topic: Tribal Groups

topic: Tribal Groups

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Tribes turn to the U.N. as major wind project plans to cut through their lands in the U.S.
- Last week a United States federal judge rejected a request from Indigenous nations to stop SunZia, a $10 billion dollar wind transmission project that would cut through traditional tribal lands in southwestern Arizona.
- Indigenous leaders and advocates are turning to the U.N. to intervene and are calling for a moratorium on green energy projects for all U.N. entities “until the rights of Indigenous peoples are respected and recognized.”
- Indigenous leaders say they are not in opposition to renewable energy projects, but rather projects that don’t go through the due process and attend their free, prior and informed consent.
- According to the company, the wind transmission project is the largest clean energy infrastructure initiative in U.S. history, and will provide power to 3 million Americans, stretching from New Mexico to as far as California.

Cocopah Tribe aims to restore Colorado River habitat — and tribal culture
- On the lands of the Cocopah Tribe in the U.S. state of Arizona, declining water levels on the Colorado River have paved the way for invasive plants to take over a riverside once full of native trees.
- Native vegetation along the river not only provides habitat for wildlife but also has shaped Cocopah culture by providing resources to build homes, art and other items.
- This year, the Cocopah Tribe’s Environment Protection Office cut the ribbon on a project to restore land along the river to what it looked like decades ago, complete with a walking trail.
- For 2024, the tribe plans to use $5.5 million in grant funding to restore habitat and plant native trees along an even longer stretch of the river, helping to preserve Cocopah culture for generations to come.

Ken Burns discusses heartbreak & hope of ‘The American Buffalo,’ his new documentary
- Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns about his upcoming documentary, “The American Buffalo,” which premieres in mid-October.
- The buffalo was nearly driven to extinction in the late 1800s, with the population declining from more than 30 million to less than 1,000, devastating Native American tribes who depended on the buffalo as their main source of food, shelter, clothing and more.
- The film explores both the tragic near-extinction of the buffalo as well as the story of how conservation efforts brought the species back from the brink.
- Burns sees lessons in the buffalo’s story for current conservation efforts, as we face climate change and a new era of mass extinction.

Funders commit $102.5 million to support tribal-led conservation efforts in the U.S.
- The Native Americans in Philanthropy and the Biodiversity Funders Group launched a funding pledge to support tribal-led restoration and conservation efforts in the United States.
- Fifteen funders have already committed $102.5 million to support the Tribal Nations Conservation Pledge goals since its launch in March.
- Projects to benefit will be selected by funders and could include natural resource and conservation projects, regrants and tribal-led conservation NGOs working in direct partnership with tribes, among several others.
- Erik Stegman, the Native Americans in Philanthropy’s chief executive officer, said the pledge ensures that Indigenous groups continue to lead the way in conservation efforts in the U.S. as well as meet the vision of conserving 30% of U.S. land and waters by 2030.

With protections restored, tribal council charts new path for Bears Ears
- In October 2021, President Joe Biden restored protections to Bears Ears National Monument in southeast Utah after it was drastically reduced in size by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
- The monument is known for its scenic views as well as thousands of sacred, cultural and archaeological sites.
- Now, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition — made up of leaders from the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribe — is working on a land management plan that keeps the interests of each tribe in mind as the federal government moves forward with its own plan.
- Co-chair Carleton Bowekaty says he hopes the plan will be a “living document” that will be used even when administrations change and that the efforts will keep the land intact for future generations.

California redwood forest returned to Indigenous guardianship, conservation
- Ownership of a 215-hectare (532-acre) redwood forest along California’s north coast was returned to Sinkyone tribes and has been renamed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ.
- The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council is working with Save the Redwoods League, which donated the land, to protect California’s remaining old-growth forest, along with endangered species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
- The 30-year conservation plan and land transfer deal is funded by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in order to offset habitat loss that may result from the company’s activities.
- Indigenous forest conservation principles, such as controlled burnings, will be included in the tribal protected area – an inclusion that should be seen in the 30×30 initiative to protect 30% of lands and ocean by 2030, says Save the Redwoods League and the tribal council.

Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.

‘Listening to communities must go beyond ticking compliance boxes’, says Peter Kallang, a Kenyah leader
- The Malaysian state of Sarawak was until recently home to some of the last nomadic peoples of Borneo, who roamed its wild and rich rainforests as they had done since time immemorial. Starting in the early 1980s, industrial logging companies moved deep into Sarawak’s hinterland, tearing down forests, forcing forest peoples from their traditional lands, and laying the groundwork for large-scale conversion of biodiverse ecosystems into monoculture plantations.
- Sarawak’s Indigenous peoples put up resistance against these state-backed incursions into their traditional territories. One of the most dramatic outcomes of these efforts came in 2016, when the Chief Minister of Sarawak cancelled the Baram mega-dam project.
- Peter Kallang, a member of the Kenyah people who runs the NGO SAVE Rivers, was one of the leaders of the Baram campaign, helping coordinate, organize, and mobilize Indigenous communities that would have been most impacted by the dam. Now Kallang, SAVE Rivers, and other groups are fighting to defend traditional Indigenous lands against logging by Samling, a Malaysian timber company.
- Kallang spoke about his background, Indigenous-led advocacy, the conservation sector’s shortcomings in recognizing Indigenous rights, and other topics during a June 2021 interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Nearly half the Amazon’s intact forest on Indigenous-held lands: Report
- A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC) draws on more than 300 studies from the last two decades to demonstrate the protection that Indigenous societies provide for forests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- According to the team’s research, about 45% of the intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in Indigenous territories.
- The forests occupied by Indigenous communities in the region hold more carbon than all of the forests in either Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the next two biggest swaths of tropical forest after Brazil.
- The report’s authors say investing in securing land rights for Indigenous communities is a cheap and effective way to address climate change, while also helping these communities recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pension and endowment funds linked to conflict-plagued oil palm in DRC
- A new report from the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, reveals that several well-known pension funds, trusts and endowments are invested in a group of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of environmental and human rights abuses.
- Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) was recently purchased by two African private equity investors, and several European development banks have invested millions of dollars in the company’s operations.
- Accusations of abuses at the hands of police and plantation-contracted security guards have dogged the company, most recently with the death of a protester in February 2021.

“Our identity is non negotiable” says Gwich’in leader Bernadette Demientieff
- The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a 19 million acre reserve in the northeastern corner of Alaska that’s renowned for its beauty and wildlife. ANWR also holds great cultural significance to the Native peoples of the region, including the Gwich’in Nation, who for generations have depended on the migratory caribou herd that births and calves its young in the coastal plain of the refuge.
- Bernadette Demientieff is of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in, a Gwich’in tribe that lives in and around Fort Yukon, a town directly south of ANWR. The Gwich’in are known as “the caribou people” for the significance caribou play in their history, culture, and traditions.
- During a February 2021 interview with Mongabay, Demientieff spoke about the threat oil drilling and climate change pose to Gwich’in way of life.
- “The Gwich’in and the porcupine caribou herd have had a spiritual and cultural connection since time immemorial,” Demientieff said. “Our identity is non negotiable, we will never sell our culture and our traditional lifestyle for any amount of money.”

Indigenous community wins recognition of its land rights in Panama
- A ruling by Panama’s Supreme Court of Justice in November 2020 led to the official creation of a comarca, or protected Indigenous territory, for the Naso Tjër Di people in northern Panama.
- The 1,600-square-kilometer (620-square-mile) comarca is the result of a decades-long effort to secure the Naso’s land rights.
- Panama’s former president had vetoed legislation creating the comarca in 2018, which he said was unconstitutional because it overlapped with two established protected areas.
- Other Indigenous groups in Panama with longstanding comarcas still struggle to hold back outside incursions for projects such as dams and power transmission lines.

Timber organization’s backing ‘one step’ toward ‘peace park’ in Borneo
- In December 2020, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) endorsed a proposal by the Forest Department Sarawak (FDS) for what’s come to be known as the Baram Peace Park, covering 2,835 square kilometers (1,095 square miles) on the island of Borneo.
- Proponents of the park say it will protect wildlife, forest-dependent livelihoods, and the last remaining primary forest in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
- But they also acknowledge that the ITTO’s announcement is only a step toward the park’s designation, and industrial logging continues to threaten the region’s forests.

Peruvian Indigenous groups thwart oil drilling in their territory — for now
- An immense oil concession known as Lot 64 overlaps with much of the Indigenous Achuar Nation’s 8,020-square-kilometer (3,100-square-mile) homeland, as well as a portion of the neighboring territory of the Wampis people.
- The Achuar and the Wampis say they do not consent to drilling for oil on Lot 64, and thus, any exploitation of the lot would be illegitimate under Peruvian law.
- They argue that drilling for oil and transporting it to the coast would almost certainly contaminate rivers vital to their existence in this corner of the Amazon.
- In July, the private company that had a 75% stake in the concession withdrew from its contract, but the Indigenous communities see this as a temporary victory, as the government-backed oil company, Petroperu, has indicated it will seek a new partner to tap into Lot 64’s reserves.

Colombia, ethnobotany, and America’s decline: An interview with Wade Davis
- Wade Davis is a celebrated anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and author who has written thought-provoking accounts of indigenous cultures around the world. Through his writing, Davis has documented the disappearance of indigenous languages and cultures, the loss of which is outpacing the destruction of the world’s rainforests.
- Davis’s newest book, Magdalena: River of Dreams: A Story of Colombia, traces the path of the Magdalena River as a vehicle to tell the story of Colombia, including the nation’s tumultuous recent past, the tenuous peace of its present, and its future promise. Colombia holds a special place for Davis: it trails only Brazil in terms of biodiversity, is geographically and culturally diverse, and has gone to great lengths to recognize indigenous rights and protect its forests.
- Davis’s research into Colombia, indigenous cultures, and other societies has given him an unusually broad perspective with which to evaluate recent developments in the United States, which he compared to a collapsing empire in a commentary he authored in August for Rolling Stone.
- Davis talked about his career path, his new book, and the decline of America in an October 2020 interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Mining covers more than 20% of Indigenous territory in the Amazon
- A new report from the World Resources Institute and the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network reveals that mining has impacted more than 20% of the Amazon’s Indigenous territory.
- The analysis shows that deforestation rates are as much as three times higher on Indigenous lands with mining compared to those without.
- The study’s authors suggest that improved law enforcement, greater investment in Indigenous communities and stricter environmental protections are necessary to combat the surge of mining in the Amazon.

Protect Indigenous People’s rights to avoid a sixth extinction (commentary)
- In this commentary, David Wilkie, Susan Lieberman, and James Watson from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) argue that protecting Indigenous Peoples’ traditional land rights is one of the most effective strategies for preventing the Sixth Mass Extinction.
- “Most of humanity have been grossly negligent in our use of the Earth,” they write. “Wise stewardship of natural resources by Indigenous Peoples within their traditional territories has had a profoundly positive impact on the conservation of plant and animal species on land and in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters.”
- “The decisions Indigenous Peoples have made over generations have done more to protect the planet’s species and ecological systems than all the protected areas established and managed by individual countries combined. The majority of our planet’s last wild, ecologically intact places on land exist because Indigenous Peoples rely on them for their wellbeing and cultural sense of self.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Exploring the history of the Amazon and its peoples: an interview with John Hemming
- Dr. John Hemming is a legendary author and historian who has spent the past six decades documenting the history of Indigenous cultures and exploration in the Amazon.
- Hemming has traveled in the remotest parts of the Amazon, visiting 45 tribes and being present with Brazilian ethnographers at the time of four first contacts. Of the course of his career Hemming has authored more than two dozen books from the definitive history of the Spanish conquistadors’ conquest of Peru to a 2,100-page, three-volume chronicle of 500 years of Indigenous peoples and exploration in the Amazon.
- Hemming’s latest book, People of the Rainforest: The Villas Boas Brothers, Explorers and Humanitarians of the Amazon, tells the remarkable story of the Villas Boas brothers, middle-class Brazilians from São Paulo who would go on to become arguably the largest driving force for the conservation of the Amazon rainforest and recognition of the rights of its Indigenous peoples.
- Hemming spoke about his work and the legacy of the Villas Boas brothers in a September 2020 interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Rieli Franciscato died protecting isolated indigenous peoples in the Amazon (commentary)
- Rieli Franciscato of the Brazilian government’s Indigenous affairs agency FUNAI was killed last week on the edge of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory in Rondonia.
- Franciscato, 56, was a sertanista, a “field person” who works in the most remote parts of the Brazilian Amazon. Franciscato specifically worked to protect the rights and territory of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Amazon rainforest. These peoples are sometimes referred to as “uncontacted tribes” in the press.
- In this commentary, Enrique Ortiz, Senior Program Director at the Andes Amazon Fund, writes that Franciscato “died in the hands of those he loved” and notes his death was probably at least part to blame on outsiders who have been invading Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau lands and threatening the tribe. “One can imagine that the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau can see the advances into their territory as a threat to their survival,” he writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Infrastructure plans imperil Latin America’s forests: Analysis
- A recent analysis in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by social scientists, along with representatives of NGOs and funding organizations, warns of the danger to forests, communities and biodiversity as a result of planned infrastructure.
- The team writes that the planning process needs to be focused on projects that bring the most benefits to people and the environment.
- The authors advocate an approach that includes input from often-marginalized groups like Indigenous communities and looks to science to inform planning for large-scale projects.

Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- For the occasion of International Indigenous Peoples Day August 9, 2020, Arkilaus Kladit, a member of the Knasaimos-Tehit people in South Sorong Regency in West Papua Province, Indonesia, writes about the importance of his tribe’s customary forests.
- Arkilaus, who is a member of the Knasaimos Indigenous Peoples Council, describes his tribe’s long struggle to secure recognition of his tribe’s customary lands by the Indonesian government.
- Arkilaus explains how the Knasaimos-Tehit people are dependent on forests for food, community resilience, and cultural significance.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New report asks, do land titles help poor farmers?
- A new report by the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, outlines cases of land privatization around the world.
- The report’s authors caution that privatizing land, especially when it has been traditionally managed communally, could sideline the interests of Indigenous groups and local communities.
- They cite evidence that governments and agencies see private land titles as a way not to help poor farmers, but rather to “unlock the economic potential of the land.”

World Bank-funded factory farms dogged by alleged environmental abuses
- The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has provided funding totaling $120 million to Ecuadoran pork and chicken producer Pronaca, despite widespread and evidence-backed concerns about the effects of industrial-scale livestock farming on water sources, air quality and the climate.
- IFC investments are intended to boost the economies of developing countries.
- But the Pronaca case and others described in a series by Mongabay in cooperation with The Guardian newspaper and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism raise questions about the impacts of these investments on local communities and the environment.
- Mongabay spoke with residents of the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, where Pronaca has more than 30 farms, who said that complaints to the IFC’s Compliance Adviser/Ombudsman over the past decade have done little to improve the situation.

Using photography and indigenous art to help Amazon communities during COVID
- Xapiri, a Cusco-based art gallery and media production studio, is working to raise awareness of the situation and funds to help indigenous peoples navigate the COVID crisis. In response to the pandemic, Xapiri has jettisoned its plans to visit indigenous partners in the field and instead focused on online fundraising campaigns.
- In a June 2020 interview with Mongabay, Jack Wheeler, Xapiri’s founder and director, spoke about his group’s work, the transition to a COVID world, and why now is a more important time than ever to support indigenous communities.

COVID-19 and rainforest fires set up potential public health crisis
- Peaking fires in the world’s rainforests combined with the global COVID-19 pandemic threaten to create a devastating public health crisis, experts warn.
- The fires typically follow recent deforestation, as farmers and ranchers burn brush and trees to make way for crops and livestock.
- Soot from the fires causes severe respiratory problems and exacerbates existing conditions, health researchers say. The uptick in the need for treatment could overwhelm already-strained hospitals in the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
- Researchers say that solutions exist, involving government enforcement, consumer demand for deforestation-free products, and company commitments to halt the destruction of forests. Now what’s needed is political will.

Māori push for pandemic stimulus spend to save ancestral forest
- The Raukūmara Forest on New Zealand’s East Cape has been hammered by introduced pests in the past half-century, and experts predict ecological collapse within a decade without an immense scale-up of pest control efforts.
- On April 1 this year, the New Zealand government announced a fund for “shovel-ready” projects to provide much-needed jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Two Māori tribal groups with ancestral claims to the Raukūmaras are campaigning for $21 million from the fund to carry out intensive pest control in the forest over the next five years.

Bison: (Back) home on the range
- The Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota plans to bring the American bison back to around 11,300 hectares (28,000 acres) of prairie on the reservation.
- Over the next five years, tribal groups will work with WWF and the U.S. Department of the Interior to release as many as 1,500 bison on the Wolakota Buffalo Range, which would make it the largest Native American-owned herd in North America.
- The Lakota people of Rosebud have an abiding connection with the bison, or buffalo, and the leaders of the project say that, in addition to the symbolic importance of returning the Lakotas’ “relatives” to their land, the herd will help create jobs, restore the ecological vigor of the landscape, and aid in the conservation of the species.

Naga tribes of Myanmar face loss of land and forest under new law
- Myanmar hosts more than 100 ethnic groups with their own customary systems of land and forest management.
- Recent amendments to land law conflict with those systems, however, with critics warning that the new provisions may facilitate land grabbing and displacement of tribal communities.
- Tribal members say the changes to the law contradict the spirit of the peace process, which is to allow ethnic minorities greater autonomy than under the previous military dictatorship.

Amazon indigenous leader: Our survival is at stake. You can help (commentary)
- Beto Marubo, a representative of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, warns that indigenous peoples in the Amazon face existential threats from rising deforestation, anti-environment and anti-indigenous policies from the Bolsonaro administration, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Marubo, whose indigenous name is Wino Këyashëni, is calling upon the outside world to pressure the Bolsonaro administration to protect indigenous peoples’ rights, lands, and livelihoods.
- He’s asking for (1) the Brazilian government to evict land invaders from indigenous territories, (2) restrictions on outsiders’ access to indigenous lands, and (3) logistical and medical support.
- This article is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.

Decades-old mine in Bougainville exacts devastating human toll: Report
- A new report by the Human Rights Law Centre in Australia details the continuing devastation wrought by a copper and gold mine that closed more than 30 years ago in the Papua New Guinean territory of Bougainville.
- The 17-year-long operation of the mine generated more than a billion metric tons of mining waste, which continues to seep into the region’s water sources, fouling drinking water supplies and causing disease.
- The British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto divested from its majority stake in the local operating company in 2016 and says that the governments of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea, now the majority shareholders, are best placed to address the problems.
- The Human Rights Law Centre and other groups contend that Rio Tinto has the ultimate responsibility to facilitate and finance the cleanup.

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.

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.

Indigenous, protected lands in Amazon emit far less carbon than areas outside
- A new study calculates the gains and losses in carbon across the Amazon rainforest from deforestation as well as human-caused and naturally occurring degradation of the forest.
- The team found that around 70% of the total carbon emitted from the Amazon between 2003 and 2016 came from areas outside indigenous-held lands and protected areas, despite the fact that these outside areas made up less than half of the total land area.
- The researchers argue that their findings make the case for supporting indigenous communities with “political protection and financial support” to protect carbon stocks in the Amazon necessary to address climate change.

Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes

More than one-third of the world’s remaining pristine forests, known as intact forest landscapes, exist within land that’s either managed or owned by indigenous peoples, a new study has found. The study, published Jan. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, builds on previous work by lead author John Fa and his […]
Deforestation for potential rubber plantation raises concerns in Papua New Guinea
- The project, ostensibly for a 125-square-kilometer (48-square-mile) rubber plantation, began in mid-2018.
- Satellite imagery shows that Maxland, working with a local landowner company, has built logging roads and deforested patches of the Great Central Forest on Manus Island.
- Like Papua New Guinea as a whole, Manus is home to a wide variety of unique wildlife — just one aspect of the forest on which human communities have depended for thousands of years.
- Government forestry and environment officials were aware of the importance of the forest and a local forest management committee protested the project before it began, but it’s been allowed to continue anyway.

Forests and forest communities critical to climate change solutions
- A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights the importance of land use in addressing climate change.
- The restoration and protection of forests could be a critical component in strategies to mitigate climate change, say experts, but governments must halt deforestation and forest degradation to make way for farms and ranches.
- The IPCC report also acknowledges the role that indigenous communities could play.
- The forests under indigenous management often have lower deforestation and emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- Over the past half century the rainforests of Borneo have been logged, strip-mined, burned, and converted for monoculture plantations. The forests that local people primarily relied upon for sustenance are now felled to feed commodities into the global market.
- But the Dayak Iban of Sungai Utik community in Indonesian Borneo has managed to fend off loggers and land invaders from their forest home.
- Sungai Utik’s efforts to sustainably manage its community forest in the face of large-scale deforestation and cultural loss across Borneo have won it accolades, including the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Equator Prize last month.
- During a June 2019 visit, Mongabay spoke with Apay Janggut, or “Bandi”, the head of the Sungai Utik longhouse about his community’s traditional practices, resistance to loggers, and efforts to adapt to issues facing indigenous peoples around the world.

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.

Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
- In a commentary, two conservation scientists say that changes to the forests of Central and South America may mean that subsistence hunting there is no longer sustainable.
- Habitat loss and commercial hunting have put increasing pressure on species, leading to the loss of both biodiversity and a critical source of protein for these communities.
- The authors suggest that allowing the hunting of only certain species, strengthening parks and reserves, and helping communities find alternative livelihoods and sources of food could help address the problem, though they acknowledge the difficult nature of these solutions.

’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.

Deforestation diminishes access to clean water, study finds
- A recent study compared deforestation data and information on household access to clean water in Malawi.
- The scientists found that the country lost 14 percent of its forest between 2000 and 2010, which had the same effect on access to safe drinking water as a 9 percent decrease in rainfall.
- With higher rainfall variability expected in today’s changing climate, the authors suggest that a larger area of forest in countries like Malawi could be a buffer against the impacts of climate change.

Malaysian state chief: Highway construction must not destroy forest
- The chief minister of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, said that the Pan Borneo Highway project should expand existing roads where possible to minimize environmental impact.
- A coalition of local NGOs and scientific organizations applauded the announcement, saying that it could usher in a new era of collaboration between the government and civil society to look out for Sabah’s people and forests.
- These groups have raised concerns about the impacts on wildlife and communities of the proposed path of the highway, which will cover some 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles) in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.

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.

Conserving the World’s Remaining Intact Forests (commentary)
- Intact forests are among the few places on earth where native trees and animals can fulfill their ecological roles outside the influence of industrial humankind.
- Some interpret “intact” to mean absent the influence of people, but people have lived within forests the world over for millennia and we are only beginning to understand how they have – and continue to – influence them.
- We cannot solve our most pressing environmental and development problems by compromising the few areas that remain whole.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

India’s “environmentalism of convenience” threatens forest-dwellers’ rights
- The author outlines the rise of an “environmentalism of convenience” in India.
- This includes environmental standards that increasingly come with a legal framework that makes it as easy as possible for businesses to comply, the government and industry demonizing as “anti-development” any efforts to toughen the standards or to address human rights, and the government’s quelling of dissent in order to streamline decision-making.
- This post is a commentary — the views expressed are those of the author.

Amazon tribe creates 500-page traditional medicine encyclopedia
- In one of the great tragedies of our age, indigenous traditions, stories, cultures and knowledge are winking out across the world.
- Whole languages and mythologies are vanishing, and in some cases even entire indigenous groups are falling into extinction.
- This is what makes the news that a tribe in the Amazon have created a 500-page encyclopedia of their traditional medicine all the more remarkable.

Discovery of ‘Lost City’ spurs conservation pledge

Media coverage of ruins raises controversy among scientists, but leads to stepped-up protection efforts in long-neglected region Temple at Tikal, a Mayan city in Guatemala. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Earlier this month, National Geographic made big news: the discovery of what it called a “lost city” below the thick jungles of Honduras. While the […]
Cambodia deports activist leader…then suspends controversial dam

On Monday, Cambodia deported well-known environmental activist, Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, back to his native Spain. Co-founder of the Cambodian NGO, Mother Nature, Gonzalez-Davidson has played a vital role in blocking efforts to build the 108 megawatt Cheay Areng Dam in the Koh Kong province. But a day after deporting the activist, Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, […]
Locals lead scientists to new population of near-extinct reptile

Lazarus turtle: Scientists discover unknown population of Critically Endangered reptile A rare photo of a living Arakan forest turtle. Photo courtesy of Shahriar Caesar Rahman. By the early Twentieth Century, the world had pretty much given up on the Arakan forest turtle (Heosemys depressa), named after the hills where it was found in 1875 in […]
Dams or indigenous land: the battle over the Munduruku frontier

Other Special Reporting Initiative Articles by Pública Exclusive: Funai confirms that land threatened by dam projects belongs to indigenous tribe After working in the woodland, the Munduruku warriors get together to sing traditional songs of celebration. Photo: Marcio Isensee e Sá The Munduruku indigenous tribe have begun to mark out the limits of their land, […]
Exclusive: Funai confirms that land threatened by dam projects belongs to indigenous tribe

Other Special Reporting Initiatives Articles by Pública Dams or indigenous land: the battle over the Munduruku frontier The Brazilian government opposes granting traditional land to the Munduruku people since it would jeopardize seven proposed hydroelectric dams on the Tapajós River. For this reason, a year-old report by Funai that supports the Munduruku claim has not […]
Brazilian indigenous populations grow quickly after first contact devastation

Aztec drawing showing smallpox victims after first contact with Europeans in the 16th Century. Estimates vary but many scholar believe disease wiped out around 95 percent of the pre-Columbian population after the Europeans arrived. Indigenous communities in South America have long experienced devastating impacts from contact with Western society. In the Sixteenth Century, European colonists […]
Arctic upheaval: new book outlines challenges at the top of the world

Chukotkan dancers. Subsistence hunting will be increasingly difficult for the Inuit who depend on marine mammals in the Arctic to provide them with food and materials for clothing. Photo by: Edward Struzik. For most of us, the Arctic is not at the front of our minds. We view it as cold, stark, and, most importantly, […]
The Amazon’s oil boom: concessions cover a Chile-sized bloc of rainforest

Poison dart frog in Yasuni National Park. Some scientists believe the park is in the epicenter of the most biodiverse region on the planet, yet Ecuador has been exploiting the park for oil for decades and will soon be moving into its most remote areas. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Hungry for oil revenue, governments and […]
Mercury fish: gold mining puts downstream communities at risk in Peru

Pregnant mothers, children, and even adults could face health problems from gold mining pollution in Amazonian Peru An aerial view of artisinal open pit gold mining in the Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Artisanal, often illegal gold-mining, has swept across portions of the Peruvian Amazon over last decade, driven in part by a rising […]
New film highlights local resistance to Nicaragua’s canal

Locals in Bangkukuk will be forced to relocate if the Gran Canal goes ahead. Photo courtesy of Tom Miller. This fall, filmmakers Tom Miller and Nuin-Tara Key with PrettyGoodProductions found themselves in Nicaragua where they heard about a stunning project: the Gran Canal. Approved last year, the canal is meant to compete with the Panama […]
Indigenous leader murdered before he could attend Climate Summit

Known for his opposition to Chinese mine project, indigenous leader found bound and buried in Ecuador Days before José Isidro Tendetza Antún was supposed to travel to the UN Climate Summit in Lima to publicly file a complaint against a massive mining operation, he went missing. Now, the Guardian reports that the body of the […]
Giant stone face unveiled in the Amazon rainforest (video)

Indigenous group hopes the monument will help them protect an embattled Amazon reserve A still from the film, The Reunion, showing the Rostro Harakbut. A new short film documents the journey of an Amazonian tribe hiking deep into their territory to encounter a mysterious stone countenance that was allegedly carved by ancient peoples. According to […]
Is the Gran Canal really a ‘big Christmas present’ for Nicaraguans?

Experts say canal plans and impacts remain shrouded in mystery A volcanic island rises from Lake Nicaragua. Photo by Aaron Escobar/Creative Commons 2.0 “A big Christmas present”—that is how Paul Oquist, an advisor to Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, described the country’s plan to build a mega-canal across the nation. Preliminary construction on the canal is […]
What we can learn from uncontacted rainforest tribes

Mark Plotkin speaking at TED Global in October in Brazil. If you have ever wondered about the connection between giant hallucinogenic frogs, uncontacted peoples, conservation, and climate change — and who hasn’t? — check out this TED talk from ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin: What the people of the Amazon know that you don’t. An ethnobotanist by […]
A tale of 2 Perus: Climate Summit host, 57 murdered environmentalists

New report finds that 83 percent of recent murders of environmental activists in Peru linked to police, military, or private security guards On September 1st, indigenous activist, Edwin Chota, and three other indigenous leaders were gunned down and their bodies thrown into rivers near the border of Peru and Brazil. Chota, an internationally-known leader of […]
Brazilian tribes demarcate territory in bid to block dams

Mundurukú chiefs and warriors protest in Brazil’s lower house of Congress Tuesday Dec. 10, 2013. Photo courtesy of Luis Macedo/Acerv Indigenous communities in Brazil have taken the unusual step of demarcating their own land — without the approval of the Brazilian government — in a bid to block two dams they say threaten their territory […]
Scientific association calls on Nicaragua to scrap its Gran Canal

ATBC warns about canal’s impact on water security and indigenous people A volcanic island rises from Lake Nicaragua. Photo by Aaron Escobar/Creative Commons 2.0 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC)—the world’s largest association of tropical biologists and conservationists—has advised Nicaragua to halt its ambitious plan to build a massive canal across the country. […]
Top scientists raise concerns over commercial logging on Woodlark Island

Little-known ‘biological-jewel’ faces commercial logging A number of the world’s top conservation scientists have raised concerns about plans for commercial logging on Woodlark Island, a hugely biodiverse rainforest island off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The scientists, with the Alliance of Leading Environmental Scientists and Thinkers (ALERT), warn that commercial logging on the island […]
Turning point for Peru’s forests? Norway and Germany put muscle and money behind ambitious agreement

Norway pledges $300 million if Peru tackles deforestation crisis by 2021 From the Andes to the Amazon, Peru houses some of the world’s most spectacular forests. Proud and culturally-diverse indigenous tribes inhabit the interiors of the Peruvian Amazon, including some that have chosen little contact with the outside world. And even as scientists have identified […]
Extinction island? Plans to log half an island could endanger over 40 species

Little-explored island off the coast of Papua New Guinea could soon face industrial logging Children on Woodlark Island. Photo by: Simon Piyuwes. Woodlark Island is a rare place on the planet today. Just a little bigger than New York City, this small island off the coast Papua New Guinea is still covered in rich tropical […]
The cheap option on climate change: recognize indigenous rights to forests

Indigenous boy paddles in the Colombian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Since 2008, governments have invested $1.64 billion in funds to kick-start REDD+, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, the global effort to conserve the world’s forests in order to better mitigate climate change. However, a new report by the Rights and Resources […]
‘The green Amazon is red with indigenous blood’: authorities pull bodies from river that may have belonged to slain leaders

Indigenous groups call for land rights in wake of assassinations of Edwin Chota Valera and three other leaders Peruvian authorities have pulled more human remains from a remote river in the Amazon, which may belong to one of the four murdered Ashaninka natives killed on September 1st. These human remains—and those found last week—will undergo […]
The Gran Canal: will Nicaragua’s big bet create prosperity or environmental ruin?

Chinese consortium pushes new canal through Nicaragua, threatening indigenous people, environment. A stealthy jaguar moves across a camera trap in Bankukuk, Nicaragua along the path of the Gran Canal. Conservationists fear the impact of the canal on Nicaragua’s already-imperiled wildlife, including far-roving jaguars. Photo by: Christopher Jordan. A hundred years ago, the Panama Canal reshaped […]
Brazil releases video showing first contact with rainforest tribe

The Brazilian government has released footage showing ‘first contact’ with an isolated group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest, reports G1. The video, released by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), shows two tribesmen being approached by a member of an Ashaninka village, who offers them bananas. The exchange, which took place last month near […]
Peru slashes environmental protections to attract more mining and fossil fuel investment

Aerial view of the Río Huaypetue gold mine in Peru. The mine, which was cut of the Amazon rainforest, has been blamed for large-scale environmental damage and social problems, including allegations of child labor. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In an effort to kickstart slowing investment in mining and fossil fuels, Peru has passed a […]
Using Google Earth to protect uncontacted tribes in the Amazon rainforest

Aerial photo of uncontacted tribe in Brazil. Photo courtesy of the Government of Brazil. In 2008, images of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil created ripples. With bodies painted in bright red war colors, members of the tribe aimed their arrows at a Brazilian government plane flying overhead, occupants of which were […]
After throwing out referendum, Ecuador approves oil drilling in Yasuni’s embattled heart

Gas flaring just across the river from Yasuni National Park. Photo by Jeremy Hance. By 2016, oil drilling will begin in what scientists believe is the most biodiverse place on the planet: remote Yasuni National Park. Late last month, Ecuador announced it had approved permits for oil drilling in Yasuni’s Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputinin (ITT) block, an untouched […]
53 indigenous activists on trial for police-protester massacre in Peru

In the summer of 2009, on a highway in Peru known as Devil’s Curve: everything went wrong. For months, indigenous groups had protested new laws by then President Alan Garcia opening up the Amazon to deregulated logging, fossil fuels, and other extractive industries as a part of free trade agreements with the U.S. But the […]
Papua New Guinea pledges to cancel massive land grabs by timber companies

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, released a statement last week saying that hugely controversial land leases under the country’s Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABLs) will be cancelled if they are found to be run for extracting timber. The SABLs program was meant to increase development of local agriculture in the country, but […]
Loggers plan to clear 20 percent of tropical island paradise

Rainforest tree on Woodlark Island. Photo by: Simon Piyuwes. Seven years ago, a palm oil company set its eyes on Woodlark Island—a small rainforest island nearly 200 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea—but was rebuked by the local populace. After protests and petitions, the company’s proposal to clear 70 percent of the island […]
Illegal logging makes up 70 percent of Papua New Guinea’s timber industry

Aerial view of jungle river on the island of New Guinea. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Corruption, weak governance, and powerful timber barons are illegally stripping the forests of Papua New Guinea, according to a new report from the Chatham House. The policy institute finds that 70 percent of logging in Papua New Guinea is […]
Small monkeys take over when big primates have been hunted out in the Amazon

The successful end of a monkey hunt by an indigenous tribe in Suriname results in a howler monkey for dinner. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The barbecued leg of a spider monkey might not be your idea of a sumptuous dinner, but to the Matsés or one of the fifteen tribes in voluntary isolation in […]
Ecuador will have referendum on fate of Yasuni after activists collect over 700,000 signatures

Rufescent tiger heron (Tigrisoma lineatum) in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. In what is a major victory for environmentalists, campaigners with United for Yasuni have collected 727,947 signatures triggering a national referendum on whether or not oil drilling should proceed in three blocs of Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. […]
Featured video: celebrities speak out for Yasuni

A group of celebrities, including recent Academy Award winner Jared Leto, Law and Order‘s Benjamin Bratt, and Kill Bill‘s Daryl Hannah, have lent their voices to a new Public Service Announcement (see below) to raise signatures to protect Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park from oil drilling. Considered among the most—and quite possibly the most—biodiverse ecosystem on […]
Ten years after Lost Africa: a retrospective on indigenous issues

Photograph © Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Ten years ago, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson photographed and wrote Lost Africa: The Eyes of Origin, a tribute to the expansive imagination of Africa’s vast landscape, incredible people, and astonishing animals. As Marie and Cyril tell us below in this interview, now is the time to listen, […]
Oil or rainforest: new website highlights the plight of Yasuni National Park

Rain over Yasuni National Park. Photo by: Carlos Pozo. A new multimedia feature story by Brazilian environmental news group, ((o))eco, highlights the ongoing debate over Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, arguably the most biodiverse place on the planet. “[Yasuni] matters due to [its] unique and rich biodiversity, to the fact that it is home to […]
Featured video: indigenous tribe faces loggers, ranchers, and murder in bid to save their forests

Rainforest in Panama. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A new short film, entitled La Trocha, highlights the plight of the Wounaan people in Panama, who are fighting for legal rights to their forests even as loggers and ranchers carve it up. The conflict turned violent in 2012 when local chief, Aquilo Puchicama, was shot dead […]
New web tool aims to help indigenous groups protect forests and navigate REDD+

A new online tool, dubbed ForestDefender, aims to help indigenous people understand and implement their rights in regard to forests. The database, developed by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), brings together vast amounts of legal information—both national and international—on over 50 countries. “CIEL created ForestDefender to empower indigenous peoples and other local communities […]
Helping the Amazon’s ‘Jaguar People’ protect their culture and traditional wisdom

Portrait of a Matsés woman. Photo by Alicia Fox. Tribes in the Amazon are increasingly exposed to the outside world by choice or circumstance. The fallout of outside contact has rarely been anything less than catastrophic, resulting in untold extinction of hundreds of tribes over the centuries. For ones that survived the devastation of introduced […]
Brazil begins evicting illegal settlers from hugely-imperiled indigenous reserve

Months after closing sawmills on the fringes of an indigenous reserve for the hugely-imperiled Awá people, the Brazil government has now moved into the reserve itself to evict illegal settlers in the eastern Amazon. According to the NGO Survival International, Brazil has sent in the military and other government agents to deal with massive illegal […]
Scientists make one of the biggest animal discoveries of the century: a new tapir

Update: The classification of Tapirus kabomani as a distinct species was officially contested in 2014. In what will likely be considered one of the biggest (literally) zoological discoveries of the Twenty-First Century, scientists today announced they have discovered a new species of tapir in Brazil and Colombia. The new mammal, hidden from science but known […]
Ecuador’s government shuts down indigenous rights organization over oil battle

Last Wednesday, the government of Ecuador shutdown the indigenous rights NGO, Fundación Pachamama, in Quito over the group’s opposition to oil drilling in indigenous areas. More than a dozen government officials showed up at Pachamama’s office with a resolution by the Ministry of Environment that officially dissolved the organization, the first such moved by the […]
Murum dam blockaders may be suffering human rights violations warns NGOs

A coalition of nearly 30 organizations has sent a letter to top authorities in Sarawak and Malaysia warning them of possible human right violations against a group of indigenous Penan who are blocking roads to the construction site for Murum Dam. Over 100 indigenous people have been blocking a road for over a month as […]
Tapirs, drug-trafficking, and eco-police: practicing conservation amidst chaos in Nicaragua

An interview with Christopher Jordan, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. Baird’s tapir caught on camera trap in Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast. Photo courtesy of: Christopher Jordan. Nicaragua is a nation still suffering from deep poverty, a free-flowing drug trade, and festering war-wounds after decades of internecine fighting. However, like any country […]
Samburu’s lions: how the big cats could make a comeback in Kenya

Shivani Bhalla will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. In 2009 conservationists estimated that less than 2,000 lions survive in Kenya, a drop of 26 percent in just seven years. In addition, the East Africa country continues to hemorrhage lions: around a hundred a year. Poaching, […]
Indigenous people of Honduras granted one million hectares of rainforest

One-hundred and fifty years after a treaty with England granted the Miskito people rights over their land–a treaty which was never fully respected–the government of Honduras has officially handed over nearly a million hectares (970,000 hectares) of tropical forest along the Caribbean Coast to the indigenous people. The Miskito are found along the eastern coast […]
Japanese firms buying illegal timber from Malaysia’s endangered rainforests

Japanese companies are failing to keep illegally logged timber from entering their supply chains, international human rights and environmental watchdog Global Witness said in a report released today. The report links several major Japanese firms to logging companies that are destroying tropical rainforests in Malaysian Borneo through illegal and destructive logging practices in Sarawak province. […]
Protecting predators in the wildest landscape you’ve never heard of

A Ruaha male lion in his prime. Photo © : Sasja van Vechgel. The Serengeti, the Congo, the Okavango Delta: many of Africa’s great wildernesses are household names, however on a continent that never fails to surprise remain vast wild lands practically unknown to the global public. One of these is the Ruaha landscape: covering […]
Isolated Amazonian tribe makes another appearance in Peru (video)

Over 100 members of a voluntarily isolated tribe emerged from the jungles of Peru in a rare appearance on the Las Piedras River across from the a Yine Indian community in late June. Belonging to the Mascho-Piro Indians, members of the “uncontacted” tribe are occasionally seen on riverbanks during the dry season, but appearances in […]
Yasuni could still be spared oil drilling

When Ecuadorean President, Rafael Correa, announced on August 15th that he was abandoning an innovative program to spare three blocs of Yasuni National Park from oil drilling, it seemed like the world had tossed away its most biodiverse ecosystem. However, environmental groups and activists quickly responded that there may be another way to keep oil […]
Overpopulation and grazing imperils nomadic lifestyle and wildlife in Ladakh

_______ In the unforgivingly cold, arid and harsh high-altitude regions of Central Asia, nomadic herders have survived for several centuries. Guided by a keen understanding of the environment they live in, they move constantly with their livestock, following trails of fresh pastures and ‘settling down’ only briefly. Surrendering their destiny to the whims of nature, […]
Weak laws governing Malaysia’s indigenous people complicate conservation efforts

The balance between biodiversity conservation, land acquisition, natural resource utilization and indigenous peoples is often wrought with conflict. Legislation governing the use of natural resources should ideally protect biodiversity and address the needs of indigenous peoples, but in many places, falls short of these ambitions. In a recent study published in Biodiversity Conservation, researchers examined […]
Brazil’s military takes on illegal loggers to protect nearly-extinct tribe

Brazil has launched a military campaign to evict illegal loggers working from the fringes of an indigenous reserve home to the Awá people, reports Survival International. Inhabiting the Amazon rainforest in northeastern Brazil, only around 450 Awá, also known as Guajá, survive today, and around a quarter of these have chosen voluntary isolation. The Brazilian […]
Featured video: Indonesian community uses mapping to fight palm oil takeover
Communities across Indonesia are facing the questions: palm oil or no? A new short documentary Mapping our Future explores the issue through one community’s efforts in West Kalimantan to map our their ancestral lands as they attempt to take control of their future. Oil palm is a hugely productive plant that has become ubiquitous in […]
Saving the Tenkile: an expedition to protect one of the most endangered animals you’ve never heard of

The tenkile, or the Scott’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae) could be a cross between a koala bear and a puppy. With it’s fuzzy dark fur, long tail and snout, and tiny ears, it’s difficult to imagine a more adorable animal. It’s also difficult to imagine that the tenkile is one of the most endangered species […]
Indigenous sacred sites now qualify as protected areas in Colombia

The first indigenous sacred site set aside under a new category of protected area in Colombia has been established in the northeastern part of the South American country. The development is significant because it could spur other indigenous sacred sites in Colombia to be granted protected status. At a ceremony on May 5, lands constituting […]
Indigenous groups protest hydropower congress as controversy hits meeting in Malaysia

The opening of the International Hydropower Association (IHA) World Congress in the Malaysian state of Sarawak was marred today by indigenous protests and controversy after a local indigenous leader was barred from attending a pre-conference workshop. Over 300 people from local indigenous people protested the ongoing construction of around a dozen mega-dams in the state […]
Peru delays oil drilling in the Amazon to consult with indigenous peoples

Peru has delayed auctioning off 27 oil blocs in the Amazon in order to conduct legally-required consultations with indigenous groups in the region, reports the Guardian. Perupetro S.A., Peru’s state oil and gas company, has announced it will auction 9 blocs off the Pacific coast, but will hold auctioning off the controversial oil blocs in […]
NGO: conflict of interests behind Peruvian highway proposal in the Amazon

As Peru’s legislature debates the merits of building the Purús highway through the Amazon rainforest, a new report by Global Witness alleges that the project has been aggressively pushed by those with a financial stake in opening up the remote area to logging and mining. Roads built in the Amazon lead to spikes in deforestation, […]
Central America’s largest forest under siege by colonists

In the last four years, invading land speculators and peasants have destroyed 150,000 hectares (370,000 acres) of rainforest in Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, according to the Mayangna and Miskito indigenous peoples who call this forest home. Although Nicaragua recognized the land rights of the indigenous people in 2007, the tribes say the government has not […]
Indigenous tribes say effects of climate change already felt in Amazon rainforest

Tribal groups in Earth’s largest rainforest are already being affected by shifts wrought by climate change, reports a paper published last week in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The paper, which is based on a collection of interviews conducted with indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon, says that native populations […]
Amazon: the world’s greatest rainforest or internet giant?

When you see the word “Amazon”, what’s the first thing that springs to mind—the world’s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer—and which do you consider most important? These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil […]
Featured video: Earth Day message from indigenous tribes in the Peruvian Amazon
A new video by Alianza Arkana includes an Earth Day message from the indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon who are facing the existential threats of logging and fossil fuel development on their traditional lands. Alianza Arkana, which means ‘Protection Alliance,’ advocates for indigenous people in Peru within the legal system, develops community-based projects, and […]
Judge halts military-backed dam assessment in Brazil’s Amazon

A federal court in Brazil has suspended the use of military and police personnel during technical research on the controversial São Luíz do Tapajós Dam in the Brazilian Amazon. The military and police were brought in to stamp down protests from indigenous people living along the Tapajós River, but the judge decreed that impacted indigenous […]
Indigenous group: Brazil using military to force Amazon dams

An Amazonian community has threatened to “go to war” with the Brazilian government after what they say is a military incursion into their land by dam builders. The Munduruku indigenous group in Para state say they have been betrayed by the authorities, who are pushing ahead with plans to build a cascade of hydropower plants […]
An insidious threat to tropical forests: over-hunting endangers tree species in Asia and Africa

A fruit falls to the floor in a rainforest. It waits. And waits. Inside the fruit is a seed, and like most seeds in tropical forests, this one needs an animal—a good-sized animal—to move it to a new place where it can germinate and grow. But it may be waiting in vain. Hunting and poaching […]
Infamous elephant poacher turns cannibal in the Congo

Early on a Sunday morning last summer, the villagers of Epulu awoke to the sounds of shots and screaming. In the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that can often mean another round of violence and ethnic murder is under way. In this case, however, something even more horrific was afoot. The […]
After decades of turning a blind eye, Peru declares state of emergency due to oil contamination in Amazon

River in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Peruvian government has declared an environmental state of emergency after finding elevated levels of lead, barium, and chromium in the Pastaza River in the Amazon jungle, reports the Associated Press. Indigenous peoples in the area have been complaining for decades of widespread contamination from […]
NGO says Malaysian regulators should shut down two Sarawak companies after damning video

The fallout from a video by Global Witness exposing widespread corruption in Sarawak continues, as the Bruno Manser Fund, a European NGO, has called on the Companies Commission of Malaysia to “dereigster” land corporations highlighted in the video. The video purports to connect the head of Sarawak, Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, to illegal land deals […]
Indigenous protester killed by masked assailants in Panama over UN-condemned dam

Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam under construction. Photo courtesy of Robin Oisín Llewellyn. A Ngäbe indigenous Panamanian, Onesimo Rodriguez, opposing the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam project was killed last Friday evening by four masked men. His body was then thrown into a nearby stream where it was discovered the following day. Onesimo Rodriguez was attacked with […]
Video uncovers top level corruption in Sarawak over indigenous forests

Logging roads criss-cross Sarawak’s forests. Photo courtesy of Google Earth. Tax evasion, kick-backs, bribery, and corruption all make appearances in a shocking new undercover video by Global Witness that shows how top individuals in the Sarawak government may be robbing the state of revenue for their own personal gain. Anti-corruption groups have believed that corruption […]
Panama’s indigenous people drop REDD+

Giant kapok (‘Big Tree’) in Panama’s rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP) has announced it is withdrawing from the United Nation’s REDD+ program following a series of disagreements. The exit of COONAPIP from the negotiating table with UN officials and the Panamanian government will likely be […]
Into the unknown mountains of Cambodia: rare birds, rice wine, and talk of tigers

Howie Nielsen on a trek earlier this year into a remote portion of Virachey National Park. Photo by: Greg McCann. Ringed with forested mountains forming the borders with Laos and Vietnam, the northeast corner of Cambodia has been an intriguing blank spot among my extensive travels through the country. Nestled up against this frontier is […]
Photographers threatening the already-abused slender loris

Slender loris. Photo by: Arun Kanagavel. Caught in a beam of torchlight, the eyes of the slender loris reflect back a striking glow. In an effort to better understand these shy, nocturnal primates, a team of researchers set out to the Western Ghats of India. The resulting paper: Moolah, Misfortune or Spinsterhood? The Plight of […]
Long lost tribe spotted in the Colombian Amazon

The March 2013 issue of Smithsonian magazine features an account of the flight that confirmed the presence of an isolated indigenous tribe in a remote part of the Colombian Amazon. In 2011 Colombian anthropologist Roberto Franco and photographer Cristóbal von Rothkirch went in search of an “uncontacted” tribe rumored to live in a tract of […]
Featured video: Saving the Amazon through maps
In a new video ethnobotanist, Mark Plotkin, talks about recent—and historical—efforts to preserve the Amazon rainforest through map-making and technology. Today scientists like Plotkin are teaching indigenous people how to digitally map their territory to win land rights over the forest they’ve used for centuries. Nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been lost due […]
Indigenous knowledge reveals widespread mammal decline in northern Australia

Aboriginal elders from north-east Arnhem Land discuss the plight of native mammals on their lands with scientist Mark Ziembicki. Photo by: Ian Morris. Over the course of four years, a team of elite Australian researchers journeyed through the remote landscapes of Northern Australia to tap a vanishing resource: the wealth of knowledge carried by the […]
Miners win ruling over indigenous groups in Guyana

River and forest in Guyana’s Amazon. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. A judge in Guyana’s high court has ruled that indigenous groups do not have the right to expel legal miners from their land. The judge, Diana Insanally, found that if the miners in question held a government-approved license than the local community had no right […]
Uncontacted tribes still exist, but extinction threat looms

AN INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT WALLACE, AUTHOR OF THE UNCONQUERED The world is more interconnected than ever. Globally, there are six billion cell phone subscribers and a billion Facebook users. Nearly 32 million people follow Lady Gaga on Twitter. Given this content it may seem hard to believe that there remain people who have never had […]
Featured video: how locals depend on Kalimantan’s vanishing forests
A new video explores local indigenous views of the forests of Kalimantan or Indonesian Borneo. Having depended on the rainforest ecosystems for centuries, indigenous groups now find themselves under pressure to exploit forest for logging, coal mining, or industrial plantations. While biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services are at stake, the forests are also […]
Legislation leaves future of world’s largest temperate rainforest up in the air

Stream and forest in the Tongass National Forest, the world largest temperate rainforest located in Southeast Alaska. Photo by: Matthew Dolkas. Although unlikely to pass anytime in the near term, recurring legislation that would hand over 80,000 acres of the Tongass Rainforest to a Native-owned logging corporation has put local communities on guard in Southeast […]
Penan suspend dam blockade, give government one month to respond to demands

Villagers blocking the road to Murum dam September 26, 2012. Photo courtesy of Bruno Manser Fond.. Members of the Penan tribe have suspended their month long blockade of the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, reports Survival International. However, according to the indigenous group the fight is not over: the departing Penan said […]
UNESCO disturbed by gas plans for Peru’s Manu National Park

Rio Pini Pini flowing out of Manu National Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Major concerns about the danger posed by gas exploration in a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Amazon rainforest has prompted UNESCO to promise to lobby the Peruvian government. Manu National Park’s biological diversity exceeds “that of any other place on […]
Indigenous groups re-occupy Belo Monte dam in the Amazon

Belo Monte location. Courtesy of Google Earth. Construction on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halted again as around 150 demonstrators, most of them from nearby indigenous tribes, have occupied the main construction site at Pimental. Over a hundred indigenous people joined local fishermen who had been protesting the dam for 24 days straight. Indigenous […]
Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in Sarawak

Over 300 Penan people are living in makeshift shelters as they blockade roads to the Murum dam construction site. Photo courtesy of Sarawak Conservation Alliance for Natural Environment (SCANE). Indigenous people have expanded their blockade against the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, taking over an additional road to prevent construction materials from […]
World Bank agrees to fund project related to controversial Gibe III dam

The Turkana people fear their ecosystem will be gravely impacted by the Gibe III dam on the Omo River. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Originally refusing to provide funding to Ethiopia’s controversial Gibe III hydroelectric dam, the World Bank has now announced plans to fund the power lines that will carry generated electricity away from […]
Scientists name new snake species to criticize mine plans in Panama (photos)

New snail-eating snake from Panama: Sibon noalamina. Non-venomous snail-eating snakes sport bright colors to mimic poisonous snakes as a defense. Photo © Sebastian Lotzkat. While scientists increasingly name new species after celebrities in order to gain much-needed attention for the world’s vanishing biodiversity, researchers describing a new snake species from Panama have taken a different […]
Bushmeat consumption differs between communities in Tanzania

African Buffalo is a target for hunters in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Bushmeat consumption depends on the make-up of individual communities, according to a new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science. By interviewing indigenous groups and refugees living near two protected areas in western Tanzania, researchers found that consumption rates […]
Indigenous groups in Panama wait for UN REDD to meet promises

Giant ceiba tree in Panamanian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A dispute over the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) in Panama has pitted the United Nations (UN) against the nation’s diverse and large indigenous groups. Represented by the National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP), indigenous groups charge that […]
Survivors say gold miners in helicopter massacred village of 80 in Venezuelan Amazon

UPDATE: An investigation by the Venezuelan government has found no evidence of the purported massacre. In addition, Survival International, an indigenous rights group, which was one of the first to announce the ‘massacre’ has now backtracked from their initial statements: “Having received its own testimony from confidential sources, Survival now believes there was no attack […]
Elephant ancestors and Africa’s Bigfoot: new initiative works to preserve a continent’s wildest tales

Africa’s Wildest Stories is a new initiative in Kenya to capture personal stories about the relationship of people to nature. Elephant Keeper Mishak Nzimbi (above) has been working at the David Sheldrick center since he was a teenager. It’s a job he would never give up for anything. He is an ordinary man living an […]
Belo Monte mega-dam halted again by high Brazilian court, appeal likely but difficult

Brazil’s Supreme Court overruled the Federal Appeals Court’s decision on August 28, 2012. Construction resumed the same day. Belo Monte location. Courtesy of Google Earth. A high federal court in Brazil has ruled that work on the Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon be immediately suspended. Finding that the government failed to properly consult […]
Evidence of ‘isolated’ indigenous people found in Peru where priest is pushing highway

View Larger Map Evidence of indigenous people living in “voluntary isolation” in a remote part of the Amazon has been found where an Italian Catholic priest is campaigning for Peru’s government to build a highway. The discovery is controversial because the priest has questioned the existence of the isolated people, sometimes referred to as uncontacted, […]
Human rights court favors indigenous tribe over Ecuadorian government in oil battle

Oil industry infrastructure in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found in favor of a Kichwa community’s right to consultation prior to industrial projects on their land in a ruling that could have implications for many indigenous peoples across the Americas. The court found that the government […]
Brazil decree opens tribal lands to mining, dams in ‘national interest’

Directive also freezes demarcation of new indigenous territories Map of indigenous territories in Brazil as of April 2008. Courtesy of FUNAI A directive signed Monday by Brazil’s Solicitor-General could hamper the efforts of indigenous tribes to win government recognition of their traditional lands, reports Survival International, a human rights group focused on native peoples. The […]
Indigenous tribes hold 3 engineers hostage over Belo Monte dam

Three engineers are being held hostage by the Juruna and Arara indigenous tribes as tensions rise over the on-going construction of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, reports the Indigenous rights NGO Amazon Watch. The company building the dam, Norte Energia, has confirmed that three of its employees were being held against their will. Tribal […]
Smartphones promoted as a tool for indigenous forest protection

Ranger using a camera phone on patrol in Java. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Smartphones beeping in the woods may be a welcome presence that augurs the increased ability of indigenous communities to be stewards of their own biodiverse forests. Representatives of these communities and their supporters have advocated that international conservation policies like Reduced […]
Experts: sustainable logging in rainforests impossible

Logging in Gabon, Central Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Industrial logging in primary tropical forests that is both sustainable and profitable is impossible, argues a new study in Bioscience, which finds that the ecology of tropical hardwoods makes logging with truly sustainable practices not only impractical, but completely unprofitable. Given this, the researchers recommend […]
Brazil cripples illegal gold mining operations in indigenous territory

Airplane view of Peruvian Amazon landscape scarred by open pit gold mining. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Brazilian police have arrested 26 people and confiscated gold and aircraft in a coordinated effort to tackle illegal gold-mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve, reports the BBC. Along with illegal miners the year-long investigation also arrested complicit airplane […]
Indigenous tribes end occupation of Belo Monte

Belo Monte location. Courtesy of Google Earth. After occupying the construction site of the massive Belo Monte dam for 21 days, some 300 indigenous people have left and gone home. The representatives from nine Amazonian tribes abandoned their occupation after two days of meeting with the dam’s builder, the Norte Energia consortium. Belo Monte, if […]
Vietnam buys stakes in controversial oil blocks threatening Peru’s most vulnerable indigenous people

A portion of Block 67 which runs up against the border of Ecuador as viewed by Google Earth. Vietnam’s state oil and gas company, PetroVietnam Exploration and Production (PVEP), has announced its intention to acquire a major stake in controversial oil operations in the remote Peruvian Amazon. This area, known as Lot 67, is one […]
Building indigenous resilience in the face of land-grabbing, deforestation in Malaysian Borneo

Indigenous protest in Sarawak. Image courtesy of The Borneo Project. In the 1980s images of loincloth-clad tribesmen blockading blockading logging roads in Malaysian Borneo shocked the world. But while their protests captured the spotlight momentarily, Borneo’s forests continued to be destroyed at rapid rates, undermining traditional communities that are dependent on these ecosystems for food, […]
Experts dispute recent study that claims little impact by pre-Columbian tribes in Amazon

The Amazon forest along the Tambopata River in Peru. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A study last month in the journal Science argued that pre-Columbian peoples had little impact on the western and central Amazon, going against a recently composed picture of the early Amazon inhabited by large, sophisticated populations influencing both the forest and […]
Indigenous tribes occupy Belo Monte dam for over 10 days

Belo Monte protest: around 300 people dug a channel though an earthen dam blocking the Xingu River last month. Photo credit: Atossa Soltani/ Amazon Watch / Spectral Q. As of Tuesday, the occupation of Belo Monte dam by indigenous tribes entered its 13th day. Indigenous people, who have fought the planned Brazilian dam for decades, […]
Sarawak tribe calls on German company to walk away from controversial dam

Bakun dam during construction. Photo by: Mohamad Shoox. Indigenous people from the Malaysian state of Sarawak have sent a letter to the German company, Fichtner GmbH & Co. KG, demanding that the consulting group halt all activities related to the hugely-controversial Baram dam, reports the NGO Bruno Manser Fund. Critics of the dam and it […]
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 […]
Indigenous rights rising in tropical forests, but big gaps remain

Children in Dani village in West Papua, Indonesia. The Indonesian constitution gives the government ownership over all land and natural resources. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the last twenty years, rights for indigenous forest dwellers have expanded significantly, according to a new report by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Covering nearly thirty tropical […]
Broadcaster for Radio Free Sarawak goes missing in Malaysia

UPDATE: (June 1, 2012) Radio Free Sarawak is reporting that Jaban is not in custody in Sarawak. The outlet issued the following clarification: “there has been some news that [Jaban] has been present in Miri over the past two days and he appears to be moving freely. This is encouraging information and we are currently […]
Indigenous group paid $0.65/ha for forest worth $5,000/ha in Indonesia

Aerial view of jungle and delta in Indonesian Papua. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A palm oil company has paid indigenous Moi landowners in Indonesian Papua a paltry $0.65 per hectare for land that will be worth $5,000 a hectare once cultivated, according to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesian […]
Tribe partners to protect Argentina’s most endangered forest

Young Guarani girl in Misiones. Photo by: World Land Trust. Last month, three Guarani communities, the local Argentine government of Misiones, and the UK-based NGO World Land Trust forged an agreement to create a nature reserve connecting three protected areas in the fractured, and almost extinct, Atlantic Forest. Dubbed the Emerald Green Corridor, the reserve […]
U.S. car manufacturers linked to Amazon destruction, slave labor

Illegal charcoal kilns in the municipality of Tucuruí. Photo by: Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace. According to a new report by Greenpeace, top U.S. car companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Nissan are sourcing pig iron that has resulted in the destruction of Amazon rainforests, slave labor, and land conflict with indigenous tribes. Spending two years documenting […]
Can loggers be conservationists?

Sawmill in Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year researchers took the first ever publicly-released video of an African golden cat (Profelis aurata) in a Gabon rainforest. This beautiful, but elusive, feline was filmed sitting docilely for the camera and chasing a bat. The least-known of Africa’s wild cat species, the African golden cat […]
Exploring Asia’s lost world

Abandoned by conservationists and the global community, Virachey National Park in Cambodia remains a wildernesses of surprises. An interview with Greg McCann. Haling-Halang and the barrier mountains separating Cambodia and Laos as seen from the Veal Thom grasslands, a place few outsiders have ever seen. Could tigers, Javan rhinos, or saola live in these mountains? […]
Oil company Perenco endangering ‘uncontacted’ indigenous people, says Peru

A Perenco boat in the Amazon. Photo courtesy of David Hill. The company hoping to exploit the oil deposits slated to transform Peru’s economy has been declared to be endangering the lives of indigenous people living in “voluntary isolation” by the country’s indigenous affairs department (INDEPA). Perenco, an Anglo-French company with headquarters in London and […]
Featured video: How to save the Amazon
The past ten years have seen unprecedented progress in fighting deforestation in the Amazon. Indigenous rights, payments for ecosystem services, government enforcement, satellite imagery, and a spirit of cooperation amongst old foes has resulted in a decline of 80 percent in Brazil’s deforestation rates. A new video Hanging in the Balance by the Skoll Foundation […]
For Earth Day, 17 celebrated scientists on how to make a better world

Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical action to create a better world for this and future generations. Compiled by 21 past winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a new paper […]
Photos: Uncontacted Amazon tribes documented for first time in Colombia

Overflights of remote Colombian rainforest yield first photographic evidence of two uncontacted tribes. Aerial surveys of a remote area of rainforest along the Colombia-Brazil border have produced the first photographic evidence of uncontacted tribes, according to a conservation group that works to safeguard indigenous territories and culture. The photos, released by the Amazon Conservation Team […]
Indigenous groups oppose priest pushing for road through uncontacted tribes’ land

A view of Puerto Esperanza. Photo by: David Hill. A grassroots indigenous organization in Peru is calling for the removal of an Italian Catholic priest from the remote Amazon in response to his lobbying to build a highway through the country’s biggest national park. The park, in the Purus region in south-east Peru, was founded […]
Pictures: Destruction of the Amazon’s Xingu River begins for Belo Monte Dam

Aerial photo of the construction of a canal for the Belo Monte Dam project, near Altamira. Photo by © Greenpeace/Daniel Beltra. The Xingu River will never be the same. Construction of Belo Monte Dam has begun in the Brazilian Amazon, as shown by these photos taken by Greenpeace, some of the first images of the […]
David vs. Goliath: Goldman Environmental Prize winners highlight development projects gone awry

Right of left: Evgenia Chirikova, Edwin Gariguez, Ma Jun, Ikal Angelei, Caroline Cannon, and Sofia Gatica. Photo courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize. A controversial dam, a massive mine, poisonous pesticides, a devastating road, and criminal polluters: many of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners point to the dangers of poorly-planned, and ultimately destructive, development initiatives. […]
Police hired by loggers in Papua New Guinea lock locals in shipping containers

A bulldozer rumbles over a recently deforested area in Pomio District, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Photo by: Paul Hilton/Greenpeace. Locals protesting the destruction of their forest in Papua New Guinea for two palm oil plantations say police have been sent in for a second time to crack-down on their activities, even as a […]
Amazon tribe becomes first to get OK to sell REDD credits for rainforest conservation

An Amazon tribe has become the first indigenous group in the world’s largest rainforest to win certification of a forest carbon conservation project, potentially setting a precedent for other forest-dependent groups to seek compensation for safeguarding their native forests. Today the Paiter-Surui, a tribe with 1300 members, announced their Surui Forest Carbon Project has been […]
U.S. gobbling illegal wood from Peru’s Amazon rainforest

Logged wood off the Ucayali River in Peru. Photo by Toby Smith/EIA. The next time you buy wood, you may want to make sure it’s not from Peru. According to an in-depth new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the illegal logging trade is booming in the Peruvian Amazon and much of the wood […]
Judge suspends Brazilian dam that would flood sacred waterfalls

View Larger Map A federal judge has suspended the construction of a 1,820 megawatt dam on the Teles Pires River in the Amazon. The judge found that indigenous communities were not properly consulted about the dam, which would flood a sacred site, known as the Seven Waterfalls, as well as imperil the livelihoods of indigenous […]
Brazil’s indigenous affairs ministry: $32B carbon deal not valid
An apparent carbon deal between an Irish carbon trading company and an indigenous tribe that sparked outrage in Brazil is “invalid” according to the president of FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency. In a press conference held March 14th, Márcio Meira responded to an investigation by Pública looked into a carbon deal signed between Celestial Green […]
Mining cancellation throws wrench into Sarawak dam-building spree

Bakun dam during construction. Photo by: Mohamad Shoox. The world’s third largest mining company, Rio Tinto, and a local financial and construction firm, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), have cancelled plans for a $2 billion aluminum smelter to be constructed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The cancellation calls into question Sarawak’s plan to build a […]
Featured video: indigenous community witnesses end of forest for palm oil
Muara Tae Diaries from EIA on Vimeo. Forests are falling across Borneo. A new videoblog by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telepak have documented the loss of one such forest in Indonesian Borneo, and its impact on the indigenous Dayak Benuaq people. Tensions hit a high point last year as PT Munte Waniq Jaya […]
Indigenous groups fight for recognition and illumination in Peru

Amazon community on the Rio Corrientes. Photo by: Patrick le Flufy. “Shh, wait here,” Wilson told me. I ducked down behind the buttress of a large tree to wait. We had been walking through the jungle for a few hours. At first we followed a path through the undergrowth, a wet world of ferns, trunks […]
Featured Video: FEVER, the climate change challenge for indigenous people
Fever Trailer (English Subtitles) from LifeMosaic on Vimeo. Four short films have been produced highlighting the challenges of climate change for indigenous people in the tropics. Produced by LifeMosaic, the indigenous rights organization says the films are “designed to inform and empower indigenous communities across the tropics and to be a tool for grass-roots facilitators, […]
Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: a view from the ground

Illegal gold mining boat in Peru. Photo courtesy of Katy Ashe. On the back of a partially functioning motorcycle I fly down miles of winding footpath at high-speed through the dense Amazon rainforest, the driver never able to see more than several feet ahead. Myriads of bizarre creatures lie camouflaged amongst the dense vines and […]
Amazon plant yields miracle cure for dental pain

The world may soon benefit from a plant long-used by indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon for toothaches, eliminating the need for local injections in some cases. Researchers have created a medicinal gel from a plant known commonly as spilanthes extract (Acmella Oleracea), which could become a fully natural alternative to current anesthetics and may […]
Africa Wildlife Foundation faces lawsuit from indigenous community in Kenya

Africa Wildlife Foundation (AWF), the conservation nonprofit based in Washington, DC, is facing a lawsuit by Kenya’s Samburu tribe over alleged unlawful evictions. The hearing, originally scheduled for January 23, has now been postponed to later this month. The dispute is over an area of land in Laikipia District in Kenya, one of Africa’s most […]
International Labor Organization raps Brazil over monster dam
The UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) has released a report stating that the Brazilian government violated the rights of indigenous people by moving forward on the massive Belo Monte dam without consulting indigenous communities. The report follows a request last year by the The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the Brazilian government to suspend […]
Tourism for biodiversity in Tambopata

Map, Bahuaja Sonene National Park, Grasshopper Mimicking a Wasp. Photo by: David Johnston. Research and exploration in the Neotropics are extraordinary, life-changing experiences. In the past two decades, a new generation of collaborative projects has emerged throughout Central and South America to provide access to tropical biodiversity. Scientists, local naturalists, guides, students and travelers now […]
Activists form network to fight Sarawak dam-building spree

Last October indigenous groups, local people, and domestic NGOs formed the Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network to fight the planned construction of a dozen dams in the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. The coalition opposes the dam-building plans, known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative, due to its impacts on indigenous […]
New rainforest and indigenous reserve established in Peru

Aerial photo of Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. On February 4th, the Peruvian government and a small indigenous group created a new Amazon reserve, dubbed the Maijuna Reserve. Located in northeastern Peru, the 390,000 hectare (970,000 acres) reserve is larger than California’s Yosemite National Park and over three times the size of Hong […]
Guyanese tribe maps Connecticut-sized rainforest for land rights

Overlooking rainforest in Guyana. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. In a bid to gain legal recognition of their land, the indigenous Wapichan people have digitally mapped their customary rainforest land in Guyana over the past ten years. Covering 1.4 million hectares, about the size of Connecticut, the rainforest would be split between sustainable-use regions, sacred areas, […]
Supernatural beliefs keep hunting sustainable on Indonesian island

A northern common cuscus in Misool, Raja Ampat. Photo by: Dmitry Telnov. How do indigenous communities hunt without pushing target species to local extinction? In other words, how have communities retained sustainable practices over countless generations? One answer is given in a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Center […]
Group releases close-up photos of ‘uncontacted’ tribe in Peru

Survival International claims these are most detailed photos ever taken of the isolate Mashco-Piro tribe in Manu National Park, Peru. Photo courtesy of Survival International. New photos provide visual evidence of just how close the long-isolated tribe of Mashco-Piro people in the Amazon rainforest are to being contacted by the outside world—a perilous moment for […]
Brazilian mining company connected to Belo Monte dam voted worst corporation

The world’s second largest mining company, Vale, has been given the dubious honor of being voted the world’s most awful corporation in terms of human rights abuses and environmental destruction by the Public Eye Awards. Vale received over 25,000 votes online, likely prompted in part by its stake in the hugely controversial Brazilian mega-dam, Belo […]
Photos: 46 new species found in little-explored Amazonian nation

A possible new species of frog: Hypsiboas sp. (nickname “cowboy frog”) has white fringes along the legs and a spur on the heel. The frog was discovered low on a small branch during a night survey in a swampy area west of the RAP base camp at the Koetari River during Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment […]
Feared extinct, obscure monkey rediscovered in Borneo

Family group of Miller’s grizzled langur in Wehea Forest. Photo by: Eric Fell. A significant population of the rarely seen, little-known Miller’s grizzled langurs (Presbytis hosei canicrus) has been discovered in Indonesian Borneo according to a new paper published in the American Journal of Primatology. Feared extinct by some and dubbed one of the world’s […]
Brazil begins preliminary damming of Xingu River as protests continue

Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the NGO International Rivers. Indigenous tribes, who […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2011

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested for civil disobedience against the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S. In all, 1,252 people were arrested in the two week long action. Photo by: […]
The other side of the Penan story: threatened tribe embraces tourism, reforestation

Traveling on the Kerong River with the Penan. Photo courtesy of Gavin Bate. News about the Penan people is usually bleak. Once nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo, the indigenous Penan have suffered decades of widespread destruction of their forests and an erosion of their traditional culture. Logging companies, plantation developments, […]
Yasuni ITT: the virtues and vices of environmental innovation

Collared puffbird (Bucco capensis) in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. As the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place in Durban, Ecuador has embarked on the development of a project presented as highly innovative. This project targets Yasuni […]
Community mapping of African rainforests could show way forward for preservation, REDD

Screenshot of new website of community mapping in central Africa’s forests. A new initiative to place community mapping of central African rainforests online could prove key to local rights in the region, says the UK-based NGO Rainforest Foundation. Working with forest communities in five African countries, Rainforest Foundation has helped create digital maps of local […]
Indigenous religious leader murdered in front of his tribe in Brazil

Murders tied to land disputes in rural Brazil, cumulative total of 383 since 2000. Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation of the murder of Nísio Gomes. A religious leader of the Guarani tribe, Gomes was executed by masked gunmen in front of his community and son earlier this month in the southwestern Brazilian […]
Brazilian dam-builder quits Peru project after indigenous protest

A large Brazilian construction company has pulled out of a Peruvian dam project citing opposition from indigenous communities, reports International Rivers. In a letter addressed to the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines, Odebrecht said it was withdrawing from the 1278-megawatt Tambo-40 Dam on the Tambo River in the Peruvian Amazon. The company said it […]
Indigenous technicians scour Amazonia to help researchers track wildlife populations

Scientists only have so many hands and eyes. That’s why ecologists enlisted hundreds of Makushi and Wapishana villagers to record the sights and signs of animals across 48,000 square kilometers of the Amazon basin near the Brazil-Guyana border. In the ongoing project, scientists seek to describe the interactions between indigenous peoples, their environment and the […]
Peru’s real test is a 200km pipeline

One of Ollanta Humala’s most striking achievements since becoming Peru’s president three months ago is new legislation guaranteeing indigenous people the right to be consulted about and in agreement with any project that affects them. Leading indigenous organization AIDESEP, usually so critical of the government, cautiously welcomed the move, while Survival International called it ‘a […]
Losing our pigs and our ancestors: threats to the livelihoods and environment of Papua New Guinea

In 1968, distinguished anthropologist Roy Rappaport wrote a seminal publication of human ecology: “Pigs for the Ancestors: Rituals in the Ecology of a New Guinea People” which integrated cultural ritual with the necessity of maintaining pre-existing relationships with the environment. Documenting the behavior activities of the Tsembaga Maring tribe in the Highlands of Papua New […]
Bolivian road project through Amazon reserve canceled
Following a violent crackdown on protestors which deeply embarrassed the Bolivian government, president Evo Morales has thrown-out plans to build a road through an indigenous reserve, reports the BBC. Protestors marched 310 miles (498 kilometers) from the Amazon to La Paz to show their opposition to the road, saying that the project would destroy vast […]
Malaysian sustainable timber certification fails Dutch standards

Logging truck carrying timber out of the Malaysian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. An independent panel in the Netherlands has found that the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) falls short of Dutch standards for sustainable forestry. The final decision comes after a series of judgements and appeals with the latest panel concluding that MTCS […]
Isolated indigenous people and tourists collide in Peru park

New video released by the Peruvian government shows a potentially disastrous encounter between tourists and indigenous people long isolated from the outside world. In a motor boat tourists follow a group of Mashco-Piro people walking along the shores of the Manu River in Manu National Park. At one point one of the tribal members prepares […]
Featured video: new documentary puts human face on logging in Papua New Guinea
A new documentary, filmed single-handily by filmmaker David Fedele, covers the impact of industrial logging on a community in Papua New Guinea. Entitled Bikpela Bagarap (or ‘Big Damage’ in English), the film shows with startling intimacy how massive corporations, greedy government, and consumption abroad have conspired to ruin lives in places like Vanimo, Papua New […]
Tribal leader to the UN: Indigenous peoples of the Amazon are in danger

Editor’s note: the following statement was presented by Almir Surui Narayamoga of the Surui tribe to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 21, 2011. Translation by Rhett Butler. Amazonian indigenous peoples and their traditional territories are living under constant threat. Illegal deforestation — carried out by loggers, ranchers, miners and intruders on […]
Indigenous people blockade river against ‘murderous’ oil company

Over the weekend more than 100 Shuar indigenous people, also known as Wampis, blockaded the Morona River in Peru in an effort to stop exploratory oil drilling by Canadian-owned Talisman Energy. The blockade in meant to prevent oil drilling in an area of the Peruvian Amazon known as Block 64, home to four indigenous tribes […]
Loving the tapir: pioneering conservation for South America’s biggest animal
- Compared to some of South America’s megafauna stand-out species – the jaguar, the anaconda, and the harpy eagle come to mind& – the tapir doesn’t get a lot of love.
- This is a shame. For one thing, they’re the largest terrestrial animal on the South American continent: pound-for-pound they beat both the jaguar and the llama.
- For another they play a very significant role in their ecosystem: they disperse seeds, modify habitats, and are periodic prey to big predators.

Malaysian court blocks rainforest tribes’ fight against mega-dam in Borneo

Indigenous tribes in Borneo suffered a stinging defeat Thursday after Sarawak’s highest court ruled against them in 12-year-long legal battle. Tribal groups had challenged the Malaysian state government for seizing indigenous lands in order to build a massive hydroelectric power plant, dubbed the Bakun dam, but the three-person top court found unanimously against the tribes. […]
Peru president signs indigenous rights act into law

Gold mining in Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Peru’s new president, Ollanta Humala, has signed into law a measure requiring that indigenous groups are consulted prior to any mining, logging, or oil and gas projects on their land. If properly enforced, the new legislation will give indigenous people free, prior and informed consent […]
World’s oldest person discovered in Amazon rainforest

Maria Lucimar Pereira turns 121 on Saturday. Photo courtesy of Survival International . Maria Lucimar Pereira is arguably the world’s oldest living person: a member of the Kaxinawá tribe, Pereira lives in the Brazilian Amazon and will be soon celebrating her 121st birthday, according to Survival International. Pereira has had an official birth certificate approved […]
Big damage in Papua New Guinea: new film documents how industrial logging destroys lives

Douglas cutting tree in Papua New Guinea. Photo by: David Fedele. In one scene a young man, perhaps not long ago a boy, named Douglas stands shirtless and in shorts as he runs a chainsaw into a massive tropical tree. Prior to this we have already heard from an official how employees operating chainsaws must […]
Peru passes landmark indigenous rights legislation

A new administration in Peru is moving toward granting indigenous people long-sought legal rights, reports Survival International. Yesterday, the Peruvian congress approved new legislation that gives indigenous people free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for any project on their land. If signed into law and enforced, the legislation would provide indigenous groups considerable clout in […]
Indigenous protestors embark on 300-mile walk to protest Amazon road in Bolivia

Indigenous protesters are targeting a new road in the Bolivian Amazon, reports the BBC. The 190-mile highway under construction in the Bolivian Amazon will pass through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park (Tipnis), a 4,600-square mile (11,900 square kilometers) preserve which boasts exceptional levels of rainforest biodiversity, including endangered blue macaws and fresh-water dolphins. […]
Uncontacted tribe missing after armed drug dealers storm their forest

Concern is rising for the welfare of uncontacted natives in the Brazilian Amazon after armed marauders stormed the area where they were last documented. Last week men with rifles and machine guns, believed to be drug traffickers from Peru, overran a remote government guard post run by FUNAI (Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Department) on the Envira […]
Picture of the day: faces of the indigenous, celebrating the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

Dani elder from New Guinea. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Today, August 9th, is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. To help celebrate the world’s indigenous cultures, mongabay.com has put together this collection of photos. Indigenous groups worldwide are facing a wide array of threats, some of which not only imperil their way […]
Picture of the day: horse-and-rider in the Amazon

Colombian cowboy crossing a river on horseback. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Riding a horse in the world’s greatest tropical rainforest may be the definition of what kids today call ‘bad-ass’. It certainly makes cowboys in Texas look prosaic. While it may be surprising to see a horse-and-rider in the Amazon rainforest, this is typical […]
How fruit defines Borneo

Rambutan fruit. Photo courtesy of Orangutan Foundation International. Among conservationists and biologists, the mega-island of Borneo is a sort of Mecca. Its rich plant and animal biodiversity, as well as high degree of endemism (unique species found nowhere else) make it a naturalist’s dream. There is one aspect of this biological richness which applies to […]
Indigenous peoples in Suriname still wait for land rights

Aerial view of Kwamala village in the interior of Suriname. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Legal rights and recognition for the diverse indigenous peoples of Suriname have lagged behind those in other South American countries. Despite pressure from the UN and binding judgments by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Suriname has yet to recognize […]
WWF partnering with companies that destroy rainforests, threaten endangered species

A new report finds that conservation giant WWF may demand too little when working with logging companies. Screenshot of WWF website. Arguably the globe’s most well-known conservation organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), has been facilitating illegal logging, vast deforestation, and human rights abuses by pairing up with notorious logging companies in a […]
Amazon tribes win support to protect 46 million ha of Amazon forest

Indigenous communities working to protect the Amazon rainforest got a boost last week with the launch of a “biocultural conservation corridor” initiative in two regions of Brazil. The initiative, coordinated by the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) and partially funded by the Skoll Foundation, which contributed $1.6 million, aims to prevent deforestation across 46 million ha […]
Oil company hires indigenous people to clean up its Amazon spill with rags and buckets

On Sunday morning children swimming in the Mashiria River in the Peruvian Amazon noticed oil floating on the water. A pipeline owned by Maple Energy had ruptured in Block 31-E, polluting the Mashiria River which is used by the Shipibo indigenous community in Nuevo Sucre for fishing and drinking water. In response to the spill, […]
Logging company fined $100 million for illegal logging in Papua New Guinea

In a landmark court decision a judge has slapped a logging company with a nearly $100 million (K225.5 million) fine for large-scale illegal logging. Last week, Malaysian timber company, Concord Pacific, was sentenced to pay four forest tribes for environmental destruction in the first ruling of its kind for Papua New Guinea. “The damages done […]
Rainforest tribe forcibly removed from dam area to palm oil plantation
A thousand Penan indigenous people have been forcibly moved from their rainforest home to monoculture plantations, reports Survival International. To make way for the Murum dam, the Malaysian state government of Sarawak is moving a thousand Penan from their traditional homes, but as a part of the deal the government promised to move the Penan […]
Brazil confirms existence of new uncontacted Amazon tribe

The Brazilian government confirmed the existence of a community of uncontacted Amerindians in a protected area near the Peruvian border, reports Funai, Brazil’s Indian affairs agency. Funai said the tribe came to the attention of authorities after satellite images revealed three large clearings in the Vale do Javari reservation, which is nearly the size of […]
U.S. tribes to explore forest carbon opportunities
Tribes in Washington state will participate in a pilot project to test the feasibility of developing forest carbon projects on tribal lands, reports EcoAnalytics, a carbon advisory firm involved in the deal. The $2.45 million project aims to “develop protocols that overcome the legal and technical barriers faced by tribes in entering carbon credit trading […]
Last chance to see: the Amazon’s Xingu River

“Mongabay.com’s new series ‘Last Chance to See’ will attempt to highlight wild places on the verge of disappearing or being changed irrevocably.” Early morning fishing on the Xingu River. Photo courtesy of Amazon Watch. Not far from where the great Amazon River drains into the Atlantic, it splits off into a wide tributary, at first […]
Germany backs out of Yasuni deal

Germany has backed out of a pledge to commit $50 million a year to Ecuador’s Yasuni ITT Initiative, reports Science Insider. The move by Germany potentially upsets an innovative program hailed by environmentalists and scientists alike. This one-of-a-kind initiative would protect a 200,000 hectare bloc in Yasuni National Park from oil drilling in return for […]
Peru to abolish uncontacted tribe’s reserve, says group

Uncontacted indigenous group near the Brazil-Peru border. Photo released earlier this year by Gleison Miranda/FUNAI/Survival Territory inhabited by an uncontacted Amazon tribe in Peru is again up for grabs, warns Survival International. The indigenous rights’ group says Peru’s Indian Affairs Department (INDEPA) is planning to “abolish” the Murunahua reserve, an area of forest inhabited by […]
Shareholders to Chevron: company showing ‘poor judgment’ in Ecuador oil spill case

After being found guilty in February of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.6 billion in an Ecuador court of law, Chevron this week faced another trial: this time by shareholders in its Annual General Meeting in California. While Chevron has appealed the Ecuador case and a US court has put an injunction barring the […]
ConocoPhillips withdraws from oil exploitation in uncontacted indigenous territory

A portion of Block 67 which runs up against the border of Ecuador as viewed by Google Earth. ConocoPhillips has announced it is withdrawing from its 45% share of oil drilling in Block 39 of Peru’s Amazon rainforest. The withdrawal comes after pressure from indigenous-rights and environmental groups to leave two Peruvian oil blocks—39 and […]
Controversial Brazilian mega-dam receives investment of $1.4 billion
Brazil’s most controversial mega-dam, Belo Monte, which is moving full steam ahead against massive opposition, has received an extra infusion of cash from Vale, a Brazilian-run mining company. Vale, which has projects around the world, announced it would buy 9% of Norte Energia S.A. (NESA), the company contracted to construct the massive dam. “The plan […]
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 […]
Satellite evidence of deforestation in uncontacted tribe’s territory sparks legal action

The destruction of 3,600 hectares (8,900 acres) of the Gran Chaco forest in Paraguay by large Brazilian cattle ranching companies has led to a legal complaint filed by a local indigenous-rights organization, since the land in question was one of the last refuges of a group of uncontacted indigenous people in the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode tribe. The […]
Indigenous group claims Ecuadorian government complicit in ‘genocide’

Ecuador’s paramount indigenous organization has filed a legal complaint against the government, including President Rafael Correa, for allegedly participating in ‘genocide’ against indigenous people in the Amazon. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is arguing that expanding oil exploration and mining is imperiling the lives of uncontacted tribes that have chosen voluntary isolation […]
Bill Clinton takes on Brazil’s megadams, James Cameron backs tribal groups
Former US President, Bill Clinton, spoke out against Brazil’s megadams at the 2nd World Sustainability Forum, which was also attended by former California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and film director, James Cameron, who has been an outspoken critic of the most famous of the controversial dams, the Belo Monte on the Xingu River. As reported by […]
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 […]
Goodbye national parks: when ‘eternal’ protected areas come under attack

Outline of Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first modern protected are, as seen by Google Earth. Yellowstone was opposed by many when it was first created including logging and mining industries. One of the major tenets behind the creation of a national park, or other protected area, is that it will not fade, but remain […]
Coalition calls on Europe to label palm oil on food products

Do you have the right to know whether the chocolate bar you’re munching on includes palm oil, which is blamed for vast deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia? How about that frozen pizza? According to a coalition of environmental and conservation groups it’s time for food manufacturers to add palm oil to the label in Europe, […]
Into Colombia’s Sierra Nevada

A birders’ paradise with a violent past. A motmot in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. Photo by: Miguel Hernandez . The highest coastal mountain on the planet rises 18,942 feet (5,775-meters) above the Caribbean Sea; it’s snow-capped peaks piercing through the clouds some 24 miles from an idyllic tropical beach. But to the casual visitor, the Sierra […]
Report: corruption in Sarawak led to widespread deforestation, violations of indigenous rights

Logging roads criss-cross Sarawak’s forests. Photo courtesy of Google Earth. At the end of this month it will be 30 years since Abdul Taib Mahmud came to power in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Environmentalists are using the occasion, along with new revelations, to highlight corruption and nepotism they say […]
World’s most controversial dam, Brazil’s Belo Monte, back on
A recent injunction against controversial dam, Belo Monte, in Brazil has been overturned, allowing the first phase of construction to go ahead. The ruling by a higher court argued that not all environmental conditions must be met on the dam in order for construction to start. Issued on February 25th, the injunction against the dam […]
Report: 90 oil spills in Peruvian Amazon over 3 years

An oil spill flows down Chuuntsa Creek in Oil Block 1-AB. Photo courtesy of: Amazon Watch. A new report has uncovered 90 oil spills by Pluspetrol in northern Peru’s Amazon rainforest over the past 3 years. Covering two oil blocs—1-AB and 8—the report, complied by the Federation of Indigenous Communities of the Corrientes River (FECONACO), […]
Indigenous leaders take fight over Amazon dams to Europe

Three indigenous Amazonian leaders spent this week touring Europe to raise awareness about the threat that a number of proposed monster dams pose to their people and the Amazon forest. Culminating in a press conference and protests in London, the international trip hopes to build pressure to stop three current hydroelectric projects, one in Peru, […]
Judge suspends Brazil’s monster dam: contractor ‘imposing’ its interests
Construction on Brazil’s planned mega-dam, the Belo Monte, has been ordered suspended by a federal judge, citing unmet environmental and social conditions. Just last month, the hugely controversial dam, was handed a partial license from Brazil’s Environmental Agency (IBAMA). However, the judge, Ronaldo Destêrro, found that the partial license, the first of its kind in […]
Chevron found guilty, ordered to pay $8.2 billion in epic oil contamination fight

It was the environmental legal battle that some believed would never end (and they may still be right). But today in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, after 18 years of an often-dramatic court case, Chevron was found guilty of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.2 billion in damages, however the oil giant says it will appeal […]
Half a million people sign petition against Belo Monte, Brazilian mega-dam
In a protest today in Brasilia, Brazil, indigenous people delivered a petition to authorities signed by 500,000 people calling on them to cancel the controversial Belo Monte dam. They hope the petition, organized by online activist group Avaaz, will help convince Brazil’s new president, Dilma Rousseff, to cancel the project. However, actions by Brazil’s first […]
Chief financier of Belo Monte dam ties social and environmental requirements to controversial project
The Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) has announced it will not grant a $640 million loan for the hugely controversial Belo Monte dam until 40 social and environmental conditions are met. In response, the company contracted to build the dam, Norte Energia, S.A. (NESA), has stated it may drop the bank’s loan altogether and seek […]
Report: indigenous people deserve right to refuse big companies

As large-scale mining, logging, and plantations threaten indigenous communities worldwide, a new report from the indigenous rights NGO Amazon Watch states that when extractive industries work in indigenous people’s territories, the peoples’ rights must be respected. The report argues that all indigenous groups have the right to ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ of any resource […]
Sarawak’s last nomad: indigenous leader and activist, Along Sega, dies

Along Sega never knew exactly how old he was, but when he passed away yesterday in a hospital far from the forest where he born, he was likely in his 70s. Leader among the once-nomadic hunter and gatherer Penan people of Borneo and mentor to Swiss activist, Bruno Manser, Along Sega will be remembered for […]
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 […]
United States to back U.N. indigenous rights declaration
The United States will endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), making it the last industrialized power to support the agreement, which recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples on issues including free prior and informed consent (FPIC), right to sovereignty, territory and respect for traditional knowledge. The move was announced […]

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