tribe, the chiuri tree and bats are all part of a three-pronged system of survival, as each helps the other two; that system — and the chiuri tree — has fallen to the wayside.
- Now, young Chepangs are trying to revive the chiuri tree and market the valuable fruits.
Agro giants buy grains from farmers fined for using Indigenous land in Brazil
- Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Amaggi, ADM do Brasil, Viterra and General Mills bought soy and corn in an area where “grain laundering” is admitted by producers and civil servants.
- The illegal crops came from areas on the border of the Amazon Rainforest which had restrictions for production, but the real origin of the grains were concealed through paperwork.
- The revelations come from a joint investigation by the Brazilian news outlets Repórter Brasil and O Joio e o Trigo.
In the Colombian Amazon, Indigenous communities protect the sacred black caiman
- In the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve, two communities are working to protect the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), a species that has been hunted for decades for its commercially valuable skin.
- After 14 years of fighting to protect the caiman’s habitat, in January 2022, the communities carried out the first-ever survey of the species, recording 123 specimens of various ages.
- Local leaders say the community’s children will soon be able to learn about the caiman not only in a new book with illustrations and information from the conservationists’ work — but also in real life.
Indonesian project shows how climate funding can — and should — go directly to IPLCs
- Three of Indonesia’s largest Indigenous and civil society organizations have launched a new initiative that will be first to channel climate funds directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) on the frontlines of protecting forests, restoring land and ensuring food security.
- The initiative, called the Nusantara Fund, is part of a pledge by five countries and 17 private donors to distribute $1.7 billion, announced at the COP26 climate summit in 2021.
- The current climate investment model often excludes local communities, with only 7% of the roughly $322 million disbursed in the first year of the pledge going directly to IPLC organizations.
- The Nusantara Fund seeks to correct this faulty model by distributing funds directly to IPLCs and letting them manage and monitor the funding by themselves, based on the fact that they’re the ones who know best what their needs are.
World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
- Brazil could face losses of $317 billion per year as well as biodiversity depletion and severe social setbacks for millions of people if Amazon deforestation continues, a new report from the World Bank warns.
- The value is seven times higher than profits from commodities taken from the rainforest, the report concludes.
- Experts say that infrastructure development connecting coastal cities, rather than within the Amazon Rainforest, can help boost Brazil’s economy and improve social conditions while reducing pressure on the forests.
- Development efforts must be supported by strong forest governance and international backing in order to be effective, according to experts.
Congo Basin communities left out by ‘fortress conservation’ fight for a way back in
- Since the colonization of the Congo Basin by Europeans, many Indigenous communities have been cordoned off from land they once relied on in the name of conservation.
- The contentious “fortress conservation” model remains popular with some governments in Central Africa, but conservation leaders are shifting their opinion, signaling a desire to move toward inclusive and rights-based approaches to protected areas and ecosystems, including in declarations such as the Kigali Call to Action.
- However, Indigenous leaders and conservation experts say action, not just talk, is urgently needed to achieve the goals outlined by the 30×30 initiative, and to make good on promises to address injustices faced by Indigenous communities across the basin.
- On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, Cameroonian lawyer and Goldman Prize winner Samuel Nguiffo, Congolese academic Vedaste Cituli, and Mongabay features writer Ashoka Mukpo detail the troubling history of fortress conservation in Central Africa, the role of paramilitary forces in it, the impacts on local communities, and ways to address the conflicts it has created.
Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Food insecurity, famine and malnutrition have blighted the agropastoralist communities of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia.
- A government source blames a long-term drought for the recent suffering and, in some cases, the deaths of people in this part of the country.
- But researchers and human rights advocates say the drought has only exacerbated fundamental changes to the cultures of these peoples brought on by the construction of a dam and the establishment of sugarcane plantations in the region.
- They say such “economic development” projects have dispossessed the Lower Omo’s peoples of their farming and grazing lands and irreversibly altered the natural cycles of the Omo River that was once the mainstay of their livelihoods.
Inaugural Indigenous women’s forum spotlights Congo Basin conservation
- This week, leaders from Indigenous women’s organizations, environment and land management groups and philanthropists are meeting in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, for a forum aimed at strengthening the role of Indigenous women in Congo Basin land management and conservation.
- Organizers hope the forum will result in a fund for Central African Indigenous women supporting biodiversity and climate resilience.
- Research shows that 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found in territory managed by Indigenous peoples, yet Congo Basin countries receive scarce funding for conservation.
Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- The ongoing development of an entirely new capital city from the ground up in Indonesia has alarmed environmental and Indigenous rights activists, who have warned of both deep ecosystem and social impacts.
- The government has justified the plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta, on the island of Java, to Indonesia Borneo as a way of ensuring a greater share of development beyond the country’s western islands.
- Mongabay has already reported on the risks to the wider Bornean region and the additional pressures on marine ecosystems that are a biodiversity haven.
- In response, Myrna Asnawati Safitri, the deputy for environment and natural resources at the government agency overseeing the development, reached out for an exclusive interview where these and other thorny questions were addressed.
How will climate change affect Latin America? Scientists respond to IPCC report
- Mongabay Latam spoke with scientists who contributed to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report about the effects in Latin America, opportunities for mitigation and adaptation and the contributions of Native cultures.
- IPCC released the latest report in March as a synthesis summarizing the six previous reports it has issued on the situation of the planet since 2015.
- The new scientific report warns once again of increased global warming, but also mentions that solutions exist with the help of technology and local communities.
‘Many features of the Amazon are man-made’: Q&A with archaeologist Eduardo Neves
- Research shows that the human presence in the world’s largest tropical rainforest dates back much further and was much more varied than previously thought.
- Archeologist Eduardo Neves has studied human occupation of the Amazon for 30 years and found evidence of rice, manioc and palm tree cultivation dating back thousands of years.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Neves talks about the new understanding of the Amazon: “The diversity of the Amazon, the presence of many large nut trees and fruit-bearing palm trees, is a result of Indigenous practices.”
- The old paradigm about the agricultural limitations of the rainforest has been shelved, according to Neves. “The Amazon Rainforest is not only a natural heritage, but [also] a biocultural heritage.”
‘I’ll keep fighting’: Indigenous activist and Goldman winner Alessandra Munduruku
- Indigenous leader and human rights activist Alessandra Korap Munduruku was one of the six winners of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize.”
- The award recognizes her relentless resistance to illegal mining within the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, including prospecting attempts by mining giant Anglo American.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Alessandra discusses what the prize means to her, the policy changes she’s seeing in Brazil, and the current crisis in the Munduruku territory.
- While she praises some actions of the current government, she says her fight isn’t over yet, as she warns of possible environmental issues arising from upcoming infrastructure projects.
A mountain of gold: Mining titles threaten Indigenous lands in Guainía, Colombia
- A potential gold rush is awaiting in the surroundings of the Mavicure Hill and the Fluvial Star of Inírida, two of Colombia’s particular ecosystems. Authorities approved 13 proposals for mining concession contracts for extracting gold and gold concentrates.
- Mongabay Latam and Vorágine visited the Indigenous communities surrounding the Fluvial Star of Inírida. Their residents now live in a climate of uncertainty because of the promises of a better future based on mining. There is simultaneously ignorance and enthusiasm about the prospect of new jobs.
- Mining has not started yet in the area, and there is already division surrounding this issue in the Remanso Chorrobocón Indigenous Reserve. Some people view mining positively, but there are also complaints that the mining titles are being managed in the name of the Indigenous people, even though they have not been consulted.
Indigenous Maasai ask the United Nations to intervene on reported human rights abuses
- Maasai delegates at the United Nations conference on Indigenous people are calling on the forum to increase pressure on the Tanzanian government to address evictions, forced displacement and thousands of seized cattle in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Loliondo.
- Land disputes at both sites have been grinding on for years after the government revealed plans to lease the land to a UAE-based company to create a wildlife corridor for trophy hunting and elite tourism.
- Last year, the dispute reached a boiling point when Tanzanian police officers and authorities shot and beat dozens of Maasai villagers who protested the demarcation of their ancestral land. One Maasai man and one police officer have been killed.
- At the United Nations forum, a Tanzanian government representative rejected accusations brought against it, pointing to a recent court ruling in its favor and a visit by an African human rights commission.
‘Don’t buy Brazilian gold’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Júnior Hekurari Yanomami
- Júnior Hekurari Yanomami is a leader of the Yanomami people in Roraima state, Brazil, where he founded an organization to aid his people after working as a health worker.
- In a Mongabay interview, the Indigenous leader called for a boycott of Brazilian gold and said he hoped for efforts to find long-term solutions to keep illegal miners out of the Yanomami territory.
- In early March, Júnior led a campaign to raise international awareness about Amazonian gold by awarding wooden statuettes to Oscar nominees.
Indigenous women in Colombia protect rich Amazonian wetland from overfishing
- Dozens of Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon are monitoring, managing, raising awareness and restoring a wetland ecosystem impacted by overfishing.
- After partnering with environmental organizations to establish a fishing agreement in the area, they have witnessed the increase and recovery of fish species such as sardines, catfish and the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas).
- The wetland area of Lake Tarapoto, located in the department of Amazonas in southern Colombia, provides a habitat for numerous aquatic animals and supports the livelihoods of 22 Indigenous communities.
Report sums up Bolsonaro’s destruction legacy and Amazon’s next critical steps
- A damning report confirms what many environmentalists already knew: that the destruction of nature in Brazil from 2019 to 2022 was a deliberate campaign of sabotage led by the government of the time.
- The report compiled four years of data to describe record levels of land invasions, illegal mining and Amazon deforestation under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.
- Against this challenging scenario, experts have mostly praised President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s initial actions in his first 100 days, especially his efforts to address the health crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.
- However, key actions remain pending, they say, including the quashing of anti-environmental bills and an end to the plan to pave a controversial highway through the Amazon Rainforest.
To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- A new toll road in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is under construction to improve access to the interior of Borneo, including to the nation’s new capital city, Nusantara.
- Construction of the road, however, poses immediate environmental risks, as the route cuts through a forested area with high conservation value that connects the Sungai Wain protected forest, coastal mangroves, and Balikpapan Bay.
- Prior to road construction, the integrated forest and coastal ecosystem supported populations of orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- Conservationists say the construction of this toll road belies the Indonesian government’s claims that the development of the new capital will be green and sustainable.
Indonesian Indigenous group AMAN wins Skoll Award for defending land rights
- Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN, has won a 2023 Skoll Award for Social Innovation for its work in advocating for Indigenous rights.
- The group’s work includes mapping Indigenous territories and lobbying for legislation that supports and protects Indigenous rights to their lands.
- AMAN says the award fuels its spirit to work even harder, as there’s still much work to be done, with many Indigenous communities still lacking legal recognition of their land rights and an Indigenous rights bill being stalled in Parliament.
- Four other organizations have won this year’s award, including Conexsus, a Brazilian NGO that promotes sustainable forest management and forest-based economies by centering community-led efforts and Indigenous ecological knowledge.
UN denounces new attacks on Indigenous people in Nicaragua’s largest reserve
- Groups believed to be connected to cattle ranching, logging and illegal mining launched several attacks in Indigenous communities living in the largest protected area in Nicaragua.
- Settlers are pushing into the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve and the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region to pursue illegal mining, logging and cattle ranching.
- At least six Indigenous people were killed and several injured in the most recent attack, forcing numerous families to relocate, despite an existing international mandate on the Nicaraguan government to protect them.
Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- A new bill under debate in Peru’s congress seeks to reevaluate the existence of every Indigenous reserve for isolated peoples to determine whether to keep them or scrap them completely.
- The bill would shift decision-making power into the hands of regional governments and include economic interests in the evaluation process, changes which human rights and environmental experts call legally flawed and a human rights violation.
- Some regional governments and companies backing the proposed bill have questioned studies confirming the existence of isolated peoples and seek to place oil exploitation, logging and economic development as a priority.
- In the event of the bill’s approval, all open proceedings relating to Indigenous reserves and Indigenous peoples in isolation would be suspended.
As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Indonesia’s plan to build its new capital city on an expiring logging concession in eastern Borneo has sparked concerns among environmental and human rights observers about the larger eco-social impacts to the rest of the island.
- The administration of President Joko Widodo, who made the decision and will leave office next year, has made glowing promises of a green and sustainable development: claiming minimal forest clearance, respect for Indigenous and local communities’ rights, and a net-zero carbon emission design.
- Mongabay visited the site of the project last October to see its progress, observe firsthand some of the earliest impacts from the construction of the city and supporting infrastructure, and speak with the people most likely to be affected.
- Clearing of mangroves and high-conservation forest areas, land conflicts with Indigenous communities, and potentially large-scale displacements are already happening, calling into question whether the $34 billion project’s benefits will outweigh its downsides.
What Indigenous knowledge can teach the world about saving biodiversity
- Nearly 80% of the world’s biodiversity is stewarded by Indigenous peoples and local communities, each practicing their own traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK.
- With the world facing twin biodiversity and climate crises, experts emphasize the need to recognize the land rights and sovereignty of Indigenous people from a human rights perspective to protect the planet’s wildlife and ecosystems.
- On this episode of the podcast, National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan discusses his latest project that shares stories of Indigenous stewardship, “The Guardians of Life: Indigenous Stewards of Living Earth.”
Brazil’s Indigenous groups demand a voice in new soybean railway project
- The Ferrogrão railway project was conceived with a view to reducing transportation costs between the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Pará, where soybeans are one of the main export products.
- The railway has been met with resistance from the region’s Indigenous peoples, who will be impacted by the socio-environmental risks associated with the project.
- A study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais highlighted that the Ferrogrão railway line will cross several Indigenous territories in the Xingu River Basin, something that could see more than 230,000 hectares (568,000 acres) of rainforest lost to deforestation in Indigenous territories in the state of Mato Grosso by 2035; more than half of this would be in the Xingu Indigenous Park alone.
- After the project was suspended by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2021, it has since been marked as a priority by the current government and its future will be decided by the Court’s plenary session in May this year.
Indigenous Comcaac serve up an oceanic grain to preserve seagrass meadows
- The Indigenous Comcaac community of northwestern Mexico is working to preserve eelgrass and promote the renaissance of the grain they obtain from it.
- Known as xnois, this grain from the Zostera marina seagrass was once a vital ingredient in Comcaac food, and was sustainably harvested without harming seagrass meadows.
- Current generations of Comcaac hope to revive the ancient traditions while preserving the seagrass meadows off the coast of their territory.
- Through a recent cultural festival, they showcase the versatility of xnois in both traditional and modern cuisine, from tortillas to energy bars.
Finland’s debate over Indigenous identity and rights turns ugly
- In Finland, a controversial new bill would redefine who is eligible to vote and stand for the assembly of the country’s Indigenous Sámi community, removing a criteria that allows those with distant northern ancestors to participate.
- Critics say the bill will disenfranchise hundreds of people who identify as Sámi, but community leaders, legal experts and historians say these groups fail to meet the definition of an Indigenous community.
- Sámi leaders say the bill will reinforce their right to free, prior and informed consent on any new developments affecting their livelihoods and territories’ ecosystems, but its passage is uncertain in the face of strong opposition.
- The Sámi community across northern Europe is facing increasing pressure from “green energy” developments, such as wind farms and rare earth mines.
US pledges Amazon Fund donation, renewing hope for the rainforest
- Recent talks between the presidents of Brazil and the U.S. have spurred hope for a renewed global commitment to protect the Amazon Rainforest.
- The U.S. has pledged to work with Brazil to strengthen the protection of the Amazon, including offering “initial support” to the recently revived Amazon Fund.
- Reports claim the U.S. will initially donate $50 million toward the fund, inciting disappointment among some experts who claim billions, not millions, are required to eliminate deforestation.
- However, many environmentalists praise the collaboration as giving credibility to Brazil’s environmental agenda and claim it could encourage more countries to donate.
‘Development’ projects in Ethiopia leave starvation, disease in wake: Report
- Indigenous groups in southwestern Ethiopia are suffering from starvation and disease after being displaced from their land for construction of a dam and the installation of large-scale sugarcane plantations, according to a report from the Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank.
- These projects have deprived the communities living in the Lower Omo Valley of their ability to farm and maintain their livestock herds, but this “catastrophe” has gone largely unnoticed in the shadow of even wider hunger and displacement due to civil war in the northern Tigray region, the report says.
- Humanitarian NGO World Vision International delivered some food aid to the region in November 2022.
- But the Oakland Institute said more food and medical care is urgently needed, along with the return of the land back to the Indigenous groups who have lived in this region for centuries, and is urging the government and the humanitarian community to respond immediately.
‘If Brazil starts with us, why did we arrive last?’: Q&A with Indigenous lawmaker Célia Xakriabá
- Indigenous lawmaker Célia Xakriabá says the fight for the climate emergency was key to her election to Brazil’s Congress last year, which drew votes from people with a completely different political party alignment.
- “We were not only elected by progressive people [voting]. It is the environmental issue, the issue for life, the issue of the right to water, the issue of the right to food without poison [pesticides]” — issues that she tells Mongabay must go beyond the progressive parties.
- In this video interview, Célia Xakriabá says one of her priorities in Congress is to create a secretariat for Indigenous education within the Ministry of Education, and establish quotas for Indigenous people at several levels, including Indigenous professors in universities and job posts in embassies.
- Another priority is an update to the statute on Indigenous peoples, which she says is still written “in a racist way and in a retrograde way.” Change is already coming on this front: on its first day in office, the new government changed the name of the federal Indigenous affairs agency from the National Indian Foundation to the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples.
Joenia Wapichana: ‘I want to see the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol territories free of invasions’
- In this video interview two weeks before the health disaster outbreak in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, Joenia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman named president of Brazil’s national Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, says one of her priorities at the institution is the expulsion of 20,000 illegal gold miners from the area.
- “Indigenous health is a chaos there. Children are dying of malaria and malnutrition. So, it is not simply a matter of removing the miners, but you have to take immediate action to ensure security there,” she tells Mongabay at Funai’s headquarters in Brasília.
- Joenia Wapichana says coordinated actions are required among several governmental entities with “permanent oversight” to put an end to this crisis: “It’s not simply remove [the wildcat miners] and leave no one there to protect.”
- Given Funai’s precarious budget of 600 million reais ($118 million) per year, she says cooperation agreements with other countries, a successful strategy in the past, will be key to carrying out the demarcation of Indigenous lands in the Amazon that were stalled under the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
JBS is accused of misleading investors with suspicious green bonds
- The global NGO Mighty Earth has filed a complaint against the beef giant JBS with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing the company of misleading investors in a sustainability-linked bonds issuance that raised $3.2 billion for the company in 2021.
- The bonds were attached to JBS’ promise to reduce its climate footprint and become net-zero by 2040. According to Mighty Earth, these targets don’t include cattle enteric fermentation and deforestation, which account for 97% of JBS’ emissions.
- JBS argues it can’t measure its indirect emissions and that it has always been transparent with investors about the scope of its commitments.
- The case will probably be analyzed by SEC’s recently created Climate and ESG Task Force, which has already punished heavyweights such as the mining company Vale and the international financial group Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Indigenous Kogi worldview aims to change face of conservation for good
- The Indigenous Kogi of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta in northern Colombia have been saying for decades that non-Indigenous populations are destroying the Earth, but now they want to share their knowledge about how to save it.
- Today, they are part of the very first UNESCO BRIDGES project, which focuses on finding solutions coming from communities, rather than experts bringing their idea of solutions into communities, which has long been problematic.
- The new project, called Reviving Water: Munekan Masha (“let emerge or be born”), will be led by the Kogi, teaching scientists and education experts from various universities about their conservation methods.
- Both the Kogi and non-Indigenous experts will also help develop Indigenous conservation methods for school curricula, to help Western science broaden its outlook, experts say.
Q&A: Climatologist Carlos Nobre’s dream of an Amazon Institute of Technology
- Three decades ago, Carlos Nobre projected a not-very-encouraging scenario for the Amazon. Today, he witnesses the beginning of the forest’s savannization, but he says he believes that the scenario can still be reversed.
- As an internationally renowned expert when it comes to the world’s largest tropical forest, Nobre is leading a project that intends to bring Amazonian countries together in developing research and educational centers focused on a “standing forest economy.”
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, he detailed the project of the Amazon Institute of Technology (AmIT) and spoke about what must be done to prevent the Amazon from reaching a point of no return.
Locals fight to save ‘a piece of the sea’ in Venezuela’s Andes
- Urao is the only brackish continental lagoon in Latin America, significant for its minerals and the livelihoods it supports, but threatened by encroaching development in the Venezuelan state of Mérida.
- Fundalaguna, an Indigenous- and community-led NGO, has since 2016 worked to restore the shrinking lagoon by getting it designated as a Ramsar wetland, which would bring some measure of international protection.
- As part of its advocacy, the NGO holds eco talks at local schools to educate young people about the importance of saving the lagoon.
- At the same time, reforestation efforts and two very rainy years have saved the lagoon for the moment and brought back fish and migratory birds, but advocates say further hydrological works are needed to bring Urao back to its original state.
President Lula’s first pro-environment acts protect Indigenous people and the Amazon
- Effective Jan. 2, Brazil’s President Lula issued six decrees revoking or altering anti-environment-and-Indigenous measures from his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, acts highly celebrated by environmentalists and activists.
- One of the decrees annuls mining in Indigenous lands and protected areas, another resumes plans to combat deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and a third reinstates the Amazon Fund, a pool of funding provided to Brazil by developed nations to finance a variety of programs aimed at halting deforestation that was stalled under Bolsonaro.
- Right afterward, Norway announced the immediate release of already available funding for new projects as “President Lula confirmed his ambitions to reduce deforestation and reinstated the governance structure of the Amazon Fund.”
- In an unprecedented act in Brazil’s history, Lula also created the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, complying with his promise to native people who supported his candidacy “to combat 500 years of inequality.”
Climate crisis puts Indigenous Amazonians’ Quarup funeral ritual at risk
- The inhabitants of the Xingu Indigenous Territory have had to adapt their Quarup funeral ceremony to avoid fires and guarantee enough food for all visitors.
- The climate crisis has left the forests drier and more flammable: over the past 20 years, 1,890 square kilometers (730 square miles) of protected forest in the Xingu have been lost to fires.
- Deforestation because of soy and corn monocultures in neighboring regions has muddied rivers and caused wild pigs to invade traditional vegetable gardens.
- The loss of rivers makes it difficult to properly store the pequi fruits needed during Quarup, while drought and wild pigs are damaging yucca harvests, also threatening a staple serving for the ceremony.
Top 15 species discoveries from 2022 (Photos)
- A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world’s largest waterlily are among the new species named by science in 2022.
- Scientists estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Even among the most well-known group of animals, mammals, scientists think we have only found 80% of species.
- Unfortunately, many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to locals and have a common name. For instance, Indigenous people often know about species long before they are “discovered” by Western Science.
Top 10 notable Indigenous stories of 2022
- This year was a historic one for many Indigenous communities around the world that marked many ‘firsts’ with successful land rights rulings, both on the global and national level.
- As Indigenous rights, roles and contributions in biodiversity conservation gain more attention, underreported and critical issues impacting Indigenous peoples were thrust into the spotlight this year.
- To end this impactful year, Mongabay rounds up its 10 most notable Indigenous news stories of 2022.
‘We’re not going to give Lula a free pass’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Beto Marubo
- Despite his criticisms of the previous Workers’ Party (PT) administrations when it came to environmental issues, Beto Marubo, an Indigenous leader from Brazil, says he believes that the incoming president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will be able to make Brazil a major player on the world stage in climate and environmental matters again from 2023 onward.
- Beto says he believes that pressure from civil society is more important than ever in ensuring the government-elect reassumes environmental protection commitments and in preventing the agribusiness lobby from sabotaging advances, as happened in Lula’s previous administrations.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Beto, a member of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), condemned the current government for the increases in deforestation and criminality in his region under its watch and reaffirmed his call for justice for the brutal murder of his friend Bruno Pereira and the journalist Dom Phillips in June this year.
No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron
- A land dispute that has simmered for a decade pits an Indigenous community inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary against a politically well-connected rubber company.
- The company, Sambath Platinum, cut off the Indigenous Kuy residents of the village of Ngon from the forests from which they have gathered herbs and medicinal plants for generations.
- The community have followed all the procedures to obtain a communal land title, but continue to be stonewalled by various government ministries, but now face questionable criminal charges.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Indigenous communities in Peru ‘living in fear’ due to deforestation, drug trafficking
- Between 2021 and 2021 the territory of the Indigenous Kakataibo community of Puerto Nuevo lost 15% of its tree cover.
- Satellite data suggest forest loss in the community territory may have accelerated in 2022.
- Residents say outsiders are invading the territory and clearing forest to grow coca crops for the production of cocaine.
- The presence of armed groups is deterring government intervention.
In first for Indonesia, government recognizes Indigenous Papuans’ ancestral forests
- The Indonesian government has for the first time relinquished state forest into the custody of Indigenous communities in the eastern region of Papua, covering a combined area the size of New York City.
- Experts say this recognition of customary forests in Papua is significant as the region is threatened by increasing expansion of plantations, logging and mining operations, with Indigenous groups there having little to no legal protection against companies that covet their forests.
- With this official recognition, the government has essentially handed over its control over these forests to the Indigenous communities, and therefore no licenses for any kind of commercial activity can be issued for those areas.
- Activists have welcomed the move, but say it represents just a sliver of the millions of hectares of ancestral forest that are still waiting to be officially acknowledged in the Papua region.
U.N. report calls for the ban of mercury trade and its use in gold mining
- Small-scale gold mining is the key driver of global mercury demand, according to a U.N. report on the highly toxic metal, with South America accounting for 39% of this demand.
- Hair samples taken from Indigenous communities in the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazonian regions showed mercury levels in excess of the safe limit prescribed by the World Health Organization.
- In Brazil specifically, mercury use has risen with the boom in illegal mining that has been largely overlooked — and in some cases even encouraged — by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Report offers a road map to restore the rule of law in the Brazilian Amazon
- Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to supercharge many of the same policies that he employed in his first two terms to bring Amazon destruction rates down from their record highs, a new report says.
- The report, by a group of development, security and conservation think tanks, lists 92 proposals for Lula when he takes office at the start of 2023, centered around ending the culture of criminal impunity that flourished under the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro.
- Experts say the absence of law enforcement in the Amazon has strengthened a criminal ecosystem that profits from land grabbing, illegal logging, mining, and wildlife and drug trafficking.
- The Bolsonaro administration has encouraged this in large part by weakening environmental enforcement agencies and putting loyalists in their top posts.
Delayed Indigenous ‘Man of the Hole’ burial reveals dispute over his land
- A court ruling ordered Brazil’s Indigenous agency Funai to bury the remains of the Indigenous Tanaru man, known as the “Man of the Hole,” three months after his death, following 26 years of solitude as the last member of his tribe.
- Critics accuse Funai’s president, Marcelo Xavier, of working in favor of local agribusiness interests by deliberately stalling the funeral to help farmers claim the rights to the land.
- The delay of his burial was partly due to a debate over what will happen to the land where the Indigenous man lived, which is covered in Amazon rainforest and is currently protected by a restriction of use ordinance until 2025.
- The Federal Public Ministry and Amazon activists call for the land to be permanently preserved, while local farmers claim they are the owners and demand the restrictions of use be revoked to allow for agricultural expansion.
As gangs battle over Peru’s drug trafficking routes, communities and forest are at risk
- Along the Peruvian and Colombian border, armed gangs formerly part of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are seeking control of the Putumayo River – a region inhabited by at least 25 Secoya, Kichwa and Huitoto communities.
- The river is the site of two important drug-trafficking routes: one to Brazil which goes on to Europe and Asia, and the other to Mexico and the United States.
- The armed groups frequently take part in illegal gold mining on the Putumayo to finance their activities, simultaneously contaminating the river, fish and people who live in the border area.
- Some community members, certain by force, engage in illegal businesses by deforesting areas, planting coca (made into cocaine) and transporting prohibited items.
Small share of land rights pledge went to Indigenous groups: Progress report
- A report from funders of a $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous and community forest tenure made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference found that 19% of the financing has been distributed.
- The findings from 2022 also show that only 7% of the funding went directly to Indigenous and community organizations, despite the protection they provide to forests and other ecosystems. (A subsequent analysis in 2023 revised this figure downward to 2.9%.)
- Both donors and representatives of Indigenous and community groups are calling for more direct funding to these organizations by reducing the barriers they face, improving communication and building capacity.
Podcast: How the Indigenous Shuar regained their ancestral forest
- “Ecuador had not declared community protected area management by Indigenous peoples until Tiwi Nunka Forest. This area is the first of its kind in Ecuador, and one of the few in the entire Amazon,” says our first guest on this episode, Felipe Serrano.
- Serrano is the Ecuador country director for Nature and Culture International, which helped the Shuar people in their struggle to reclaim this territory and get the forest included in Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas.
- We also speak with journalist Paul Koberstein about the flawed basis for the U.S. State of Washington’s new and unusual climate solution: cutting down forests.
- The state claims that it’s more effective to store carbon in wood products than it is to keep forests standing, but as Koberstein shares, research shows that only a small percentage of the carbon remains in wood products, and the rest is lost to the atmosphere, so activists are pushing for a change in policy.
Loss of Brazilian pines threatens Kaingáng Indigenous culture
- The decline of the Paraná pine forests in the southern region of Brazil poses serious consequences for the Kaingáng culture, which uses pine trees as an important source of food, culture and resilience.
- The ecosystem is one of the most devastated in Brazil: Only 3% of its original area remains.
- The tree occupies a noble position in the Kaingáng culture, considered the third-largest Indigenous group in Brazil, with 45,000 people living in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná and southern São Paulo.
- “Efforts to revitalize Kaingáng culture must be aligned with the resurgence of araucaria planting in the territories of the Kaingáng people,” says an Indigenous expert.
With FSC rule change, deforesters once blocked from certification get a new shot
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has adopted a number of significant changes during its recent general assembly in Bali, chief among them moving its cutoff date for eligibility from 1994 to 2020.
- With the change, logging companies that have cleared forests since 1994, but before 2020, will be allowed to obtain certification from the body, something they weren’t allowed to do before.
- To qualify, companies will have to restore forests and provide remedy for social harms done in the 1994-2020 period in their concessions.
- The decision has sparked responses from both critics and supporters, with the former saying the new rule rewards known deforesters, and the latter saying it opens opportunities for forest restoration and remedies for Indigenous and local communities.
Activists slam Bolsonaro rule change seen as ending demarcation of Indigenous lands
- The Brazilian government has drawn up a new statute for Funai, the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, without the input of Indigenous peoples.
- Indigenous rights activists say the structural changes will hinder the body’s functioning and effectively end the demarcation of new Indigenous territories across the country.
- The move is the latest attempt by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to undermine Funai, according to insiders and observers.
- Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 on a campaign promise to stop demarcating Indigenous territories and to “deliver a blow to the neck” of Funai.
As Brazil starts repaving an Amazon highway, land grabbers get to work
- Paving work has begun on a stretch of highway running through one of the remotest and best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon — even as questions about the project’s permits abound.
- BR-319 was built in the 1970s to connect the Amazonian cities of Manaus and Porto Velho, but a 405-kilometer (250-mile) “Middle Stretch” fell into disrepair, making the road virtually impassable and killing the flow of traffic.
- Conservation experts have long warned against repaving the Middle Stretch, warning that improved access to this carbon-rich region will lead to a surge in deforestation, burning and land grabbing.
- With the repaving underway, this is already happening, raising concerns about unchecked forest loss that would have massive ramifications for the global climate.
Indonesian beauty queen founds Indigenous coffee brand in her native Lombok
- Beauty pageant contestant Mahniwati was born into a strong Indigenous community on Indonesia’s Lombok Island.
- During her pageant activities, Mahniwati saw that despite their wealth of natural resources, the people of her community were often cash poor.
- Seeing the potential of coffee to improve their livelihoods, she taught herself each step of the coffee value chain.
- She now shares her knowledge with farmers and promotes coffee produced by local women.
Mangroves and wildlife in Bornean bay at risk from Indonesia’s new capital
- Experts and activists say the construction of Indonesia’s new capital city upstream of Balikpapan Bay on the island of Borneo fails to mitigate against damage to the marine ecosystem.
- The stretch of coast between the bay and the mouth of the Mahakam River is packed with mangroves, which host a rich diversity of marine and terrestrial life, including proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- The government has said the construction of the new capital, Nusantara, will include retaining a large swath of mangrove forest, but zoning details show most of it won’t be protected against development.
- The $33 billion planned city will in 2024 take over as the Indonesian capital from Jakarta, and its full construction will be completed by 2045, according to the government’s plans.
Amazon reserve for uncontacted people moving forward amid battle over oil fields
- Isolated and recently contacted Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon have had their existence officially recognized after a 19-year process and are one step closer to being protected through the creation of the Napo-Tigre Indigenous Reserve.
- The reserve would prevent outsiders and extractive industries, including logging and oil companies, from entering the territory. This will prevent the spread of diseases and deforestation in the region.
- A petroleum company, Perenco, and a group of businessmen and government officials oppose the creation of the reserve. According to the group, the reserve will be an obstacle to ongoing and future development in the oil-rich region.
- Some Indigenous leaders are also against the creation of the isolated Indigenous reserve. The leaders and their communities receive infrastructure projects, transportation, health services and employment from Perenco.
With rights at risk, Indigenous Brazilians get on the ballot to fight back
- A record 186 Indigenous candidates are running in Brazil’s general elections in October, up 40% from the 2018 elections.
- Candidates and activists say the surge is pushback against the increased attacks on Indigenous rights, lands and cultures under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- There’s currently only one Indigenous member in the 594-seat National Congress, a body whose lower House has overwhelmingly supported legislation considered detrimental to Indigenous rights and environmental protection.
- Only two Indigenous individuals have ever been elected to Congress, but Brazil’s main Indigenous coalition hopes to improve this representation with a coordinated campaign to support Indigenous candidates.
Indigenous leader’s court win halts one of Australia’s ‘dirtiest gas projects’
- Indigenous community members from the Tiwi Islands off the northern coast of Australia took Santos Limited to court, arguing that the company did not adequately consult traditional owners in its plans to drill in the Barossa offshore gas field.
- A federal court threw out the approval granted by Australia’s offshore energy regulator, noting that all relevant stakeholders were not consulted.
- The drilling to develop the $3.6 billion Barossa gas project could threaten the Tiwi peoples’ food sources, culture and way of life, opponents say.
- If the Barossa project goes ahead, it could become one of Australia’s dirtiest gas projects emitting around 5.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly, estimates from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis show.
Activists welcome decision to revoke permit for controversial Philippine gold mine
- On Sept. 15, local officials in the southern Philippine municipality of Tampakan revoked the business permit for mining firm Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), which is seeking to develop a massive copper and gold mine in the area.
- Local officials cited alleged fraud and misrepresentation by the company, noting that it categorized itself as a mineral exploration manufacturer while an assessment found it to be operating as a general engineering contractor.
- The company also recently filed a court petition against the local government, which is seeking to collect 397 million pesos ($6.9 million) in accumulated taxes and surcharges. Local officials deny any link between the tax dispute and the permit revocation.
- Local activists have hailed the revocation of the permit as a victory in a decades-long campaign against the mine.
European bill passes to ban imports of deforestation-linked commodities
- Imports of 14 types of commodities into the European Union will soon have to be verified for possible association with deforestation in the countries in which they were produced.
- That’s the key provision in a bill passed on Sept. 13 by the European Parliament, which initially targeted soy, beef, palm oil, timber, cocoa, and coffee, but now also includes pork, lamb and goat meat, as well as poultry, corn, rubber, charcoal, and printed paper.
- The bill still needs the approval of the Council of the EU and the national parliaments of the 27 countries in the bloc, but is already considered a historic step against deforestation.
- In Brazil, experts have welcomed the bill as a means of tackling the demand-side pressures driving increasing levels of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, while the agribusiness lobby has denounced it as unfair.
Indigenous Brazilians demand justice as 4 killed in escalating violence
- Two Indigenous Guajajara men were killed on Sept. 3 in Brazil’s Maranhão state and a 14-year-old Guajajara boy shot and hospitalized, Indigenous leaders and rights groups say.
- The day after, a 14-year-old Indigenous Pataxó boy was also allegedly gunned down and a 16-year-old shot and wounded as they sought to retake a farm that had reportedly been established illegally within their territory in Bahia state.
- On Sept. 11, another Indigenous Guajajara was murdered in Maranhão. In the past 20 years, more than 50 Guajajara individuals have been killed in the state, with none of the alleged perpetrators ever going on trial, advocates say.
- Indigenous groups and advocacy organizations are demanding justice for these and earlier killings, and have raised concerns about escalating violence against native peoples throughout the country.
Mapping of Indigenous lands ramps up in Indonesia — without official recognition
- An independent initiative has mapped 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of Indigenous lands in Indonesia since March, bringing the total since it started in 2010 to 20.7 million hectares (51.2 million acres).
- Only 15% of this mapped Indigenous land has been officially recognized by the government, with critics blaming a slow and costly bureaucracy, a lack of political will from government leaders, and an infrastructure development push that’s often competing for the same land.
- Indigenous rights proponents say legislation on the issue, which has languished in parliament for the past decade, needs to be fast-tracked and passed to address the bottleneck.
Report lists Indigenous territories under greatest pressure in the Amazon
- Apyterewa, the territory of the Parakanã people, continues to be the main target of deforestation by land grabbers among the Indigenous territories of the Amazon, a report by Imazon shows.
- The advance of land grabbing in the area known as the “deforestation belt” is used as a form of political pressure for reducing and questioning legally recognized areas.
- Despite increasing pressure, Indigenous territories still have the lowest deforestation rate among protected areas, proving their effectiveness as a preservation policy.
- Indigenous representatives and civil society advocates criticize the federal government for reducing vigilance and putting forward bills to explore Indigenous land.
Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports
- Multiple recent reports show that deforestation has greatly increased in Venezuela’s Amazonian states of Bolívar and Amazonas, largely due to illegal mining, expanded agriculture and fires.
- Venezuelan protected areas have been especially hard hit, with illegal incursions and major deforestation occurring inside Caura, Canaima and Yapacana national parks.
- Soaring deforestation rates are blamed partly on Colombian guerrillas operating illegally within Venezuela’s borders, an invasion that one report alleges has been supported by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
- Forest loss has been well confirmed via satellite, while ground truthing has been obtained via firsthand accounts.
China-backed mine in Indonesia poses high risk, World Bank watchdog warns
- An assessment by the World Bank’s internal watchdog has found indications of “extreme” environmental and social risks posed by a China-backed zinc and lead mine in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.
- Among the identified risks are the potential for the mine’s tailings dam to collapse as it would lie on a fault line, as well as the risk of acidic drainage from the dam contaminating surface and groundwater sources that serve local communities.
- While the project was suspended earlier this year in the face of protests, local and international activists say the findings should be reason enough for it to be terminated outright.
Bolsonaro agenda gets a lift from dominance of ‘new right’ in Congress
- A ranking of federal lawmakers in Brazil based on their legislative and voting records has highlighted the rise of a “new right” that’s firmly behind President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda of rolling back environmental and Indigenous protections.
- The Ruralômetro scale, developed by investigative news outlet Repórter Brasil, shows at least 351 out of 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies scored unfavorably on socioenvironmental issues.
- Among the legislation they helped draft or voted in favor of include those that weaken environmental law enforcement, favor predatory economic activities, undermine labor protections, hamper access to social benefits, and hinder agrarian reform.
- Joênia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman elected to the Chamber of Deputies, said the strengthening of this “ruralist” base has forced environmentalists on the defensive, without much room to advance their own bills.
Fighting extractive industries in Ecuador: Q&A with Indigenous rights activist María Espinosa
- Human rights defender Lina María Espinosa has been an outspoken critic of Ecuador’s push for increased mining and oil development. But her work has also made her a target of death threats.
- This year, national protests by Indigenous communities pushed the government to revoke a decree that would have expanded oil investment. It also announced major reforms to the country’s mining plan.
- But Espinosa and members of CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) say the government needs to do more. This month, they’ll sit down with government officials to negotiate future policies.
Encircled by plantations, a Sumatran Indigenous community abides changing times
- Residents of the village of Talang Durian Cacar on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island are struggling to earn decent incomes from unproductive oil palm trees.
- Jakarta-based NGO Kaoem Telapak described the community’s switch to growing oil palm trees as an “ecological, social and cultural consequence of their marginalization.”
- The community, part of the Talang Mamak Indigenous group, can access its customary forest through a corridor bisecting oil palm plantations.
In Brazil’s Amazon, traditional midwives push for greater recognition
- Aptam was created in 2018 as the first and only association of traditional midwives in Brazil’s Amazonas state, where it works to counter negative perceptions of midwives, which come mostly from the medical profession.
- In remote areas of the Amazon, where there’s a lack of government presence, midwives work on the front lines to help unassisted women give birth in places where doctors will not go.
- Amazonas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Brazil, along with onerous restrictions on midwives working in hospitals, which midwives say denies women access to holistic care during childbirth.
- Aptam and its supporters are calling for greater recognition of the role of midwives in community health, as well as official support for their work.
‘Sherpas’ real stories are seldom written’: Q&A with authors Ankit Babu Adhikari & Pradeep Bashyal
- The Indigenous Sherpa communities living in Nepal’s Himalayas find themselves at the forefront of climate change, say the authors of a recent book about the legendary mountaineers.
- Mountaineering has brought a steady source of income for communities living in harsh conditions, but it has also brought with it unprecedented challenges.
- Climate change is making climbing mountains harder and affecting the raising of yaks, considered the lifeline of Sherpa communities.
- To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Mongabay spoke to the co-authors of the new book, Sherpa: Stories of Life and Death from the Forgotten Guardians of Everest, about the people who live, work, adapt and survive on the roof of the world.
For Brazil’s Indigenous people, slavery born of colonization still hasn’t ended
- Since Brazil began recording cases of workers found working in slavery-like conditions in 2004, 1,640 Indigenous people have been rescued from these situations.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 Indigenous people have been found working in these conditions.
- Sugarcane harvesting, which a decade ago was the worst offender in terms of enslaved Indigenous laborers, has now been eclipsed by apple harvesting in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, where native peoples endure degrading work conditions.
- Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil’s south is the state where the most people have been rescued, but numbers of Indigenous slaves are rising in the Amazon in the north, especially at the illegal mines operating inside the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.
Kigali call to action a step forward but not far enough, Indigenous and local leaders say
- The first Africa Protected Areas Congress in Rwanda culminated in the Kigali Call to Action, which foregrounded the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), women and youth, but did not fully address IPLC demands.
- A proposed massive expansion of protected areas — covering 30% of land and marine areas by 2030 — is impossible without the support and inclusion of IPLCs, who bear the highest costs, advocates say.
- The Kigali Call to Action acknowledged “ongoing injustices” experienced by IPLCs in the establishment and running of protected areas, and called for them “to be halted now and in the future.”
- Some saw the APAC event as a missed opportunity to reckon with the failures of the conservation model as it has been implemented in Africa, and say it should have been a chance to chart out a future course that’s more inclusive and just.
In Brazil, an Indigenous group turns a day of grief into a celebration of life
- Carved of wood and painted with tar, Saint Bilibeu is said to bestow fertility on the land, animals and women, and is worshipped every year in the territory belonging to the Akroá Gamella people in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- The ritual, which includes Catholic elements, lasts for four days and sees a procession of people dressed as hunting dogs gather food and drink to offer to Saint Bilibeu.
- Once celebrated during Carnaval, today the ritual is held on April 30 in recognition of an attack by ranchers on the Akroá Gamella community during a land dispute in 2017.
‘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.”
Under Bolsonaro policy, invaders seize control of 250,000 hectares of Indigenous lands
- On April 16, 2020, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, Funai, issued a regulation allowing private properties to be registered inside Indigenous lands that have not yet been demarcated, or officially recognized.
- Since then, the federal government has certified and registered more than 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) of farms in the territories of 49 Indigenous peoples across the country.
- The state of Maranhão has been impacted the most, with 145,000 hectares (360,000 acres) of farmland registered within Indigenous reserves; the Porquinhos Indigenous Territory, home to the Apãnjekra Canela people, is the worst hit, with 69,000 hectares (170,000 acres) of land registered to outsiders.
- The Funai regulation is part of the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s wider refusal to demarcate Indigenous lands, and has resulted in an increase in invasions even in states with regularized territories, such as Mato Grosso, Pará and Roraima.
Indigenous reporters awarded for fight against fake news deep in the Amazon
- Brazilian Indigenous communications network Rede Wayuri has won the 2022 Rule of Law Award from the World Justice Project (WJP).
- Using word of mouth, radio, and mobile messaging apps, the network plays a key role getting news to and from Indigenous communities in the Rio Negro region of the Brazilian Amazon.
- Rede Wayuri has been credited with debunking wild claims circulating on WhatsApp about the COVID-19 vaccine — including that it can turn a person into a crocodile — thereby helping counter vaccine hesitancy among vulnerable Indigenous populations.
- The network has 55 Indigenous communicators from 15 ethnic groups, disseminating information in at least four native languages (Baniwa, Tukano, Nheengatu and Yanomami), in addition to Portuguese, in a region the size of Nicaragua.
Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- For the first time in Brazil, the killing of an Indigenous land defender is expected to be tried before a federal jury — escalated to that level because of what prosecutors say was an aggression against the entire Guajajara Indigenous community and Indigenous culture.
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was killed in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in November 2019; two people have been indicted to stand trial in the case.
- The impending trial stands out amid a general culture of impunity that has allowed violence against Indigenous individuals and the theft of their land — including the killings of more than 50 Guajajara individuals in the past 20 years — to go unpunished.
- It could also set an important legal precedent for trying those responsible for the recent killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira.
In São Paulo, Indigenous Guarani unite over their reclaimed farming tradition
- At the southern end of the São Paulo city limits, a Guarani Indigenous community has reclaimed degraded land once used for eucalyptus monoculture.
- After collecting seeds from communities in other states and countries, the Guarani have more than 200 varieties of native plants, free of any genetic modification.
- The crops include nine types of corn, 15 types of sweet potato, four types of peanut, as well as fruits native to the Atlantic Rainforest.
- Guarani society is built around agriculture, and the recovery of these ancient planting traditions is bringing the community together in a way that wasn’t possible before.
The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)
- Journalists in Brazil and around the world are devastated about the tragic end of a 10-day search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border in northern Amazonas state. Bodies believed to be theirs were found on June 15 after a huge outcry against the federal government’s inaction following their disappearance. Indigenous patrols bravely conducted their own search while the government did little.
- The murders of Dom and Bruno are emblematic of the plight of journalists across Latin America as violence against both journalists and activists in the region escalates. It also raises an alarm for the need to protect reporters as we report on environmental crime from Nature’s frontline.
- But these crimes will not stop us: Exposing wrongdoing across Brazil’s critical biomes — from the Mata Atlantica to the Cerrado to the Amazon — is more necessary than ever now. At the same time, demanding justice for the murder of Bruno and Dom became a fight for all of us.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Brazil shows no progress in response to U.N. calls on Indigenous rights
- Brazilian civil society groups say the government has failed to implement any of the 34 recommendations on Indigenous rights made by a U.N. council in 2017.
- Those suggestions were part of a larger set of 242 human rights recommendations, of which Brazil has fully implemented just one, according to the civil society coalition.
- Indigenous rights advocates say the fact that the government is highlighting its distribution of food aid to Indigenous communities in its report shows just how little it has done in terms of actual policy.
- A similar analysis by a congressional group also concluded that the government had failed to implement any recommendations on Indigenous rights.
For traditional peoples in Brazil’s Maranhão state, progress brings violence
- Brazil’s Maranhão state is home to Indigenous peoples and traditional Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos, who for generations have lived sustainably off the rich natural resources of the waterlogged Amazonian plains that make up this region.
- But tensions have escalated in recent years between these communities and outsiders, including agribusiness interests and infrastructure developers, who see opportunities for livestock ranching and power transmission lines on these vast plains.
- In 2017, in the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Akroá Gamella people, the conflict culminated in a violent attack blamed on agribusiness interests that left 22 community members injured, including two whose limbs were severed; today, the survivors live with serious psychological and physical scars.
- In the wetlands, the construction of electricity towers for transmission lines has been blamed for declining fish stocks, affecting the livelihoods of traditional fishing communities. The company responsible for the works rejects this allegation.
How Colombia disenfranchised Indigenous Inga communities in favor of oil
- In 2014, Colombia’s environmental licensing authority granted the local subsidiary of Canada’s Gran Tierra Energy a permit to prospect for oil in Villagarzón municipality, in the Amazonian department of Putumayo.
- The approval was granted in part on certification from the Ministry of the Interior that there were no Indigenous communities in the proposed project’s area of influence — despite the project site overlapping with seven reserves that are home to the Inga people.
- Since then, the ministry has revised its certification to recognize just one of those reserves, leaving the rest of the Inga communities bereft of their legal right to prior consultation on the proposed development on their territory.
- Following 10 years of protest in the country, the Inga people say they are now ready to escalate their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Podcast: Indigenous, ingenious and sustainable aquaculture from the distant past to today
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at Indigenous peoples’ long relationship with, and stewardship of, marine environments through two stories of aquaculture practice and research.
- Nicola MacDonald joins us to discuss Kōhanga Kūtai, a project in New Zealand that aims to replace the plastic ropes used by mussel farmers with more sustainable alternatives. MacDonald discusses the project’s blending of traditional Maori knowledge with Western science.
- We also speak with Dana Lepofsky, a professor in the archaeology department at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, who shares her research upon clam gardens along the Pacific coast of North America. Some of these clam gardens have been found to be at least 3,500 years old, and were such a reliable and sustainable source of food that there’s a movement afoot to rebuild them today.
Community participation trumps penalties in protecting seascapes, study suggests
- Giving Indigenous peoples and local communities a say in the design and management of marine protected areas boosts conservation outcomes, a new study indicates.
- The study focused on the governance of four MPAs in Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape and found that fish biomass tended to be higher in areas where these communities are more involved in decision-making and had more local management rights.
Indigenous group and locals sign agreement to protect sustainable livelihoods and culture
- Most of Colombia’s remaining 600 Indigenous Nukak people live in camps around Guaviare’s capital and see returning to their territory, a one million-hectare Amazonian reserve, as the only way to survive and live dignified lives.
- A coexistence agreement signed between the Nukak and local campesinos is bringing the Indigenous community closer to returning to their territory and is meant to act as a stop-gap to their cultural eradication.
- Nukak people living in camps suffer from high levels of malnutrition, skin infections, diarrhea, and deeply rooted social malaises, including high levels of drug use, sexual violence, and depression.
- Promoting peace through the coexistence agreement and preventing deforestation are interconnected, says Patricia Tobón Yagarí of Colombia’s Truth Commission.
Open-pit mining ban lifted in Philippine province, clearing way for copper project
- Located in the southern Philippine province of South Cotabato, the Tampakan project is touted as the largest undeveloped copper-gold minefield in Southeast Asia and among the biggest of its kind in the world.
- Since the 1990s, the mine has faced stiff resistance from civil society, the church, and some traditional landowners.
- In December 2021, officials in Manila overturned a nationwide ban on open-pit mining, leaving a provincial ban in South Cotabato as the last major obstacle facing the mine. That ban was overturned on May 16.
- Local activists have vowed to continue fighting the mining project, and called on the provincial governor to veto the decision.
Indigenous village harvests seeds to slow deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado
- Mato Grosso’s Cerrado forest in Brazil is supposed to be protected with set asides when logged for new croplands and pastures. However, farms often get away with protecting less than they’re supposed to.
- In the village of Ripá, Indigenous Xavante people make expeditions for harvesting fruit with seeds for replanting forests, helping to repair some of the damage and supplement their income.
- Ripá and another two dozen Indigenous communities in Mato Grosso sell their harvest to Rede de Sementes do Xingu (RSX), a wholesaler that, since 2007, has sold or given away enough seeds to replant 74 square kilometers (about 29 square miles) of degraded land.
- This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center.
Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Satellites have detected forest clearing within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area (APA) this year, a legally protected area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
- Despite its status, 35% of the primary (or old-growth) forest within the APA was lost between 2006 and 2021, making it one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- The APA was created in 2006 to serve as a buffer for vulnerable surrounding areas, such as the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the massive Terra do Meio Ecological Station, but deforestation has spilled over into both.
- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, but land grabbing and mining have also increased in recent years, with invaders emboldened by the rhetoric and policies of the current government.
Funding, titling project for Indigenous-led organizations launched
- One of the latest conservation funding mechanisms, the Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI), plans to channel funds directly to Indigenous and locally-led organizations and title at least 400 million hectares (988 million acres) of land to reduce deforestation.
- According to organizers, this will avoid 1.1 to 7.4 GtCo2e (gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent) of emissions as 33% of the Earth’s tropical forest carbon is at risk without recognizing community rights to land.
- At least $10 billion is needed to boost legally recognized territories, but much is required to attain the other goals of the initiative, says Dr. Solange Bandiaky-Badji, coordinator of Rights and Resources Initiative.
- Organizers will be holding planning meetings in the Congo Basin and Latin America in May and June to deliver a total of $25 million to Indigenous-led initiatives and test its funding project.
History on the walls: Graffiti brings Manaus’s Indigenous roots to light
- Graffiti artists are painting murals recounting the history of Indigenous people and honoring their culture in the capital of Amazonas, the Brazilian state with the largest Indigenous population.
- Indigenous community leaders say they hope the movement will increase the visibility of Indigenous people living in cities, who often face poverty, housing insecurity and stigma that discourages many from maintaining their culture and identity.
- Fearing cultural erasure, Indigenous activists are urging Indigenous people to embrace their ancestry and identify themselves as Indigenous in Brazil’s next census, expected to begin in August 2022.
- As Indigenous people in cities reclaim their identities, occupying public spaces through street art is playing a key role in the fight to make Indigenous people in urban areas more visible.
Forest loss shows stopgap decrees failing to protect Brazil’s isolated Indigenous
- Decrees issued by the Brazilian government to protect Indigenous territories from outside threats have failed to deter illegal deforestation and may even be encouraging invaders who are betting on them not being renewed, critics say.
- In the first two months of this year, 116 hectares (287 acres) were deforested for cattle pasture and mining in Indigenous lands supposedly protected by these decrees, according to Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples.
- Despite the figure representing an 83% reduction in deforestation from a year ago, Indigenous rights groups say deforestation continues to threaten isolated Indigenous peoples, especially in the absence of government action against the illegal occupation of their lands.
- Ancestral land rights are at the heart of protests currently underway in Brasília, where thousands of Indigenous people have converged for the country’s largest annual Indigenous demonstrations.
Colombian Indigenous community waits in poverty as courts weigh ownership of ancestral land
- In 2009 the Guahibo Indigenous community of El Trompillo was forced to move from what members say is their ancestral land.
- The official owners of the land are reportedly connected to former senator Alfonso Mattos, and plantation companies affiliated with Mattos have been developed in the territory; sources say they are polluting the land, water and air.
- El Trompillo community members hope the higher courts rule in their favor and return them to their land – but in the meantime they live in cramped, impoverished conditions.
- This story is a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto in Colombia.
Best-preserved part of Brazil’s Amazon, home to isolated tribes, faces ‘decimation’
- An area of forest larger than England could be cleared by 2050 in one of the best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon, a new report warns.
- It says the main drivers of deforestation in the Middle Purus region of Amazonas state are illegal logging, neglect by government institutes, and the paving of the BR-319 road.
- The Middle Purus region is home to two areas where isolated Indigenous people were recently discovered, the Jacareúba-Katawixi Indigenous Territory and the Mamoriá Grande River region, but both have been without formal protection since temporary decrees were allowed to expire last year.
- The road-paving project, revived by the Bolsonaro administration in 2020 after being shelved in 1988, also threatens a surge in the deforestation rate, giving land grabbers and illegal loggers greater access to previously remote areas of forest.
Podcast: Crucial to conservation, Indigenous communities’ environmental leadership endures
- On this Earth Month episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we highlight the growing recognition of the role Indigenous peoples play as the world’s top conservationists.
- We speak with author Michelle Nijhuis, whose latest book, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, is a history of the modern conservation movement. She tells us about the book and what it has to say about how Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge have finally come to be acknowledged as vital to the cause of conservation.
- We also speak with Dr. Julie Thorstenson, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. She tells us that the 574 tribes in the United States manage more than 140 million acres of land, and that many of them are working to conserve and reintroduce endangered or declining wildlife, from bison and condors to salmon and ferrets.
NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.
Brazil Congress fast-tracks ‘death package’ bill to mine on Indigenous lands
- Thousands of protesters, including celebrities, activists and 150 Indigenous people from eight ethnic groups, gathered for the biggest environment protest ever held in Brazil’s capital against a series of bills dubbed the “death package” by critics.
- Protesters say the slate of five key bills will cause unbridled environmental damage and violate Indigenous rights by encouraging commercial activities in vulnerable regions and invasions of Indigenous territories.
- While the protests were taking place, the lower house of Congress voted to fast-track one of those bills, which would allow mining on Indigenous lands — an activity that’s banned under Brazil’s Constitution.
- While some lawmakers say they oppose the bills and will vote against them, the bills enjoy the support of President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful agribusiness lobby.
Moore Foundation pledges extra $300m to boost conservation of Amazon
- The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has allocated an additional $300 million toward the Andes-Amazon Initiative to continue biodiversity and forest conservation efforts in the region until 2031.
- To date, the initiative has been successful in conserving 400 million hectares (988 million acres) of land, about half the size of Brazil, since its establishment in 2003.
- New targets include ensuring 100 million hectares (247 million acres) of freshwater and forest ecosystems, as well as Indigenous and local communities’ lands, are effectively managed.
- To safeguard the resilience and health of the Andes-Amazon region’s ecosystems, at least 70% of its historic forest cover must remain intact, a threshold the initiative will exceed if it hits its new targets, says Avecita Chicchón, program director of the Andes-Amazon Initiative.
Gold used in Italian wedding rings linked to Amazon deforestation
- An investigation in Brazil has identified Italian company Chimet, which refines precious metals for the jewelry industry, as a buyer of gold mined illegally from an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The allegations follow a police operation that cracked down on the web of illegal miners, middlemen and exporters who “launder” the gold to conceal its origin.
- Chimet has denied the allegations, saying it only buys from suppliers whose paperwork is in order; Italian police say that if the export documents were forged in Brazil, it’s a matter for the Brazilian police.
- Mining in Indigenous territories is prohibited under Brazil’s Constitution, but a lack of enforcement has allowed the practice to flourish.
Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.
Forest enterprise in Mexico attempts to present opportunities for Indigenous communities
- In the state of Jalisco, northwest Mexico, the Wixárika community of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán is attempting to use the forest sustainably to create development opportunities for inhabitants.
- The state government and the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) are supporting projects that encourage forest conservation while providing income generating opportunities for the Indigenous Wixárika and O’dam communities.
- The area is home to Jalisco’s largest forest reserves with some 680,000 hectares (1,680,300 acres) of temperate, dense and arid forest in the state’s ten northernmost municipalities.
At a disputed Native massacre site, tribes brace for a new, lithium-driven rush
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved an open-pit lithium ore mine in northern Nevada, despite protests by Native tribes to protect the disputed sacred site.
- Lithium is in high demand as the key component in batteries that fuel electric vehicles and cellphones, raising environmental concerns about its extraction.
- The U.S. government is ramping up production of lithium all along the domestic supply chain to meet its clean energy goals.
A conservation paradigm based on Indigenous values in DR Congo (commentary)
- Colonialism and the gazettement of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern DRC led to the evictions of Batwa Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands and a number of human rights abuses that continue today.
- To seek to address historical and contemporary injustices, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is emphasizing Indigenous values and entering a partnership with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) to take actions that ensure that the rights of the Batwa peoples are respected and protected.
- This commentary is written by the Executive Director of Rights + Communities at the WCS, and a Congolese Lawyer and former Chairperson of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Malaysian officials dampen prospects for giant, secret carbon deal in Sabah
- The attorney general of the Malaysian state of Sabah has said that a contentious deal for the right to sell credits for carbon and other natural capital will not come into force unless certain provisions are met.
- Mongabay first reported that the 100-year agreement, which involves the protection of some 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) from activities such as logging, was signed in October 2021 between the state and a Singapore-based firm called Hoch Standard.
- Several leaders in the state, including the attorney general, have called for more due diligence on the companies involved in the transaction.
- Civil society representatives say that a technical review of the agreement is necessary to vet claims about its financial value to the state and its feasibility.
Indigenous community takes Guatemalan land rights fight to international court
- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is hearing the land rights case of the Maya Q’eqchi’ community Agua Caliente Lote 9 versus Guatemala on Feb. 9.
- The eventual ruling could be a landmark decision, establishing an international precedent on Indigenous collective rights over natural resources, such as nickel.
- The Fenix nickel mining license, suspended by court order, was reinstated last month following a controversial consultation process held during a period of Q’eqchi’ protests and crackdowns.
Politicized Indigenous affairs agency puts Brazil’s uncontacted groups at risk
- In January 2021, Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, decided not to extend a Land Protection Order for the uncontacted Igarapé-Ipiaçava Indigenous group; following a public outcry and legal pressure, the land order was extended for six months.
- Confidential documents leaked to advocacy group Survival International, which Mongabay had access to, show top Funai officials attempting to debunk a technical report that gathered evidence of uncontacted Indigenous presence in November 2021.
- Leaked memos also show that Funai president Marcelo Xavier met with fellow Bolsonaro loyalist and senator Zequinha Marquinhos, who is openly against the Land Protection Order, to discuss the confidential report.
- Funai has reportedly ignored another report of a previously unidentified isolated Indigenous group, Isolados da Marmoré Grande, in the state of Amazonas for more than five months, according to an investigation by Brazilian news agency O Joio e O Trigo.
Ecuador’s top court rules for stronger land rights for Indigenous communities
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has ruled that an Indigenous community’s right to free, prior and informed consultation was violated by oil projects, and called for stronger protections to guarantee Indigenous communities’ rights to decide over extractive projects in their territories.
- As part of the ruling, the judges said Indigenous communities must not only be consulted about extractive projects on or near their territory, but they must also give their consent to such projects.
- The ruling will immediately affect oil and mining projects across the country, as they must now seek the consent of Indigenous communities who might be affected by their activities.
- President Guillermo Lasso has not yet commented on the ruling, as he is currently in China trying to renegotiate part of the country’s massive debt — a debt he has sought to address with increased oil and mining projects across the country.
Fires threaten vital peatland in Chile’s Tierra del Fuego
- Fires that started in mid-January continue to burn through forest, peatland and grassland near Chile’s Karukinka Natural Park on the island of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the Americas.
- Conservationists are especially worried about the damage being done to the peatlands, an ecosystem that sequesters twice as much carbon as the Earth’s entire forest cover.
- Members of the Selk’nam Indigenous group, which was expelled from the area more than a century ago and is now attempting to return, say they’re concerned about the preservation of their ancestral territory.
- Due to the logistical difficulties of combating fires in such a remote area, rangers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) say they’re hoping for international assistance from Argentina and the United States.
Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.
California redwood forest returned to Indigenous guardianship, conservation
- Ownership of a 215-hectare (532-acre) redwood forest along California’s north coast was returned to Sinkyone tribes and has been renamed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ.
- The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council is working with Save the Redwoods League, which donated the land, to protect California’s remaining old-growth forest, along with endangered species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
- The 30-year conservation plan and land transfer deal is funded by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in order to offset habitat loss that may result from the company’s activities.
- Indigenous forest conservation principles, such as controlled burnings, will be included in the tribal protected area – an inclusion that should be seen in the 30×30 initiative to protect 30% of lands and ocean by 2030, says Save the Redwoods League and the tribal council.
What went wrong with conservation at Kahuzi-Biega National Park and how to transform it (commentary)
- The Coercive Conservation paradigm prevents local communities from accessing their lands, leading to human rights abuses, corrupt resource extraction, and loss of habitat and wildlife.
- Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which expelled Indigenous Batwa people in 1975, is now overrun by refugees, militias, and mining, while ecoguards reportedly burn villages and kill indigenous people.
- We can transform conservation by supporting Protected Areas that integrate human well-being, are designed and managed by local communities, and are protected by local people with support from security forces, upon request.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Spurred by investor-friendly law, palm oil firms sue to get licenses back
- Two palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing the local government to win back their permits that were revoked last year.
- The new filings are the latest wave of litigation in the province since authorities across West Papua’s eight districts revoked the permits of 16 palm oil companies over administrative violations.
- Lawsuits filed by three other companies were thrown out last December and earlier this month, leaving opponents of the palm oil industry hopeful of a similar outcome in the latest case.
- The staunchest opponents of the companies are the Indigenous communities who have long sought official recognition of their ancestral rights to the land and forests that fall within the oil palm concessions.
Philippine groups slam ‘cruel Christmas gift’ as open-pit mining ban is lifted
- On Dec. 23, Philippine Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu issued an order overturning a 2017 ban on open-pit mining.
- This follows an April 2021 decision by President Rodrigo Duterte to lift a 2012 moratorium on new mining agreements.
- The move has been welcomed by the mining industry, but slammed by environment and Indigenous rights groups as “a cruel Christmas gift” and “another blow against an already gasping state of our Philippine environment.”
In Bolivia, Indigenous groups fear the worst from dam project on Beni River
- More than 5,000 Indigenous people would be impacted by flooding from the construction of two dams in Bolivia, according to Indigenous organizations and environmentalists.
- Successive governments have mulled the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project for more than half a century, and the current administration of President Luis Acre has now revived it as a national priority.
- While Indigenous groups have successfully rejected the plan in the past, this time a group of 10 Indigenous organizations have signed an agreement with the state energy company approving feasibility studies.
- If completed, the reservoirs for the project would cover a combined area larger than Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, and inundate an area that’s home to thousands of plant and animal species.
Community project helps Kenya aim for climate goals one mangrove tree at a time
- Along Kenya’s southeastern coast, three communities are restoring 460 hectares (1,137 acres) of the Vanga mangrove forest to meet the country’s emission reduction targets, provide a buffer against natural disasters, and support fishing livelihoods.
- The Vanga Blue Forest project has planted more than 1,000 native mangrove trees since it started in 2019, and aims to work with neighboring communities in Tanzania to restore mangrove forests along 140 kilometers (87 miles) of the East African coastline.
- The early stages of the project were a series of trial and error to achieve successful reforestation, as previous efforts a decade earlier had only a 10% survival rate among the 750,000 trees planted.
- The project is involved in the international carbon trade market and has so far sold $44,433 of carbon credits by accumulating 5,023 metric tons of carbon above ground.
Indigenous food systems can provide game-changing solutions for humankind (commentary)
- Although strides have been made in agricultural systems to feed the world population, they have also led to increased emissions and biodiversity loss.
- Indigenous food systems, practiced over millennia, can provide solutions, as shown in a recent report whose findings have spurred scientists and a coalition of several countries to work together to preserve and strengthen Indigenous food systems.
- This article is the last of an eight-part series showcasing Indigenous food systems covered in the most comprehensive FAO report on the topic to date.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.
‘Rampant forest destruction’ wracks reserve as cattle ranching advances in Brazilian Amazon
- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station comprises some 3.37 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, and is home to hundreds of species – including some that are threatened with extinction.
- But despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with satellite data showing deforestation doubling in 2021.
- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land speculators spilling over from the neighboring Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become the most deforested slice of the Brazilian Amazon in recent years.
- Pending legislation could make it even easier to legalize illegitimate land claims, providing hope to land speculators and cattle ranchers that they could soon receive land titles for land they have deforested and occupied illegally.
How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.
Slashed forest protections ignites land grabbing frenzy in Brazilian Amazon
- Earlier this year, Rondônia’s legislative assembly voted to pass a law that reduced the extent of Guajará-Mirim State Park by roughly 50,000 hectares and reduced another nearby reserve to a sliver.
- The move effectively removed protections from nearly a quarter of the park, and critics say it “gave a free pass” to outsiders to move in, deforest and lay claim to land.
- Rondônia’s top court annulled the law in November, ruling the reduction of the park’s limits to be unconstitutional.
- But sources say the invasions into the park are continuing, and are
inching closer to vulnerable Indigenous and traditional communities in neighboring reserves.
Top 15 species discoveries from 2021 (Photos)
- Science has only just begun to find and describe all of the species on Earth; by some estimates, only 20% have been described.
- This year, Mongabay reported on newly described species from nearly every continent, including an Ecuadoran ant whose name broke the gender binary, an acrobatic North American skunk, an Australian “killer tobacco,” a fuzzy orange bat from West Africa, tiny screech owls from Brazil, and more.
- Though a species may be new to science, that doesn’t mean it has not yet been found and given a name by local and Indigenous communities.
In Guyana, saving an Indigenous language from dying out with its last speakers
- There are only about 2,000 speakers of the Indigenous Carib language left in Guyana, most of them elderly, raising concerns that the language could soon die out.
- But in the remote village of Kwebana, a young primary school teacher and a community health worker are spearheading a project to save the language with the help of its remaining speakers.
- They’re working with Indigenous women as part of an empowerment program that’s taking on the challenge of not just preserving the language, but embedding it in the lives of the younger generation.
Illegal roads pierce Indigenous reserve, national parks in Colombian Amazon
- A series of roads in the Colombian Amazon are cutting through national parks and an Indigenous reserve, satellite imagery shows.
- Residents of the reserve and environmental experts say the authorities have done little to stop the expansion of the road network, which has been accompanied by extensive deforestation.
- Experts and anonymous sources say well-funded operators are behind this pattern of deforestation and the land grabbing that follows.
- Residents of the Yaguará II Indigenous Reserve, already facing violence from ex-guerrillas who once controlled this region, say they’re worried about the roads bringing in more settlers occupying their territory.
Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal
- An Indigenous leader in Sabah is suing the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo over an agreement signing away the rights to monetize the natural capital coming from the state’s forests to a foreign company.
- Civil society and Indigenous organizations say local communities were not consulted or asked to provide input prior to the agreement’s signing on Oct. 28.
- Further questions have arisen about whether the company, Hoch Standard, that secured the rights under the agreement has the required experience or expertise necessary to implement the terms of the agreement.
Betty Rubio, the tech-savvy Kichwa leader defending threatened territory
- In 2018, Betty Rubio became the first woman president of her region’s Indigenous federation, a role in which she faces threats from narcotrafficking, logging and illegal mining.
- The Kichwa leader says her grandfather warned her about the risks of deforestation, so today she’s participating in an environmental monitoring project to detect illegal activities in the Amazon.
- In Peru, where only 4% of presidencies in Indigenous communities are held by women, Betty tries to encourage her female colleagues to take leading positions in their organizations.
Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows
- A study published today in Global Environmental Change shows that the approval of Brazil’s Bill 191 allowing mining on Indigenous land could be detrimental to up to 43 uncontacted Indigenous groups.
- Researchers also found that almost half of mining requests in the Brazilian Amazon registered through the National Mining Agency, a total of 3,600, were located in Indigenous territories with uncontacted groups.
- The authors recommend scrapping the bill and increasing research on isolated Indigenous groups so they can be better protected. Still, a dossier published this week by the Uncontacted or Destroyed campaign shows the Bolsonaro administration is not protecting known uncontacted groups.
Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.
Papua clan takes first step toward official recognition of land rights
- A district head in Indonesia’s West Papua province has issued a decree that recognizes the rights of an Indigenous clan to its ancestral lands and forests.
- The decree, the first in the district, serves as the first step toward the Gelek Malak Kalawilis Pasa clan getting official recognition of its customary rights from the central government in Jakarta.
- Activists have welcomed the decree, saying it gives the clan better protection against the advancement of the palm oil industry, which has long coveted the clan’s lands and forests for conversion into plantations.
‘Our land, our life’: Okinawans hold out against new U.S. base in coastal zone
- Opponents of the planned relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa say they remain undeterred despite the defeat in elections last month of the opposition party that supported the cause.
- Local activists plan to continue opposing the relocation of the Futenma Marine base, from the densely populated city of Ginowan to the less crowded Henoko Bay coastal area.
- The proposed new facility and other military bases in Okinawa have been linked to toxic environmental pollution, military-linked sexual violence, and historical land conflicts between native Okinawans and the mainland Japan and U.S. governments.
- The Okinawa prefecture government recently rejected central government plans to sink more than 70,000 compacting pillars into Henoko’s seabed for construction, which would impact coral and seagrass that host more than 5,000 species of marine life.
Forests for sale: How land traffickers profit by slicing up Bolivia’s protected areas
- Shortly after Bolivia’s Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area was established in February 2021, authorities began receiving reports of invasions and deforestation in and around the new protected area.
- Local sources say land traffickers are illegally buying up plots of protected land to resell, often repeatedly, to third parties.
- Mongabay spoke with one of these third parties, a man who said he purchased access to land in Bajo Paraguá from land traffickers before being evicted by the same traffickers so that they could sell the land to someone else.
- The man said traffickers have resorted to threats of violence to intimidate local communities from reporting incursions.
Indigenous groups call for gov’t intervention as land grabbers invade Bolivian protected area
- Bajo Paraguá – San Ignacio de Velasco Municipal Protected Area was created on February 12, 2021, to protect 983,000 hectares (about 2,429,045 acres) of primary forest in the Chiquitania region of Bolivia.
- But despite its new protected status, residents are reporting invasions and human settlements in Bajo Paraguá, claiming the colonizers were land traffickers.
- On-site investigation and satellite data and imagery show ongoing deforestation.
- Local leaders, including those of Indigenous groups that live in Bajo Paraguá, are calling for government intervention – while also alleging connections between land grabbers and government officials.
Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.
Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
- Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, signed a nature conservation agreement on Oct. 28 with a group of foreign companies — apparently without the meaningful participation of Indigenous communities.
- The agreement, with the consultancy Tierra Australia and a private equity-backed funder from Singapore, calls for the marketing of carbon and other ecosystem services to companies looking, for example, to buy credits to offset their emissions.
- The deal involves more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest, which would be restored and protected from mining, logging and industrial agriculture for the next 100-200 years.
- But land rights experts have raised concerns about the lack of consultation with communities living in and around these forests in the negotiations to this point.
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