topic: Resource Conflict

topic: Resource Conflict

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To renew or not to renew? African nations reconsider EU fishing deals
- The European Union currently has fisheries access deals with 11 African countries, several of which are up for renegotiation this year.
- Under the deals, called Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs), European fishing companies gain access to resource-filled foreign waters, while the African countries get cash.
- Senegal was the first country to sign such a deal, in 1979, but President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected in March after proposing to suspend it altogether in response to concerns that it’s unfair to local fishers. It’s not yet clear whether he will follow through, but his rhetoric reflects shifting arrangements in African fisheries, where the EU no longer dominates as it once did.
- Experts see this as a possible win for local control of precious marine resources, but they also caution that many of the alternative arrangements African governments are turning to instead of SFPAs are more socially and environmentally problematic, and less transparent.

Desperation sets in for Indigenous Sumatrans who lost their forests to plantations
- The seminomadic Suku Anak Dalam Indigenous people have lived in two areas of what is now Jambi province on Indonesia’s Sumatra island for generations, but an influx of plantation interests has shrunk the customary territory available to their society.
- More than 2,000 Suku Anak Dalam have lost their land to oil palm and rubber plantations, which have also led to a loss of the native trees from which community members collect forest honey to sell.
- Several Suku Anak Dalam interviewees said state-owned rubber plantation company PT Alam Lestari Nusantara had failed to properly compensate them for their land.
- The company did not respond to several requests for comment.

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.

Resource wars and the geopolitics behind climate-fueled conflicts
- Journalist Dahr Jamail joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the history and present context of resource wars, which he says are putting pressure on the planet’s ecological limits.
- Noted for his work as an unembedded journalist during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Jamail says resource-based motives are behind many if not most conflicts today.
- Scientists have warned governments this risks wasting time and money that could otherwise be spent on addressing the looming threats of climate change.
- One estimate puts the total cost of all post-9/11 wars at $8 trillion to the U.S. alone, and the death toll at between 4.5 million and 4.7 million people.

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 shows dire state of Mekong’s fish — but damage can still be undone
- A recent report by 25 conservation organizations raises alarm about the state of fish in the Mekong River, determining that at least 19% of species are threatened with extinction.
- The report calls for the global “Emergency Recovery Plan” for freshwater biodiversity to be implemented in the Mekong, with an emphasis on letting the river and its tributaries flow more naturally, improving water quality, protecting and restoring critical habitats and species, and curbing unsustainable resource extraction.
- Despite the threats, the report notes conservation bright spots, including the discovery of new species, and emphasizes that it is not too late to protect the river, its fish, and the millions of people who depend on it.

Locals slam Zimbabwe for turning a blind eye to Chinese miner’s violations
- Mining workers and villagers near the Bikita Minerals lithium mine in Zimbabwe accuse the government and Chinese mining company Sinomine Resource Group of sidelining environmental and social standards in the scramble for lithium.
- After a series of displacements, spills, labor abuses, a death, and little action by authorities, locals and experts accuse the government of failing to enforce its own laws and letting bad mining practices run loose.
- According to industry experts, in theory, Chinese investments come with an increasingly robust set of ESG standards, but in practice these aren’t followed if host countries “shy away” from making such demands from their new partners.
- Zimbabwe, under economic stress, holds Africa’s largest lithium reserves and sees potential for an economic boost from mining the critical mineral, which represents the country’s fastest growing industry, with companies from China as the largest share of investors

Madagascar takes key step toward improving transparency of its fisheries
- Madagascar recently released its first fisheries transparency report, part of an effort to open up, democratize, and improve the sustainability of its fisheries sector.
- The report is a key step in a process defined by the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), a Seychelles-based nonprofit.
- It contains important information on traditional, artisanal and industrial fisheries, a list of the laws and regulations governing the sector, tenure arrangements, and access agreements — including previously undisclosed information.
- It also assesses the country’s transparency according to the availability and accessibility of data from six thematic areas as outlined by the FiTI Standard.

Gharial conservation plan leaves Nepal fishing communities searching for new jobs
- Since the creation of Chitwan National Park, some Indigenous Bote people who have lost access to their ancestral lands and livelihoods have been employed by the park as gharial keepers to help conserve the critically endangered species.
- However, community members say the park’s restrictions on their fishing livelihoods to protect the reptile species is taking a toll on their economic needs and restricting their rights; the possibility of working as gharial keepers and other livelihood alternatives are insufficient, they say.
- Many parents are now encouraging their children to migrate to Persian Gulf countries to work as migrant laborers in order to lead a better material life.
- Conservationists say restricting fishing is an important step in protecting the species, which would struggle to survive if many economically dependent communities fished in the rivers.

Norwegian salmon farms gobble up fish that could feed millions in Africa: Report
- Norwegian salmon farms are taking huge amounts of wild fish from West Africa, mining the food security of the region, according to a report from the U.K.-based NGO Feedback.
- In 2020, the industry produced salmon feed ingredients using up to 144,000 metric tons of small pelagic fish caught along the coasts of West Africa, where they could have fed between 2.5 million and 4 million people, according to the report.
- The analysis comes as the industry faces a wave of public opposition after revelations of high mortality rates and the sale of fish deemed unfit for human consumption, along with accusations of antitrust violations by the European Commission.

Climate change, extreme weather & conflict exacerbate global food crisis
- Global food insecurity has risen substantially since pre-pandemic times, exacerbated by extreme weather, climate change, war and conflict.
- What the U.N. World Food Program calls “a hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions” plays out differently around the world.
- In this story, three of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows detail the local situation in their region – from rising inflation and flooding in Nigeria to diminished local food production in Suriname and the environmental and socioeconomic effects of commercial food production in Brazil.
- “If we do not redouble and better target our efforts, our goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 will remain out of reach,” write the authors of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2023 report on global food security and nutrition.

Attack on Pataxó Hãhãhãi Indigenous leaders must be investigated (commentary)
- In January, two leaders of the Indigenous Pataxó Hãhãhãi community of Bahia State in Brazil were brutally attacked by a militia calling for a ‘repossession’ of their land, as police officers allegedly watched.
- One was killed and the other badly injured in the attack, leading to calls from the community and rights advocates for police to be withdrawn from the territory and for the governor to take protective action.
- “Who is at the helm of public security forces in the southern, southwestern, and far southern regions of Bahia? Who orchestrates and steers operations of the military police in this area?” a new op-ed says in asking for a thorough investigation.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

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

Indigenous effort in Bangladesh helps reverse endangered fish’s slide to extinction
- Unchecked logging and quarrying of rocks from streambeds in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts led to springs drying up and populations of putitor mahseer fish, an endangered species, disappearing.
- The situation was worsened by climate change impacts, characterized here by a more intense dry season during which even streams that once ran year-round now dry up.
- A project launched in 2016 and backed by USAID and the UNDP is working with Indigenous communities to reverse this decline, starting with efforts to cut down on logging and quarrying.
- As a result of these efforts, areas where forests have been conserved have seen the flow of springs stabilize and populations of putitor mahseer and other fish revive.

Guyana Amerindian communities fear Venezuela’s move to annex oil-rich region
- In Decemer, Venezuela’s president announced a series of measures and legislation to formalize the country’s possession of the oil-rich Essequibo region in Guyana, which he argues was stolen from Venezuela when the border was drawn more than a century ago.
- Venezuela has instructed the state’s oil and gas agencies to immediately grant operating licenses to explore and exploit oil, gas and mines in the Essequibo region, giving companies already operating in the area three months to leave.
- Amerindian communities in Guyana have raised concerns that Venezuela’s takeover may threaten decades-long battles for recognition of their customary lands and, in the process, endanger the region’s rich biodiversity.

When will families of slain Amazon land defenders get justice? (commentary)
- As the world marked International Human Rights Day on December 10, the murders of 32 Indigenous leaders and Amazon land defenders stood as a stark reminder of the persistent and systematic human rights violations faced by Indigenous communities, and the urgent need for systemic change to ensure their individual and collective rights.
- The recent murder of Quinto Inuma Alvarado, Indigenous Kichwa leader and chief of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, is just the latest crime in a list of dozens in the Peruvian Amazon along the border with Brazil.
- “We urgently demand that the state, through its institutions, effectively commits to protecting those who defend their ancestral territories, implementing intersectoral mechanisms that go beyond declarations on paper and translate into concrete and effective actions,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Chinese gold miners ‘illegally’ tearing up Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- An NGO report and complaints by villagers allege a Chinese company has been mining gold inside one of Cambodia’s largest protected areas years before it was license to do so.
- Late Cheng Mining Development was awarded an exploratory license in March 2020 spanning 15,100 hectares (37,300 acres) inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, and an extraction license in September 2022.
- Local villagers say the company has likely been operating in the region since early 2019; villagers who spoke to Mongabay requested anonymity, citing fears of reprisals from the authorities.
- A report by the Bruno Manser Fonds and testimony from locals also allege the company’s mining activities risk contaminating waterways that villagers rely on.

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.

Kenyan government again evicts Ogiek communities from Mau Forest
- On Nov. 2, the Kenyan government began demolishing houses and evicting Indigenous Ogiek from the Maasai Mau Forest.
- The evictions are taking place despite a 2017 ruling by an African court of human rights that acknowledged the Ogiek’s claim to the forest as well as their traditional role in preserving it.
- Kenya Forest Service officials say they are acting against people who are living and farming in the forest illegally.

Deforestation continues in Kenya’s largest water capturing forest, satellites show
- New satellite data shows ongoing tree cover loss in Kenya’s largest water catchment, the Mau Forest, despite protection efforts.
- More than 19% of tree cover was lost between 2001 and 2022, mostly due to agriculture.
- Unclear boundaries and limited enforcement allow illegal logging and agricultural expansion to continue, degrading protected reserves.
- Conservationists argue stronger monitoring and enforcement is urgently needed to save Mau Forest and preserve its rich biodiversity and water resources.

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.

Report: Half of MSC-certified ‘sustainable’ tuna caught with controversial gear
- Tuna fisheries often rely on fish aggregating devices (FADs), floating human-made structures that fish congregate around, which makes it relatively easy to catch them, but which have also raised concerns about high rates of bycatch, capture of juvenile tuna, and pollution.
- Despite these concerns, the number of tuna fisheries using FADs that are certified sustainable under the standards of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries, has soared, and FAD-fished tuna now account for more than half of all MSC-certified tuna, according to a new report from France-based nonprofit BLOOM Association.
- The report contends this constitutes a weakening of MSC standards in order to meet market demands for tuna.
- The MSC has refuted this claim, pointing to steps that certified fisheries are taking to reduce and study the impact of FADs.

African NGOs seek more funds, trust, and autonomy in global partnerships
- A recent report from conservation nonprofit Maliasili scrutinizes partnerships between big international NGOs and their smaller conservation-focused partners in Africa.
- The biggest pain points in these often lopsided relationships Africa appear to be money, trust, and autonomy, the report says.
- More than half of the local organizations surveyed in Maliasili’s “Rooting for Change” report cited a lack of trust as a challenge in partnerships.
- “We want a supporting relationship rather than a dictatorial partner,” John Kamanga, co-founder and director of the Southern Rift Association of Landowners (SORALO) in Kenya, told the report authors, and “a willingness to co-design and build from our ideas.”

Study: Despite armed conflicts, Indigenous lands have better environment quality
- Global biodiversity hotspots, which cover only 2.4% of the Earth’s land, have witnessed more than 80% of armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000, some of which continue even today.
- Armed conflicts, driven by various factors, result in big losses for biodiversity and impact Indigenous ways of life.
- A new study finds four-fifths of these armed conflicts in biodiversity hotspots occur on Indigenous peoples’ lands — yet these areas remain in better shape ecologically than conflict-affected non-Indigenous lands.
- The study underlines the role Indigenous peoples play in environmental conservation, and highlights Indigenous self-determination as key to conservation and prevention of armed conflicts.

Video: Rice as a peace offering in India’s human-elephant conflict capital
- Assam state in northeastern India, where farmers and elephants jostle for space and food, has one of the highest incidences of human-elephant conflict in the country.
- Conservationists from Hati Bondhu, a nonprofit organization, are working with farmers in Assam’s Golaghat district to pursue a more peaceful human-elephant coexistence.
- Their first experimental project, which was to grow rice in some fields dedicated to elephants so farmers could harvest separately elsewhere, was a success.
- They’re now planning solutions to overcome the limitations of this short-term project, involving more villages and planting more species outside of farmlands in large-scale projects.

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

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.

Balancing elephant conservation and community needs: Q&A with award-winning ranger Fetiya Ousman
- The harsh environment of Ethiopia’s Babile Elephant Sanctuary is characterized by intense competition for resources, particularly water and land, between elephants and people.
- Expanding human settlements and poaching are fragmenting areas where endangered elephants range, while elephants at times destroy community crops in search of food or space.
- This daily struggle for survival is exacerbating conflicts between humans and elephants, with nine community members and six elephants killed in violent encounters this year alone.
- To dive into the human-elephant conflicts boiling over in this sanctuary and know how rangers maneuver this tricky reality, Mongabay speaks with the sanctuary’s award-winning chief ranger, Fetiya Ousman.

Madagascar signs new ‘sustainable’ tuna deal with the EU
- In late June, Madagascar and the European Union struck a new four-year deal allowing fishing vessels flagged to EU countries to resume harvesting tuna in Madagascar’s waters after an unusual four-and-a-half-year gap.
- The EU says the deal benefits Madagascar by providing key funding to support fisheries governance, and civil society groups praised the Madagascar government for creating a more inclusive and transparent negotiating process than in the past.
- However, critics contend that the deal offers little benefit to the citizens of Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, and enables European vessels to exacerbate the overfishing of Indian Ocean tuna stocks.

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.

Over a third of conflicts over development projects affect Indigenous people: Study
- Roughly one-third of all environmental conflicts documented in an online crowd-sourced atlas affect Indigenous peoples, researchers have found.
- The mining of transition minerals has been linked to hundreds of allegations of abuse with multi-faceted impacts on the environment and communities, according to a new report.
- Some Indigenous organizations are calling for Indigenous rights and free, prior and informed consent to be central to the transition to a green economy in light of the global rush to secure clean energy minerals.

Can an app help Liberian artisanal fishers fight illegal fishing?
- Small-scale fishers in Liberia are using a data collection platform to document cases of illegal activity at sea.
- Artisanal fishers have long borne the brunt of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, some of it occurring within an inshore exclusion zone that extends 6 nautical miles from shore.
- Through the use of a mobile app called DASE, released by the NGO Environmental Justice Foundation, local fishers can geotag images and videos of incidents at sea and submit them to the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority for verification and possible investigation.
- Though the app has not resulted in any prosecutions yet, fishers say it is having a deterrent effect on illegal activities.

Residents of southeast Alaskan town debate mine that’s bound to change region
- After years of debate, a proposed mine in southeast Alaska near the Chilkat River has a permit to dig an exploratory tunnel and release wastewater.
- The mine has become a divisive topic in the town of Haines, where the Chilkat River sustains the region’s thriving fishing industry.
- Some residents are concerned about how the project could impact salmon in the river and their fishing jobs.
- Others believe the mining companies running the project will be responsible when it comes to protecting the river, while providing jobs in mining.

Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- In 2021, Cambodia’s government began enforcing a ban on farming in designated conservation zones around the Tonle Sap wetland, moving to protect the health of this vital fishery but also disrupting the lives of thousands of farmers who live around the lake.
- With general elections scheduled for July, authorities now appear to be taking a softer line on enforcing the ban; in December 2022, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the boundaries of the conservation zone be redrawn by the end of May this year.
- Subsistence farmers, who experts say have been given little support to find alternate forms of livelihood, wait as their futures hang in the balance.
- This story was produced in partnership with fellows of the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media, and won a silver prize in the 2023 Canadian Online Publishing Awards for the best feature article in the academic category.

Namibia’s first peoples struggle to access their traditional lands (commentary)
- Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program receives significant backing.
- Two CBNRM land conservancies are sited in the last strongholds for Indigenous communities in southern Africa, the Ju/hoansi San and the !Kung San.
- However, research suggests that the conservancies’ natural resources often benefit traders, herders, and trophy hunting guides more than the Indigenous peoples, who too often are unable to access their traditional lands.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

Deforestation on the rise in Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Mennonite communities move in
- Mennonite families began to arrive in the southern Mexican municipality of Bacalar in 2001.
- They swiftly bought land, became members of the local ejido — an area of communally owned agricultural land — and then founded their own.
- Their presence in the region has continued to grow, along with the level of deforestation.
- Satellite imagery and field visits reveal vast swaths of rainforest have been cleared for large-scale agriculture.

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

As livelihoods clash with development, Vietnam’s Cần Giờ mangroves are at risk
- Cần Giờ, a coastal district of Ho Chi Minh City, is home to a 75,740-hectare (187,158-acre) mangrove forest, planted and maintained as part of post-war reforestation efforts.
- The district’s residents largely depend on aquaculture, shellfish gathering and small-scale ecotourism for their livelihoods.
- The government and developers hope to market the area as an ecotourism city based on its natural beauty and post-war success story, but major projects could disrupt Cần Giờ’s precarious balance between ecosystems and livelihoods.
- All names of sources in Cần Giờ have been changed so people could speak freely without fearing repercussions from authorities.

Indigenous communities in Latin America decry the Mennonites’ expanding land occupation
- A team of journalists followed in the footsteps of five Mennonite colonies that have been reported for clearing forests by Indigenous communities and locals in Bolivia, Colombia, México, Paraguay and Perú. Many of these cases are being investigated by prosecutors and environmental authorities.
- Authors of a recent study to understand the extension of Mennonite presence in the region say that the expansion will continue as the colonies grow in size and continue to pursue farming, creating new colonies.
- Many of these cases are being investigated by prosecutors and environmental authorities.

Environmental peacebuilding must pay more attention to armed groups (commentary)
- State and non-state armed groups often play crucial roles in conflict and cooperation over natural resources.
- Environmental peacebuilding examines how addressing resource conflict and improving governance can serve as a stepping stone for broader efforts at peace.
- Though much research and programming of this sort speaks of governments and communities as the main conflict parties, armed parties should also be considered conflict actors in their own right.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Element Africa: Mines take their toll on nature and communities
- Civil society groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo are demanding the revocation of the license for a Chinese-owned gold miner operating inside a wildlife reserve that’s also home to nomadic Indigenous groups.
- Up to 90% of mines in South Africa aren’t publishing their social commitments to the communities in which they operate, in violation of the law, activists say.
- A major Nigerian conglomerate that was granted a major concession for industrial developments in 2012 has still not compensated displaced residents, it was revealed after the company announced it’s abandoning the project.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

Putting a price on water: Can commodification resolve a world water crisis?
- In 2018, a trader listed water on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and then in 2020 introduced a futures market so consumers can factor the cost of water into their investment plans. After a slow start, traders expect the market to grow more strongly in 2023.
- Some analysts see this as a positive step, allowing market adjustments to provide consumers with the cheapest and most efficient way of buying water. Others disagree, saying that water, like air, should not be commodified as it is a fundamental human right and must be available to all.
- Critics fear that creating a water market is a first step toward a future in which just a few companies will be able to charge market rents for what should be a free natural resource. Huge questions remain over water allocations for industry, agribusiness and smallholders, cities, and traditional and Indigenous peoples.
- The clash between these economic and socioenvironmental worldviews isn’t just occurring internationally. The conflict over water regulation is evident in many nations, including Brazil, which lays claim to the world’s biggest supply of freshwater, and Chile, currently suffering from its most severe drought ever.

New oil refinery ‘a huge disaster’ for Nigerian forest reserve
- Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve comprises nearly 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) in southern Nigeria, and is home to threatened wildlife and economically valuable tree species.
- Despite its official protected status as a forest reserve, much of Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve’s tree cover has been lost due to human activities like logging and farming.
- Area residents say the construction of this new refinery has exacerbated deforestation in Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve, and a government official calls the development of the reserve “a huge disaster for the forest.”
- Residents are also concerned that the refinery will exacerbate conflicts between Local Government Areas.

Latest water-sharing deal between Bangladesh, India is ‘drop in the ocean’
- Bangladesh and India share 54 rivers that flow down from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, chief among them the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.
- Managing the flow of water both upstream and down is crucial for agriculture, navigation, inland fisheries, and keeping saltwater intrusion at bay in Bangladesh, but is undermined by a lack of water-sharing agreements.
- The Bangladeshi and Indian prime ministers recently signed an agreement on sharing water from the Kushiara River for irrigation, but experts say this is nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
- They’ve called on the governments of both countries to push for securing long-term treaties on water sharing from major rivers like the Ganges and the Teesta, which in the latter case has been hobbled by local politics in India.

Fisheries crackdown pushes Cambodians to the brink on Tonle Sap lake
- A ban on illegal fishing in Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s largest lake, is hitting local communities hard — even those engaged in legal fishing.
- “By continuing to fish, we are forced into hiding, we are forced into crime,” one fisher told Mongabay, describing a climate of fear amid a heavy law enforcement presence.
- Another says the crackdown is being prosecuted with impunity: officers “will confiscate anything from anyone and then say ‘It’s illegal’” in an alleged ploy to solicit a bribe.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Poverty-fueled deforestation threatens Kenya’s largest water catchment
- Mau Forest is East Africa’s largest native montane forest and Kenya’s largest water catchment.
- Olpusimoru Forest Reserve is one of Mau Forest’s protected areas, but its forest cover has been greatly reduced by logging, fuelwood collection and other poverty-driven human pressures.
- Beginning in 2018, thousands of families that had established themselves inside the forest reserve’s boundaries were evicted by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, part of a wider push that saw more than 30,000 people evicted from the broader Mau Forest Complex.
- Despite government intervention and civil society initiatives to assuage poverty in the region, signs of fresh logging, charcoal burning and overgrazing are evident in Olpusimoru Forest Reserve.

As their land and water turns saline, Kenyan communities take on salt firms
- Between 1977 and the 1990s, the Kenyan government allocated thousands of hectares of land to salt mining companies along the country’s north coast.
- People had been living on that land for generations, despite its being officially gazetted as public land by the government.
- Following the allocation of land, local people have complained of harassment and violent evictions by the salt companies, as well as soil and waters rendered too salty to farm, drink, or fish.
- In 2020 groups representing these communities filed a lawsuit against the companies and government that consolidates many complaints and aims to provide recourse for loss of land and livelihoods and damage to the environment. The case is due before a judge in October.

Australian miner threatens lawsuit against PNG for scrapping carbon scheme
- Australian mining and energy firm Mayur Resources announced in July that it would scrap plans to build a planned coal-fired power plant in Papua New Guinea, instead focusing on carbon offset projects in the country.
- Soon after, PNG authorities issued a public notice saying Mayur’s carbon offset project was canceled because of breaches of the country’s forestry laws.
- Mayur is now threatening to sue the PNG government for canceling the carbon scheme.

Organized crime drives violence and deforestation in the Amazon, study shows
- Increasing rates of both deforestation and violence in the Brazilian Amazon are being driven by sprawling national and transnational criminal networks, a study shows.
- Experts say criminal organizations engaged in activities ranging from illegal logging to drug trafficking often threaten and attack environmentalists, Indigenous people, and enforcement agents who attempt to stop them.
- In 2020, the Brazilian Amazon had the highest murder rate in Brazil, at 29.6 homicides per 100,000 habitants, compared to the national average of 23.9, with the highest rates corresponding to municipalities suffering the most deforestation.
- Experts say the current government’s systematic dismantling of environmental protections and enforcement agencies has emboldened these criminal organizations, which have now become “well connected, well established and very strong.”

Did Wall Street play a role in this year’s wheat price crisis?
- In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global wheat spot and future prices skyrocketed, at one point by as much as 54% in just over a week.
- Wheat prices had already been rising over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the World Food Programme to warn that hundreds of millions of people were at risk of going hungry.
- Analysts say the crisis isn’t one of availability but rather one of prices, with some arguing that far too little attention is being paid to the role that speculative gambling by Wall Street has played in pushing up food prices this year.
- As climate change-related droughts and other weather disasters threaten wheat harvests in some countries, food security advocates say it’s time to move to a system that’s less vulnerable to external shocks.

Amid rising pressure, Indonesia’s sea-based communities adapt to change
- A growing population, destruction of coral reefs, and the loss of traditional fishing methods all threaten the way of life of traditional communities in Indonesia whose livelihoods have for generations depended on the sea.
- Among them are the seafaring Bajo people, nomads of the waters between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, who say their resources “are declining day by day.”
- In the Sangihe Islands in the archipelago’s northeast, modern nets and outboard motors have replaced the bamboo gear and sampan boats used by local fishing communities.

Climate change amplifies the risk of conflict, study from Africa shows
- New research shows that climate change can amplify the risk of conflict by as much as four to five times in a 550-kilometer (340-mile) radius, with rising temperatures and extreme rainfall acting as triggers.
- Many countries most vulnerable to climate impacts are beset by armed conflicts, such as Somalia, which is grappling with widespread drought amid a decades-long civil war; the research suggests the country is trapped in a vicious cycle of worsening climatic disasters and conflict.
- Both too little rain and too much rain are triggers for conflict, the research finds: persistent rainfall failures increase instability over a broader geographic region while extreme rainfall increases the likelihood of confrontations over a smaller area and for a shorter time, the analysis suggests.
- The research underscores the importance of tackling climate change impacts and conflict mitigation together because misguided climate adaptation strategies can intensify existing tensions.

Cameroon’s Nigerian refugees who degraded their camp are now vanguards of reforestation
- Nigerian refugees and Cameroonian villagers are taking part in efforts to reforest the area around the Minawao refugee camp near the border between the two countries.
- The influx of the refugees, driven from their homes by the advance of the Islamist group Boko Haram, led to a surge in logging for fuelwood and timber, and also sparked conflict with the locals.
- A reforestation program supported by the UNHCR, French development NGO ADES and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and carried out by refugees and locals, has to date planted more than 400,000 trees across 100 hectares (250 acres).
- Initially, government experts chose the trees to be planted based on their ability to grow quickly and survive in arid places, but since 2017, community members have been brought into the decision-making process as the project’s managers realized that a participatory approach could generate better results.

‘That’s a scam’: Indian firm’s REDD+ carbon deal in the DRC raises concern
- Environmental and human rights advocacy organizations say an Indian company has misled communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, convincing them to sign away the rights to sell carbon credits from the restoration, reforestation or avoided deforestation of locally managed forests.
- These forests, managed under a structure known by the French acronym CFCL, provide communities with control over how land is managed while giving them access to the resources the forests provide, proponents of the initiative say.
- But the contracts, the implications of which were not fairly or adequately explained to community members, may restrict their access to the forests for generations to come, the advocacy groups say.
- These organizations and the communities are now calling on the Congolese government to cancel the contracts.

Coal mining threatens Ethiopia’s ancient coffee forest
- The Yayu forest in southwestern Ethiopia is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the world’s only remaining ecosystems in which genetically diverse varietals of arabica coffee grow wild.
- The forest also sits atop a massive deposit of coal, estimated to be enough to meet Ethiopia’s domestic coal demand for 40 years.
- With Ethiopia’s government looking to boost the country’s mining industry, a shuttered mining venture in the forest’s buffer zone is set to be revived.
- Coffee farmers who have carefully managed and protected the forest for generations say a shift to mining will completely change their society, the local economy, and the environment.

Report clears Kenyan conservancy of community abuse, but advocates cry foul
- In November 2021, the Oakland Institute released a report accusing the Kenya-based Northern Rangelands Trust of ties to intracommunal violence and extrajudicial killings.
- On June 9 this year, an independent review commissioned by The Nature Conservancy, one of NRT’s funders, to investigate the allegations found “strikingly little evidence” that they were true.
- The Oakland Institute called the review a “sham investigation” and said its author had failed to properly engage with tribal authorities or track down the families of alleged abuse victims.

Indigenous agroforestry dying of thirst amid a sea of avocados in Mexico
- A rich tradition of cultivating and collecting medicinal plants in Mexico’s Michoacán state is at risk, as the Indigenous community behind it loses access to water.
- Avocado farms–mostly supplying the U.S. market–dominate water resources in the town of Angahuan, forcing Indigenous P’urhépecha healers to buy clean water by the gallon from shops to keep their medicinal plants alive.
- These healers, known as curanderas, have for generations grown a wide variety of such plants in agroforestry gardens that also combine fruits and vegetables, timber trees, and flowers.
- The P’urhépecha healers are resisting the impacts of avocado farms by planting trees in the hills to build up water resources while launching a natural pharmacy business in town, efforts for which the collective has already won an award from the state government.

A look at violence and conflict over Indigenous lands in nine Latin American countries
- Indigenous people make up a third of the total number of environmental defenders killed across the globe, despite being a total of 4% of the world’s population, according to a report by Global Witness. The most critical situation is in Colombia, where 117 Indigenous people have been murdered between 2012 and 2020.
- Conflicts over extractive industries and territorial invasions are a major cause of violence against Indigenous communities. Between 2017 and 2021, there were 2,109 cases of communities affected by extractive industries and their associated activities in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
- Mongabay Latam interviewed 12 Indigenous leaders from nine countries across Latin America and spoke to them about the threats they face and the murders occurring in the region.

Conflict over resources in Kenya hits deadly highs with firearms in play
- Increased droughts, floods and invasive species are fueling violent conflicts between pastoralists over livestock in Kenya’s central Baringo county, the intensity of which is exacerbated by the proliferation of illegal firearms in the region.
- Firearms trafficked from civil conflicts in the Horn of Africa have made their way into the hands of pastoralists who now see it as the only way to defend themselves and their cattle during raids and conflicts over grazing land.
- In 2021, there were 16 deaths from 19 livestock raids; in the first four months of 2022, there have been 39 fatalities from 24 violent clashes, half of them due to livestock raids.
- Violent conflicts in Baringo are linked to insecurity in neighboring counties, and drought along with politics only heighten the precarious situation.

Deforestation-neutral mining? Madagascar study shows it can be done, but it’s complicated
- The Ambatovy mine in Madagascar achieved no net forest loss by curbing deforestation in its biodiversity offsets, an analysis in the journal Nature Sustainability concluded.
- Project developers create biodiversity offsets, sites where they undertake conservation work, to make up for environmental destruction caused by their extractive operations.
- Ambatovy, which operates an open-pit nickel mine in Madagascar, carved out four biodiversity offsets to make up for biodiversity loss in its mining site, located in the species-rich eastern rainforest of the island nation.
- By slowing deforestation in these four offsets, the mine made up for forest loss in its mining concession; however, there isn’t enough data to ascertain how the measures impacted biodiversity, and previous research indicates that the mine’s offsets reduced impoverished communities’ access to forest resources.

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

Contorted energy politics of the Ukraine crisis (commentary)
- The Russian invasion of Ukraine has driven energy prices to the highest levels in years, spurring a global energy crisis.
- Nikolas Kozloff, a writer who authored “No Rain in the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet,” examines America’s response, which he argues is so far shaping up to be a missed opportunity to transition toward greener energy sources.
- “The Ukraine crisis has the potential to finally nudge the world towards a long overdue clean energy future,” he writes. “However, the Biden administration seems to have calculated that pursuing short-term political gains must take priority.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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.

In Gabon, a community’s plea against logging paves the way for a new reserve
- Gabon’s environment minister has announced an immediate end to the logging of the Massaha ancestral forest in the country’s northeast, setting his administration a two-month deadline to finalize technical questions for permanent protection of the site.
- The move follows his visit to Massaha to gain a better understanding of the motives behind the community’s request to declassify the logging concession and grant it protected area status.
- Minister Lee White also ordered the Chinese company that holds the logging concession, Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), to “leave quickly” and “preserve the area.”
- This is a precedent-setting case in the country’s management of forests, representing the first time an area will be declared protected at the request of the resident community.

Protecting water by conserving forests puts communities in Mexico to the test
- Almost 15 years ago, the inhabitants of eight towns in southern Mexico’s Costa Chica decided to conserve an area that provides them with water by setting aside five square kilometers of their land to create an ecological reserve.
- Previously, sewage from the largest municipality in the area was discharged into the rivers that communities used for washing, bathing and drinking.
- Conflicts initially broke out between communities over sharing water and contributions to the protection of the reserve, though the project has sensitized people to conservation and increased the amount of water in the spring.
- However, according to forestry experts, Mexico’s protected natural areas have exceeded the institution’s capacity and available resources, meaning the communities that manage the conservation of the reserve receive little institutional support.

As the Horn of Africa heats up, the risks of insecurity are rising (commentary)
- World leaders are increasingly concerned about the complex connections between climate and insecurity, including the risk that climate disruption is a “conflict multiplier.”
- The threat is particularly acute in the Greater Horn of Africa, where populations already grappling with food insecurity and armed conflict are experiencing some of the fastest-warming conditions in the world.
- Noting that “the fortunes and stability of this region of 365 million people now look to be at the mercy of weather-driven mayhem”, Robert Muggah, Peter Schmidt, and Giovanna Kuele of the Igarapé Institute draw attention to various efforts already underway in the region to build resilience and call for stepped-up support from global powers.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

From land mines to lifelines, Lebanon’s Shouf is a rare restoration success story
- The Shouf Biosphere Reserve is a living laboratory experimenting with degraded ecosystem recovery in ways that also boost the well-being of the human communities living there.
- Previous conservation efforts in the area involved using land mines and armed guards to stem illegal logging and reduce fire risk.
- Today, the reserve builds local skills and creates jobs in a bid to help the local community through Lebanon’s severe economic crisis.
- Managers are also employing adaptive techniques to build resilience in this climate change-hit landscape.

DRC’s cacao boom leaves a bitter aftertaste for Congo Basin forest
- The DRC’s Tshopo province lost a record-breaking area of intact forests to fires in 2021, a trend researchers say is driven by agricultural expansion, as displaced people from the violence-ravaged eastern DRC move into the province.
- There’s been an increase in clearing of forests to cultivate food crops and cash crops like cacao beans, used to make cocoa for chocolate.
- Around 70% of the world’s supply of cacao beans is produced in West African countries, with Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon the biggest producers, where its cultivation has also accelerated deforestation.
- “You are aware of what has happened in West Africa in countries like Ivory Coast and Ghana,” Germain Batsi, a DRC agroforestry expert, told Mongabay. “I am afraid such scenarios will be reproduced here, something we would regret afterwards.”

Sierra Leone lawsuit against diamond mine runs up against corporate opacity
- Residents of Koidu, in eastern Sierra Leone, are suing the operators of a diamond mine they say has polluted the environment, damaged homes, and cost many their livelihoods.
- The mine’s owners, Octea Ltd., say their contracts and obligations are to the Sierra Leonean government and the case should be dismissed.
- Further complicating matters, Octea is part of a complex web of companies ultimately owned by the troubled mining giant BSG Resources, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019.

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

Liberian villagers threaten to leave mining agreement, citing broken promises
- Communities in Liberia have threatened to withdraw from an agreement they made with a mining company two years ago, on the grounds that none of the promised benefits have materialized.
- Much of the dispute hinges on the interpretation of the agreement, which mandates Switzerland-headquartered Solway Mining Incorporated to make payments to communities, but doesn’t make clear how or when to do so.
- Solway denies any wrongdoing, while the mining ministry has questioned the relevance of the agreement, saying it’s not legally required for exploration to proceed.
- But community members say the company is “proceeding wrongly”: “Solway is a big disappointment. We don’t see the schools and health centers they promised us.”

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

Changes to Madagascar’s trawling sector raise questions and hopes
- Madagascar’s auction for nearshore trawling rights has elicited concern from civil society members, who say it was not conducted transparently and opens the door for environmental mismanagement.
- Two Chinese-backed firms won nearly half of the fishing rights. One of them has brought in vessels that were caught fishing illegally in West Africa last year, and the other, which was already fishing in Madagascar, may have violated a national fishing regulation this year.
- But observers have also welcomed other aspects of Madagascar’s fisheries management overhaul this year.
- These include the creation of the Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy, the appointment of scientist and civil society member as the new minister and the joining of FiTI, a global fisheries transparency initiative.

Madagascar’s small fishers cheer new trawl-free zone, but do trawlers obey it?
- Madagascar in July imposed a prohibition on industrial trawlers fishing in waters within 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) of the country’s coast.
- Small-scale fishers, who for years have clashed with the industrial vessels, welcomed the new rule, but say the trawlers are largely ignoring it.
- Vessel-tracking data appear to corroborate their claims, with at least 14 trawlers apparently fishing in the prohibited zone along the west coast in recent months.
- An industry executive said that any incursions by his company were uncommon and accidental. Regulators say penalties will be imposed based on the severity of the violations.

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

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

Lack of resolution mechanisms allow palm oil conflicts to fester in Indonesia
- An analysis of land conflicts involving palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity, shows the country lacks effective mechanisms for addressing these problems.
- The analysis of 150 cases by Indonesian and Dutch academics found that existing channels for addressing conflict between villagers and plantation firms generally “fail to produce meaningful results for the affected communities.”
- They also found that most of the violence documented in these conflicts was perpetrated by the police or security forces affiliated with the palm oil companies, and that community protest leaders frequently faced arrest and imprisonment on dubious charges.
- They called on the government to set up impartial “mediation boards” or “conflict resolution desks” at the provincial or district level, something the government says it is looking into but can’t commit to just yet.

At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
- The Okomu Oil Palm Company is majority-owned by Socfin, a French-Belgian multinational that operates plantations across West and Central Africa.
- Okomu’s concession lies inside a forest reserve that was gazetted by British colonial authorities in 1912 and that was once among the most pristine rainforests in Nigeria, home to forest elephants, leopards and chimpanzees.
- For more than a decade, Okomu has been in conflict with some of the communities inside its concession over land ownership and usage rights in the reserve.
- In early 2020, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified Okomu’s main estate after an audit by the consultancy firm SCS; campaigners say the firm failed to perform adequate due diligence and that Okomu’s certification is an example of the RSPO’s shortcomings.

Struggle endures for Philippine community pitted against gold miner
- Australian-Canadian mining firm OceanaGold was recently granted a renewal of its permit to mine gold and copper in the northern Philippines.
- The mine has faced years of opposition from area residents, mostly Indigenous people, who say it has scarred their land and threatens the water systems they depend on.
- In 2019, when the company’s previous mining permit expired, protesters mounted barricades to block activity at the mine.
- This year, restrictions put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 have hampered their ability to organize.

In Peru’s Amazon, deforestation and crime sweep through Indigenous communities
- Mongabay Latam investigated the territorial security of Indigenous communities in five regions of the Peruvian Amazon: Loreto, Ucayali, Pasco, Huánuco, and Madre de Dios.
- A geospatial analysis of deforestation, illegal mining, and illicit coca crops in these five regions shows that 1,247 Indigenous communities have been affected.
- The study also revealed that 647 self-identified Indigenous communities in these five regions do not have official recognition from regional authorities to certify their existence and therefore obtain legal title to the land.

Rich countries may be buying illegal gold that’s driving Amazon destruction
- Nearly a third of Brazil’s gold production in 2019 and 2020 was potentially illegal or outright illegal, a new report shows.
- The findings suggest that institutional buyers in rich countries — Canada, the U.K. and Switzerland bought 72% of Brazil’s gold exports — are contributing to the violence, deforestation and pollution associated with illegal mining.
- The report used satellite imagery to show how illegal gold mined in Indigenous reserves was laundered by being reported as having come from legitimate mining concessions; the value of this illegal gold in 2019 and 2020 exceeded $229 million, the report calculates.
- Prosecutors have filed two lawsuits based on the findings: One seeks the suspension of financial institutions identified as buyers of illegal gold in northern Pará state, while the second aims to suspend all permits to mine, sell and export gold from the southwest region of Pará.

Vale told Brazil communities they were in danger. They say Vale wants their land
- Residents moved from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state over fears of impending collapses of dams operated by miner Vale are accusing the company of trying to take over their land.
- The first such evacuation was ordered in February 2019 in the municipality of Barão de Cocais, two weeks after the Brumadinho dam disaster killed 458 people.
- In the two and a half years since then, more communities have been moved, with affected residents saying Vale is stonewalling them on compensation.
- A document drawn up by state prosecutors in March confirms that there’s been interest in prospecting for minerals on the vacated land, although Vale has not responded to the accusation.

Global demand for manganese puts Kayapó Indigenous land under pressure
- InfoAmazonia’s Amazônia Minada project has found an unusual rise in demand to mine for manganese last year in Brazil, one of the world’s top producers of the metal.
- Previously, only 1% of mining bids on Indigenous lands were for manganese; in 2020, it was with 15% of all requests, second only to gold.
- Some of the richest manganese deposits in the world are in southeast Pará state, overlapping with the territories of the Kayapó Indigenous people, which have been targeted the most by mining applications in general.
- Demand from Asia, particularly China, has increased the price of manganese, driving illegal mining; 300,000 tons of the ore were seized last year in Brazil, including from a company bidding to mine on Indigenous land.

Reconciliation through ecological collaboration (Commentary)
- Last fall, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which claimed several thousand lives in an escalation of a long-running territorial conflict between the two countries.
- William Laurance, a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, argues ecological cooperation could be a means to catalyze the ongoing peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
- “Trust between the two nations remains precarious, but collaboration on waterways could be an easy first step toward wider cooperation,” writes Laurance. “These problems affect communities in both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and so both have a clear incentive to address it.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Activists take Indonesia’s mining law to court, but don’t expect much
- Activists have filed suit to revoke what they say are problematic articles from a controversial mining law that has been criticized as pandering to mining companies at the expense of the environment and local communities.
- Among the stipulations the plaintiffs are seeking to have annulled are the centralization of the mining authority with the national government rather than local authorities; and criminal charges for disruptive protests against mining activity.
- Another controversial issue in the law is guaranteed contract renewals for coal miners, along with bigger concessions and reduced environmental obligations.
- The plaintiffs say they’re not optimistic about the court approving their lawsuit, citing the government’s recent gifting of civilian honors, longer terms and an extended retirement age for the six Constitutional Court justices hearing the case.

In Colombia, end of war meant start of runaway deforestation, study finds
- A new study analyzes the changes in forest cover in Colombia before and after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 between the government and armed guerrillas.
- The authors found that between 1988-2012 the forest area transformed to agriculture amounted to 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres), but that in the much briefer post-conflict period of 2013-2019, the pace of conversion surged, with 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) turned into farmland.
- The researchers also identified a direct relationship between violent events and the loss of forest cover.

Land conflicts in Brazil break record under Bolsonaro
- Land conflicts in Brazil broke a record in 2020 for the second year running, reaching 1,576 cases — the highest since 1985, according to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).
- Activists have identified government actions as the main driver for the increase in conflicts over land, labor and water, citing cuts to environmental and social initiatives and rhetoric favoring land grabbers and illegal miners.
- Conflicts involving Indigenous peoples accounted for more than 40% of the total; Indigenous people also made up seven of the 18 victims of murders linked to land conflicts recorded by CPT last year.
- Attacks on Indigenous reserves have escalated in recent weeks, with illegal gold miners attacking the homes of Indigenous leaders on May 26 in the Munduruku reserve in the Amazon, prompting state authorities to demand a continuous presence of security forces in the region.

Humanity’s challenge of the century: Conserving Earth’s freshwater systems
- Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water crisis.
- According to NASA’s GRACE mission, 19 key freshwater basins, including several in the U.S., are being unsustainably depleted, with some near collapse; much of the water is used indiscriminately by industrial agribusiness.
- Many desert cities, including Tripoli, Phoenix and Los Angeles, are sustained by water brought from other basins by hydro megaprojects that are aging and susceptible to collapse, while the desalination plants that water Persian Gulf cities come at a high economic cost with serious salt pollution.
- Experts say that thinking about the problem as one of supply disguises the real issue, given that what’s really missing to heading off a global freshwater crisis is the organization, capital, governance and political will to address the problems that come with regulating use of a renewable, but finite, resource.

Indigenous Dayak man jailed after Indonesian palm oil firm alleges theft
- An Indigenous Dayak man has been arrested for allegedly stealing oil palm fruit from a company’s plantation in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province.
- The company is embroiled in a long-running conflict with five Dayak communities in the area as its concession overlaps with their ancestral lands.
- The arrest has triggered fear among the communities of further arrests if they keep trying to assert their land rights.

Hits and misses for a legal tool to protect the environment in Philippines
- In 2010, the Philippines’ Supreme Court set the provisions for what it calls the “Writ of Kalikasan,” a landmark legal remedy that compels the government to act and halt environmental degradation that impacts more than one municipality.
- More than a decade since it was first defined and used in court, the writ has been invoked for various cases, from closing open dumpsites and illegal landfills, to prompting the government to protect important bodies of water like the rehabilitation of Manila Bay.
- While many petitions have been approved this way, the rulings haven’t always been implemented by local governments.
- In 2019, fishers deprived of access to a fishing site in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Beijing filed a petition for Writ of Kalikasan; however, they backed out of the case soon after, citing a lack of understanding of the legal complexities.

Gas fields and jihad: Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado becomes a resource-rich war zone
- In the early 2010s, the fossil fuel industry discovered Africa’s largest natural gas deposits off the remote northern coastline of Mozambique.
- The discovery led to a massive wave of investment — and almost immediately, a corruption scandal involving Credit Suisse.
- The development of the gas field and LNG plant has been criticized for evicting locals and destroying livelihoods, while failing to deliver on promises of jobs and welfare.
- In late March, the town of Palma near the oil facility came under attack from a jihadist group, and on Monday French energy giant Total declared force majeure on its operations.

Palm oil conflicts persist amid lack of resolution in Indonesian Borneo
- Efforts to resolve land conflicts between palm oil companies and local communities in western Indonesian Borneo have largely failed, with many disputes festering for more than a decade, a new study shows.
- Of 32 conflicts analyzed, 66% haven’t been resolved, even though 72% have been mediated by local governments, lawmakers and police.
- The researchers say the authorities tend to not enforce the law on companies and have instead tended to take a harder line on community members protesting against the companies.
- The study also found that other avenues of redress for the community, such as filing a complaint with certification bodies like the RSPO, remain underutilized because of complicated procedures and a lack of trust in institutions.

‘The river will bleed red’: Indigenous Filipinos face down dam projects
- For more than five decades, Indigenous communities in the northern Philippines have pushed back against the planned construction of hydropower dams on the Chico River system.
- The river is of great importance to Indigenous communities in the provinces of Kalinga and Mountain Province, who call it their “river of life” and have depended on it for generations.
- The Upper Tabuk and Karayan dams have been proposed in some form or another since the 1970s, but are now backed by corporations created by Indigenous groups, causing divisions among communities.
- Critics of the dams have questioned the Indigenous consent process, a requirement for a project on tribal lands, alleging that some of the community support was obtained through bribery.

‘Hungry’ palm oil, pulpwood firms behind Indonesia land-grab spike: Report
- Land conflicts in Indonesia escalated in 2020, with palm oil and pulpwood companies taking advantage of movement restrictions to expand aggressively, according to a new report.
- These disputes have historically waned during times of economic downturn, but last year’s increase was driven by “land-hungry” companies, according to the NGO Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA).
- Most of the conflicts involved palm oil and pulpwood companies, while infrastructure developments backed by the government were also a major contributor.

Mob killing of Malagasy officer spotlights risks faced by forest guardians
- A law enforcement officer was fatally wounded and two civilians killed on Jan. 20 when a mob accosted him and three others as they tried to apprehend suspected illegal loggers in a village in northeastern Madagascar.
- The confrontation was exacerbated by the presence of trained mercenaries who villagers sometimes enlist to protect them against cattle raiders, local media reported.
- Madagascar, a megadiverse island off Africa’s eastern coast has suffered dramatic forest loss in recent years, but reliance on community-led conservation is fraught, given their lack of power and resources.
- At the front line of the fight to preserve its natural riches but at the lowest rung of the enforcement apparatus are Madagascar’s forest guards and law enforcement officers like Lahatra Rahajaharison, who died in the attack.

Environmental assassinations bad for business, new research shows
- After years of research, economics experts say they can prove that financial markets respond swiftly and definitively when multinationals are publicly named in connection with the assassination of an environmental defender.
- The researchers analyzed 354 assassinations over two decades connected to mining and extractive minerals projects around the world, noting particularly significant violent action in the Philippines and Peru.
- Once a company is named, the data show that within 10 days the markets respond, hitting the company with a median loss in market capitalization of more than $100 million.

Cat fight: Jaguar ambushes ocelot in rare camera trap footage
- Camera trap footage revealed a jaguar killing an ocelot at a waterhole in the Maya Biosphere Reserve of northern Guatemala.
- While this kind of killing event is considered rare, it can occur when two predator species are competing with each other over resources such as water.
- Prolonged drought, compounded by climate change, may have influenced this event by making water scarcer than usual, according to the researchers who documented the incident.
- However, other experts say that climate change wouldn’t have necessarily influenced this behavior since ocelots and jaguars have lived together for a long time.

Historical analysis: The Amazon’s mineral wealth — curse or blessing?
- Mining of gold and other precious metals in the Amazon fueled the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, while bringing misery and death to unknown hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people and African slaves, forced to work the mines.
- Modern industrial mining came to the Brazilian Amazon in the late 1940s as transnational firms began digging up and processing manganese, iron, bauxite, zinc, and other ores. Like the earlier iterations of mining, transnational firms, investors, and nations profited hugely, while local people saw little benefit.
- Brazil offered massive subsidies and tax incentives to attract transnational mining companies, and built giant public works projects, including mega-dams, transmission lines, and roads to provide energy and other services to the mines. Though the government offered little to disrupted traditional communities.
- All this came with extraordinary socio-environmental costs, as Brazilian Amazon deforestation soared, land and waterways were polluted, and Indigenous and riverine peoples were deprived of their traditional ways of life and lands, and suffered major public health repercussions. This mining trend continues today.

Brazil sees record number of bids to mine illegally on Indigenous lands
- An exclusive investigation shows Brazil’s mining regulator continues to entertain requests to mine in Indigenous territories, which is prohibited under the country’s Constitution.
- There have been 145 such applications filed this year, the highest number in 24 years, spurred by President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric and a bill now before Congress that would permit mining on Indigenous lands.
- Prosecutors and judges say that by maintaining these unconstitutional mining applications on file and not immediately rejecting them, the mining regulator is granting them a semblance of legitimacy.
- Mining represents a real threat to the Brazilian Amazon, where the protected status of Indigenous territories is the main reason the forests they contain remain standing.

Indonesian parliament to probe pulpwood firm’s dispute with Indigenous group
- Lawmakers in Indonesia want to question pulp and paper company PT Arara Abadi about its dispute with an Indigenous community in Sumatra that resulted in a member of the community being jailed on dubious charges.
- The company has held the concession to the land since 1996, but the Sakai Indigenous tribe have lived and farmed there since 1830, and claim ancestral rights to the area.
- Those rights, however, are not recognized by the government, which allowed PT Arara Abadi, a subsidiary of paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), to press charges against Indigenous farmer Bongku for clearing a small plot of pulpwood trees.
- Bongku was granted early release in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and says his fight will continue.

Groups demand financial, human rights probes into palm conglomerate Korindo
- Activists have called for a financial probe into the Korindo Group, a conglomerate that paid a $22 million “consultancy fee” for the permits to expand its oil palm operations in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- The circumstances around the payment were recently uncovered in an investigation by Mongabay, The Gecko Project, the Korean Center for Investigative Journalism-Newstapa and Al Jazeera.
- Activists want Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency to look into the possibility that the money was channeled as bribes to officials.
- They also want the government to ensure the safety of Papuan communities featured in the Al Jazeera documentary about the payment, in light of a record of rights abuses associated with Korindo’s operations.

Indonesian court jails indigenous farmers for ‘stealing’ from land they claim
- A court in Indonesia has sentenced two indigenous farmers to eight and 10 months in prison respectively for harvesting palm fruit from land whose ownership is contested by the community and a palm oil firm, PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada.
- The ruling appeared to ignore evidence showing that the villagers are the rightful owners of the land; the defendants say they will appeal and also file a lawsuit against the company.
- Activists have lambasted the verdict, saying the entire case is riddled with irregularities, such as the inability of the prosecutors and the company to present proof that the firm owns the contested land.
- A third defendant died in police custody in April after reportedly being denied medical care for his ill health.

Gender-based violence shakes communities in the wake of forest loss
- Women in the province of East New Britain in Papua New Guinea say they have faced increasing domestic violence, along with issues like teenage pregnancy and drug abuse, in their communities as logging and oil palm plantations have moved in.
- Traditionally, women have been the stewards of the land and passed it down to their children, but they say they’ve felt sidelined in discussions about this type of land “development.”
- Experts say that the loss of forest for large-scale agriculture and extractive industries goes hand in hand with violence against women globally, linked with the colonial and patriarchal paradigms associated with these uses of the land.
- In Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, women are working to protect themselves, their families and their forests from these changes.

Canadian company positions for mining ban lift in Argentine province
- Yamana Gold, a Canadian mining company, has partnered with a real estate and investment firm in Argentina to handle “all environmental, social, and governance” issues associated with a potential gold mining project in the province of Chubut.
- Mining has been banned in Chubut since 2003, primarily as a result of local protests that have continued through early 2020.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has restricted the movement of Argentina’s citizens, but activists say the moves by Yamana and government leaders toward a reopening of the project are taking advantage of the crisis.

The mining map: Who’s eyeing the gold on Brazil’s indigenous lands?
- Miners have their eyes on reserves that have been officially demarcated for 15 years and are inhabited by isolated indigenous peoples.
- Applications to mine on indigenous lands in the Amazon have increased by 91% under the Bolsonaro administration.
- The majority of applications to mine on indigenous lands are for areas in Pará, Mato Grosso, and Roraima.
- Among the applicants are mining giant Anglo American, small-scale cooperatives whose members are embroiled in a range of environmental violations, and even a São Paulo-based architect.

Journo arrested for reporting on palm oil tycoon’s alleged land grab
- A palm oil company that’s part of the Jhonlin Group owned by influential tycoon Haji Isam is embroiled in a conflict with indigenous peoples that led to the arrest of investigative journalist Diananta Putra Sumedi by the police.
- Diananta had published an online article quoting indigenous Dayak villagers complaining about alleged land grabbing by the company.
- A source in the story later denied the quotes attributed to him, and Indonesia’s Press Council recommended the story be withdrawn. Despite this, the police insist the criminal investigation will continue.
- Another Jhonlin Group company filed similar complaints against another reporter in 2018; that reporter, Muhammad Yusuf, later died in police custody.

Flooding devastates Ecuador’s indigenous communities in the Amazon
- Extreme floods in the Ecuadoran Amazon have left hundreds of indigenous people homeless.
- Such events have become more frequent, partly as a result of human-driven climate change.
- These communities have little to no access to basic services, which leaves them in an extremely vulnerable situation.
- Further complicating their plight is the global COVID-19 pandemic that has now made its way into Ecuador, one of the Latin American countries hit hardest by the coronavirus so far.

New database wrangles data on land rights projects around the globe
- The database was created by the Land Portal Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands.
- Currently, the database includes hundreds of land tenure projects from the Global Map of Donors and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
- Users are also able to add projects to the database, allowing people working on land and property rights projects to share information.

Farmer dies in custody after being charged in dispute with palm oil firm, prompting COVID-19 fears
- Hermanus Bin Bison was kept in a small jail cell with other inmates in Indonesia even after a doctor found he had a high fever and an abnormal loss of strength.
- The 35-year-old was on trial with two other men for alleged theft, after harvesting oil palm fruit from land that his community claims in Central Kalimantan province.
- They were accused by a plantation company, PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada, that has itself been repeatedly denounced by local authorities for stealing the community’s land.
- The trial of the two co-defendants continues. The company, meanwhile, faces no investigation over alleged land theft.

Conflict between Indonesian villagers, pulpwood firm flares up over crop-killing drone
- Villagers in Sumatra allege that a pulpwood plantation company owned by forestry giant Asia Pulp & Paper has escalated a long-running land dispute by killing their crops and intimidating them.
- Residents of Lubuk Mandarsah say PT Wirakarya Sakti (WKS) used a drone to spray herbicide on their rubber and oil palm trees, and sent security officials door to door to scare villagers into leaving the area.
- The villagers and WKS have since 2007 been embroiled in a dispute over 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of land in Sumatra’s Jambi province that both claim.
- Tensions between the two hit breaking point in 2015 when WKS security guards killed a villager during an altercation.

Land conflicts escalate with spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia
- Companies embroiled in land disputes with rural communities in Indonesia appear to be using the lull in oversight during the COVID-19 outbreak to strengthen their claims, activists say.
- Since the first confirmed cases of the disease were reported in the country on March 2, two local land defenders have been killed and four arrested in connection with land disputes in Sumatra and Borneo.
- The national human rights commission has called on companies, including palm oil and mining firms, to cease their activities during this public health emergency.

Gold mining threatens indigenous forests in the Brazilian Amazon
- MAAP, a program of the organization Amazon Conservation, has documented more than 102 square kilometers (40 square miles) of mining-linked deforestation in the indigenous reserves of Kayapó, Munduruku and Yanomami in Brazil. Mongabay had exclusive access to the report prior to its release.
- Though mining is still illegal in indigenous reserves under Brazilian law, President Jair Bolsonaro has introduced a bill awaiting a vote in Congress that would to allow mining, oil and gas extraction and other uses of these lands.
- Human rights groups like Survival International hold Bolsonaro and his policies responsible for the loss of forest, as well as mercury pollution, societal disruption and the introduction of diseases such as malaria and potentially COVID-19 that result from mining.
- The groups say Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, in favor of developing the Amazon, has emboldened would-be miners.

Qualified success: What’s next for Peru’s Operation Mercury?
- The Peruvian government’s launch of Operation Mercury to crack down on illegal mining had a burst of initial success, cutting deforestation by 92% since its kickoff in February 2019.
- Concerns have surfaced that the operation would simply displace miners, forcing them to deforest new areas.
- However, satellite imagery analysis published in January 2020 revealed that, while deforestation due to mining continues to be a problem in southeastern Peru, Operation Mercury has not led to a surge in forest loss adjacent to the targeted area.
- The government is also investing in programs aimed at providing employment alternatives so that people don’t return to mining.

Complaint alleges oil company left Peru communities’ environment in ruins
- Indigenous communities and human rights NGOs contend that Pluspetrol violated a set of business standards issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
- The complaint, delivered March 11 in the Netherlands, says the company has avoided paying taxes and has failed to address damage to the environment in the Peruvian Amazon caused by its oil-drilling activities through 2015.
- The groups allege that the release of toxic heavy metals into the water supply have caused numerous health problems for community members.

Mortgaging the future: Report details risks of resource-backed loans
- A recent report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute finds that billions of dollars in loans backed by the value of a country’s natural resources may be putting these often-developing economies at risk.
- China is a major player in providing such “resource-backed loans,” which can help countries finance critical infrastructure projects.
- But the terms of these loans are frequently unclear, potentially saddling the borrowing countries with untenable debt levels.
- The hasty push to extract resources could also sideline the input of local communities, and it may lead to harming the environment.

Marginalized voices from resource conflicts enter the mainstream via video
- The “Seeing Conflicts at the Margins” project lets communities embroiled in resource conflicts in Kenya and Madagascar share their experiences by shooting videos.
- A national launch for the videos produced under the project, funded by the U.K. government, took place at the residence of the U.K. ambassador to Madagascar on Feb. 18 in Antananarivo.
- One of the videos, shot in Antsotso village, deals with the effects of a local forest being protected by a mining company owned by mining giant Rio Tinto.
- All the videos had been screened for members of the participating communities before the national launch.

Companies leave communities to grapple with mining’s persistent legacy
- The destructive legacy of mining often lingers for communities and ecosystems long after the operating companies leave.
- Several large, multinational mining corporations have scrubbed their images — touting their commitments to sustainability, community development and action on climate change — but continue to deny accountability for the persistent impacts of mining that took place on their watch.
- A new report from the London Mining Network, an alliance of environmental and human rights organizations, contends that these companies should be held responsible for restoring ecosystems and the services that once supported communities.

Deforestation increase dovetails with armed conflict in Colombia, study finds
- According to the report’s primary author, forested areas in Colombia that are less than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away from illicit crops are most likely areas to be deforested.
- Deforestation linked to armed conflict and coca cultivation was most prevalent in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, La Macarena, and San Lucas mountains, and in the regions of Tumaco and Catatumbo.
- All areas impacted in Colombia are those with high biodiversity and conservation value.

Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds
- A dam in southern Ethiopia built to supply electricity to cities and control the flow of water for irrigating industrial agriculture has led to the displacement and loss of livelihoods of indigenous groups, the Oakland Institute has found.
- On June 10, the policy think tank published a report of its research, demonstrating that the effects of the Gibe III dam on the Lower Omo River continue to ripple through communities, forcing them onto sedentary farms and leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
- The Oakland Institute applauds the stated desire of the new government, which came to power in April 2018, to look out for indigenous rights.
- But the report’s authors caution that continued development aimed at increasing economic productivity and attracting international investors could further marginalize indigenous communities in Ethiopia.

Proximity to towns stretches giraffe home ranges
- A recent study found that female giraffes that live close to towns have larger home ranges than those living further afield.
- The study’s authors believe that large human settlements reduce giraffes’ access to food and water.
- The team cites the importance of understanding the size of the area that giraffe populations need to survive to address the precipitous decline in the animal’s numbers across Africa in the past 30 years.

Indigenous hunters vital to robust food webs in Australia
- A new study has found that the removal of indigenous hunters from a food web in the Australian desert contributed to the local extinction of mammal species.
- The Martu people had subsisted in the deserts of western Australia for millennia before the government resettled them to make space for a missile test range in the 1950s.
- A team of researchers modeled the effects of this loss, revealing that the hunting fires used by the Martu helped maintain a diverse landscape that supported a variety of mammals and kept invasive species in check.

In the Solomon Islands, making amends in the name of conservation
- The Kwaio people of the Solomon Islands have been working with scientists to protect their homeland from resource extraction and development.
- But violent clashes in 1927 between the Kwaio and the colonial government created a rift between members of this tribe and the outside world.
- To heal those old wounds and continue with their conservation work, a trio of scientists joined the Kwaio in a sacred reconciliation ceremony in July 2018.
- Kwaio leaders say that the ceremony opened the door to a more peaceful future for their people.

Wildlife rangers in DRC park report waning motivation, job satisfaction
- Surveys of more than 60 rangers in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo cite poor salaries, few chances for advancement, and security concerns as reasons for their low satisfaction with their jobs.
- The authors of the study, published in the journal Oryx, believe that the rangers’ discontentment leads to waning motivation in protecting the park and its wildlife, which includes the critically endangered Grauer’s gorilla.
- Improved conditions, in the form of better salaries, opportunities for promotion, and better support from the judicial and legal authorities, could translate into improved protections for the park, the researchers write.

Have a good cry, but don’t miss deadline (insider)
- In modern western journalism, journalists are trained to temporarily diminish our humanity for the greater good of the story.
- Journalists are not trained, however, to express our very human reactions to what we see, do, and report on in settings people typically use to process grief and the reactions of exposure to trauma.
- Over time, the impact of shelving the experiences and reactions of exposure to trauma can lead to unhealthy mental and physical reactions. But after more than a decade in journalism, I’ve come to find that there’s good news, too: just by opening up to others we can start to heal.

The ongoing trade in conflict timber (commentary)
- Last year, the 28 Member States of the European Union imported €260 million-worth (about $296 million-worth) of timber from countries that the World Bank considers to be fragile and conflict-affected, according to those countries’ own statistics. That’s an increase of almost 20 percent in reported trade since 2014.
- While there is no doubt that countries in these desperate states are in need of income and investment, there is also an extremely high risk that the revenues associated with the sale and export of natural resources, including timber, are used to finance and exacerbate conflict.
- In an attempt to take responsibility for the role of European companies in the cycle of conflict in many forest countries, the European Commission has recently published a Guidance Document for importers that is designed to ensure that companies are mitigating the risk of buying illegal timber in conflict situations and of exacerbating conflict in their day-to-day business. Let’s hope that the new EUTR Guidance Document can help push companies to meet this responsibility.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Scientists, conservationists: Give Nobel Peace Prize to Jane Goodall
- Scientists and conservationists argue that primatologist Jane Goodall should receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
- Goodall’s groundbreaking research uncovered startling revelations, including tool use by chimpanzees, that blurred the lines between humans and animals.
- Goodall, a U.N. Messenger of Peace, now travels around the world to encourage living in harmony with the natural world.

Deal in sight for PNG landowners protesting Exxon-led gas project
- The ExxonMobil-led PNG LNG project’s Angore operations have been shut down since June due to conflict with traditional landholders in the Papua New Guinea highlands.
- Around 97 percent of land in Papua New Guinea is held communally by clans, so development projects require a complex social mapping process. Critics of PNG LNG claim this was not carried out correctly.
- Following the occupation of a wellhead site in July, and a threat to shut down the project permanently, landowners now say they are close to reaching an agreement with the government regarding royalties and equity.

Indonesia’s land swap program puts communities, companies in a bind
- The Indonesian government has a program in place that requires plantation companies to conserve and restore peatlands within their concessions, in exchange for land elsewhere, as part of a wider program to prevent peat fires.
- But part of the land bank designated for the swap program covers community lands that have also been earmarked for a social forestry program launched much earlier.
- Activists say the communities should not be sidelined at the expense of the plantation firms. The latter have also been wary about taking the land allocated to them by the government, citing the potential for conflicts.
- Activists have also criticized the government for allocating up to two-fifths of the land bank for the swap program from natural forests. They say the government earlier promised the land would come from unused and planned timber concessions.

Papua New Guinea landowners take up arms against natural gas project
- On June 21, heavily armed civilian groups set fire to construction equipment at the ExxonMobil-led PNG LNG project in the Papua New Guinea highlands.
- One landowner told Mongabay the people of Hela had “decided to take up arms” because they hadn’t seen the benefits from the project.
- On June 26, landowners were scheduled to meet at the National Parliament in Port Moresby to negotiate resolutions with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

How Colombia became Latin America’s palm oil powerhouse
- Commercial oil palm cultivation in Colombia began in 1945 when a U.S.-based company established a plantation in the banana zone of the Magdalena department. Following the economic liberalization of Colombia’s economy in the 1990s and then the 2002 election of former President Alvaro Uribe, the palm oil industry began a trajectory of rapid growth over the next 16 years.
- Today, Colombia produces more palm oil than any other country in Latin America and is considered the fourth-largest producer worldwide.
- With the disarming and demobilization of Colombia’s oldest, largest guerrilla group the FARC in 2016, the government talked about writing a new chapter in the country’s long-troubled history. One of the government’s central goals for peace was to expand economic and social investment in the countryside by encouraging agricultural development — especially in areas that were previously off-limits due to conflict.
- But critics worry recent land use policy reforms looking to grow Colombia’s palm oil production further will effectively “legalize the accumulation of land” that agribusiness interests “illegitimately obtained during the armed conflict” at big costs to the country’s small farmers and indigenous groups.

Study puts a figure to hidden cost of community-company conflict in palm oil industry
- Two studies have revealed the extraordinary costs of social conflicts between local communities and palm oil firms in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the vegetable oil.
- One study found that more than half of local household expenditure at present was going on things they would have obtained for free in the past, such as water and fruits, from the forests that were cleared to make way for palm plantations.
- The other study highlighted the hidden burden of these same conflicts on the companies, amounting to millions of dollars in tangible and intangible costs, including reputational damage.

Ire and ore: Demands grow for clarity around Cambodian gold mine
- Earlier this year, residents of Tropeang Tontem in the province of Preah Vihear submitted a petition to the government Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. It complained about their treatment by local officials and a mining company.
- According to Cambodian media, the petition was signed by 56 families. It states that government and company officials “forced us, coerced us and cheated us into thumb-printing a document that stated that we were farming on part of the company‘s land.” The petition requests that the document be “annulled in its entirety.”
- Residents are also concerned about the intensive chemical processing of the gold ore in the open environment, a process that uses highly toxic chemicals like cyanide and mercury.
- A representative from a Cambodian NGO said the organization will be opposed to the mine until an environmental impact assessment of its operations is conducted, and until there is more clarity regarding mine activity.

Sumatra’s ‘tiger descendants’ cling to their customs as coal mines encroach
- Sekalak village in southern Sumatra lies in one of the last remaining strongholds of the Sumatran tiger, a critically endangered species that the locals revere as both an ancestral spirit and the guardian of the forest.
- This respect for the tiger has sustained a generations-long pledge to protect the local environment, including the wildlife and water resources.
- However, the presence of a coal-mining operation in the area poses a threat to both the tigers and the villagers’ way of life: the mining road gives poachers greater access to once-secluded tiger habitat, and the mining waste is polluting the river on which the villagers depend.

Indonesia to strengthen environmental impact assessments through process review
- Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry wants to reform the structure of conducting environmental impact assessments, which are required to approve any development project that could cause harm to the environment.
- These assessments, known as an AMDAL, have routinely come under scrutiny in the wake of land conflicts and disputes.
- Environmental activists have welcomed the push for a review as long as it results in a more efficient and stringent process for developers to obtain an AMDAL.

Colombian pipeline bombed hours after end to ceasefire
- As the clock ran out on a 3-month ceasefire with the government on January 10, Colombia’s second largest oil pipeline was bombed by the last remaining Marxist insurgent group in Colombia, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
- The ELN has targeted the 485-mile oil pipeline numerous times since the 1980s.
- Attacks on the pipeline have caused an estimated 1.5 million gallons of oil to be spilled, just since 2000.

Chocó at epicenter of Colombia’s social, environmental conflicts
- Rebel fighters of ELN largely aim to disrupt their country’s conservative political system and implement agrarian reform.
- The ELN, the last armed insurgency on the continent, has been negotiating with the government, but a recent attack has put peace talks in jeopardy.
- Locals in Chocó who have suffered the brunt of the civil war, are now coping with crop eradication and effects of climate change.

Water sources under threat from mining in Ecuador’s mountains
- The Azuay páramos are restricted, alpine ecosystems that exist above the tree line but below the permanent snow line.
- Those who live in southern Ecuador’s páramos oppose gold and copper mining planned for in the region.
- Representatives from a mining company claim that the company won’t affect local communities and that they have permission to work.

$100 million dollar fund launched to secure indigenous land rights
- A new $100 million initiative will help indigenous peoples and local communities in rural areas secure rights to their traditional lands.
- The International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, formally launched launched week, was conceived by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)
- The Tenure Facility is a mechanism for scaling up recognition of rights to collective lands and forests.
- The tenure facility aims to secure at least 40 million hectares of forests and rural lands for local and indigenous communities.

Philippine palm oil plan ‘equals corruption and land-grabbing,’ critics say
- With its renewed promotion of what it calls the “Sunshine Industry,” the Philippine government is looking to cultivate another one million hectares of oil palm, 98 percent of which would be on the island of Mindanao.
- Proponents say increasing palm oil production will alleviate poverty and armed conflict through large investments from Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean firms and other foreign and domestic companies, and tout potential revenue brought by palm oil’s increasing demand as a food and cosmetic ingredient and biofuel.
- But critics worry expansion of the country’s palm oil industry will benefit large companies at the expense of small farmers, forests, and water quality.

Environmental costs, benefits and possibilities: Q&A with anthropologist Eben Kirksey
- The environmental humanities pull together the tools of the anthropologist and the biologist.
- Anthropologist Eben Kirksey has studied the impact of mining, logging and infrastructure development on the Mee people of West Papua, Indonesia, revealing the inequalities that often underpins who benefits and who suffers as a result of natural resource extraction.
- Kirksey reports that West Papuans are nurturing a new form of nationalism that might help bring some equality to environmental change.

Papua New Guinea’s oil and gas boom – blessing or curse?
- A deadly conflict is currently raging in Hela Province, home to the country’s largest gas project – the conflict does not directly relate to the gas plant there, but some fear the facility could be targeted.
- After a bidding war between multinationals, plans are moving forward to begin exploration of additional offshore gas fields.
- Despite its wealth of natural resources, Papua New Guinea remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Analysts say it is a classic example of the “resource curse” – a country where rich resources are associated with low levels of democracy and overall economic development.

Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm
- Walter Manfredo Méndez Barrios led a farming cooperative involved in sustainable timber harvest and actively opposed hydroelectric dams in the department of Peten. Reports filed by him contributed to the arrest of wildlife poachers and land usurpers.
- The 36-year-old father of six had been receiving threats since last year, according to media reports.
- His murder on March 16 was just the latest in a string of killings of outspoken community and cooperative leaders, as well as park rangers, during the 26 years since the Maya Biosphere Reserve was created.

Abuse, displacement, pollution: the legacy of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds
- Eastern Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields, discovered in 2006, have been touted by experts as the world’s biggest diamond find in generations.
- In 2008, government forces ruthlessly drove out illegal diamond miners, killing more than 200, according to human rights groups. Since then villagers suspected of illegal mining have been subject to torture and brutal extra-judicial punishments, rights groups allege. Mine waste has polluted local water sources, and some villagers relocated to make way for the mines have been resettled in starvation conditions.
- The Zimbabwean government recently ousted from the Marange fields all but one mining company, which it owns, leaving local people’s future in limbo.

India has most cases of social and environmental conflict, according to environmental justice atlas
- Most cases of conflict in India have arisen from bad management and misappropriation of water resources, leading to shortage of water and conflicts, researcher says.
- Many conflict cases have also resulted from mining projects, extraction of mineral ores and industrial activities, according to the atlas.
- However, coverage of conflict cases in EJatlas still has some gaps, expert says, and coverage of conflict cases in countries like China, Indonesia, North Africa, and Central Asia needs to increase.

How locals and conservationists saved the elephants of Mali amidst conflict and poverty

Mali elephant family group which consist of females and their offspring. They are headed by a matriarch who has decades of experience and memories to depend on, including where to find water during droughts. Photo by: Carlton Ward Jr. At a time when Africa’s elephants are facing a relentless poaching crisis—to the tune of over […]
Community’s push to clear forest for plantation challenges efforts to conserve in Indonesia

This is part of a series of articles on market transformation in the pulp and paper and palm oil sectors in Indonesia. Drainage canal that forms the boundary between the remaining peat forest and the area cleared for the group led by Caliph Hasan Basri. Photo by Ridzki R. Sigit In the swampy peatlands of […]
Investors beware: global land grabbing ends in ‘financial damage’ and human rights violations

A fence keeps locals from their traditional lands in Liberia, where Sime Darby has planted a contested palm oil plantation. Photo courtesy of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Investing in companies that flout local community rights in developing countries often leads to severe economic losses, according to a new report from the Rights and […]
Over 700 people killed defending forest and land rights in past ten years

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva speaking at a TEDx Amazon in 2010, just a few months before he and his wife were assassinated for their activism. On May 24th, 2011, forest activist José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, were gunned down in an ambush in the Brazilian […]
South Sudan’s choice: resource curse or wild wonder?

This commentary was originally published in February, but given that South Sudan has just celebrated independence over the weekend, we thought it apt to re-publish. Oryx and WCS Cessna shadow, Boma National Park. Photo by Paul Elkan and J. Michael Fay. ©2007 National Geographic/ Wildlife Conservation Society. After the people of South Sudan have voted […]
Scientists urge Papua New Guinea to declare moratorium on massive forest clearing

Forests spanning an area larger than Costa Rica—5.6 million hectares (13.8 million acres)—have been handed out by the Papua New Guinea government to foreign corporations, largely for logging. Granted under government agreements known as Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABLs), the land leases circumvent the nation’s strong laws pertaining to communal land ownership. Now, the […]
5 million hectares of Papua New Guinea forests handed to foreign corporations

Papua New Guinea, as viewed from Google Earth, covers the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, as well as other Pacific Islands. During a meeting in March 2011 twenty-six experts—from biologists to social scientists to NGO staff—crafted a statement calling on the Papua New Guinea government to stop granting Special Agricultural and Business […]
As South Sudan eyes independence, will it choose choose to protect its wildlife?

After the people of South Sudan have voted overwhelmingly for independence, the work of building a nation begins. Set to become the world’s newest country on July 9th of this year, one of many tasks facing the nation’s nascent leaders is the conservation of its stunning wildlife. In 2007, following two decades of brutal civil […]
Renewed conflict between tribes and oil companies looms in Peru

Indigenous peoples and their allies have intensified their fight against two oil companies over contamination in the Peruvian Amazon. Last week, a group of indigenous protesters blockaded portions of the Marañon and Corrientes Rivers in the province of Loreto in northeastern Peru. The protesters were demanding that Pluspetrol, an Argentinean oil company, compensate them for […]

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