topic: Environmental Crime

topic: Environmental Crime

Social media activity version | Lean version

Global agarwood trade heavily dependent on wild, threatened trees: Study
- The global agarwood trade heavily depends on wild-harvested endangered tree species, despite international regulations for protection, with significant volumes going undocumented in official trade records, a new study reveals.
- About 70% of the trade depend on Aquilaria filaria and Aquilaria malaccensis, both threatened species, sourced from the wild, raising major sustainability concerns. Meanwhile, there are some tree species that are not even covered by CITES, the global wildlife trade convention.
- Due to discrepancies between CITES and customs data, along with weak enforcement and outdated regulations, researchers suggest the illegal trade is far larger than reported.
- Researchers urge stronger monitoring, updated data, expanded species protection, and a shift to cultivated sources. They also call on consumers and wealthy importers to support conservation and governments to promote sustainable practices.

Data discrepancies suggest Laos monkey smuggling persists, despite trade ban
- A new report highlights widespread monkey laundering in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, where wild-caught long-tailed macaques are illegally funneled into breeding farms before being exported for biomedical research as captive-bred animals.
- Despite growing concerns over the ethics and effectiveness of animal testing, the biomedical industry continues to rely on macaques, fueling a multibillion-dollar trade, with some shipments worth millions of dollars.
- Thailand has emerged as a hotspot for poaching, with poachers capturing monkeys in urban areas before smuggling them across the Mekong River into Laos and Cambodia, often using concealed transport methods.
- Laos has significantly increased its estimate of wild macaques to justify legalizing their capture, raising concerns of official complicity in laundering monkeys for the biomedical industry, despite international skepticism over the accuracy of the data.

Indonesia strengthens forest monitoring with new tool to meet EU deforestation law
- Indonesia is stepping up traceability efforts to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which bans imports of deforestation-linked commodities like palm oil, timber and coffee starting in December 2025.
- A new platform, Ground Truthed.id (GTID), combines field-based evidence and geolocation data to detect and document environmental violations in real time, offering a bottom-up alternative to satellite-reliant systems.
- GTID emphasizes collaboration with Indigenous peoples, civil society and law enforcement, using a verification process to turn grassroots reports into legally actionable cases.
- The platform is expected to complement a government-run traceability dashboard by acting as an independent watchdog, helping prevent illegally sourced or conflict-ridden products from entering international supply chains.

Report alleges criminality in Cambodian, Vietnamese monkey trade
- A new report is the latest to bolster long-standing allegations that many long-tailed macaques imported into the U.S. for biomedical research were illegally caught from the wild and falsely labeled as captive-bred, with suspiciously high birth rates at breeding facilities in Southeast Asia.
- Cambodia became a major supplier of monkeys for research after China stopped exports in 2020, but investigations found indications of large-scale monkey-laundering operations, leading to legal cases, failed prosecutions, and a 64% drop in exports by 2023. Despite concerns, global wildlife trade regulator CITES did not ban the trade.
- Vietnam’s reported monkey exports also show discrepancies, with new “satellite breeding facilities” appearing without proper documentation, raising concerns that wild monkeys are also being trafficked into breeding farms.
- A tuberculosis outbreak linked to Vietnamese monkey exports highlights the public health risks, while U.S. company Charles River Laboratories faces scrutiny over its alleged role in the illegal monkey trade, seeming to benefit from political ties to evade accountability.

‘Trophies’ shared on social media reveal scale of mass bird slaughter in Lebanon
- Millions of migratory birds fly over Lebanon, which is on the African-Eurasian flyway, where hunters indiscriminately shoot them, often illegally, despite some of the species being threatened and/or protected.
- A first-of-its-kind study uses social media photos and posts to assess the level of illegal hunting in Lebanon, where studies show an estimated 2.5 million birds are killed each year.
- The study found that 94% of the hunted bird species, identified by assessing more than 1,800 photographs, were legally protected, and the poachers posed with their hunt in nearly half of these photos without fear of consequences for their illegal acts.
- Conservationists blame weak law enforcement and small penalties for poachers’ blatant disregard for regulations, and point to the growing trend of using social media to garner likes and views as a driving reason behind the carnage.

Giant rats trained to sniff out illegal wildlife trade

Banner image of Nandera, a crime-fighting African giant pouched rat. Image by Lucia Torres/Mongabay.

From land mine detection to sniffing out illegally trafficked wildlife parts, a group of trained African giant pouched rats in Tanzania is proving a valuable partner for humans, Mongabay’s Lucia Torres reported in February. In the 1990s, Belgian industrial engineer Bart Weetjens was exploring ways to detect land mines when he thought of rats: they’re […]
Mongabay investigation spurs Brazil crackdown on illegal cattle in Amazon’s Arariboia territory
- An ongoing Brazilian government operation launched in February has removed between 1,000 and 2,000 illegal head of cattle from the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Amazon Rainforest.
- In June 2024, Mongabay published the results of a yearlong investigation, revealing that large portions of the Arariboia territory have been taken over for commercial cattle ranching, in violation of the Constitution; the project received funding and editorial support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
- “Your report is very similar to what we’re actually finding in the field. It showed an accurate reality and this helped us a lot in practical terms,” Marcos Kaingang, national secretary for Indigenous territorial rights at the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, told Mongabay in a video interview.
- The investigation also revealed details that authorities said they hadn’t been aware of, including the illegal shifting of the territory’s border markers, Kaingang said: “We brought it up as an important point in our discussions and we verified that the [markers] had in fact been changed.”

Snared, skinned, sold: Brutal March for Indonesia’s Sumatran tigers
- Police in Indonesia charged at least 11 people in the month of March with wildlife crimes after a tiger was butchered in Riau province and alleged traffickers were found with body parts in the semiautonomous province of Aceh.
- In West Sumatra province, conservation officials successfully trapped a young female tiger whose leg had previously been amputated, likely in a snare trap.
- Sumatran tigers are a critically endangered subspecies of tiger and fewer than 400 are believed to remain in the wild.

What pushes Indigenous Munduruku people to mine their land in Brazil’s Amazon?
- The involvement of Munduruku people in illegal mining inside the Munduruku Indigenous Territory made Brazil’s efforts to stop it more complicated, federal officials said.
- Munduruku sources told Mongabay that deception, abandonment by the state and a lack of alternative income sources are what push some Munduruku people to mine.
- The recruitment of Indigenous peoples is an important mechanism used by miners to secure access to lands and gain support against government crackdowns, researchers said.
- Sources said the government should invest in public policies and alternative income projects to strengthen food security, improve health and the sustainable development of communities.

Amid fuzzy data, scientists urge monitoring of Hong Kong’s tokay gecko trade
- Thousands of tokay geckos (Gekko gecko), native to South and Southeast Asia, are sold each year in Hong Kong’s traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) pharmacies.
- Recent studies have raised questions on the sustainability of this trade and the origins of the geckos, as vendors’ claims don’t agree with data in the CITES database, exposing data discrepancies in legal trade.
- Without stricter oversight, these discrepancies could result in unsustainable trade and facilitate illegal trafficking of tokay geckos in the region, say conservationists, who urge countries and CITES to better monitor the trade.

Maltese Falcon Poachers: European hunters endanger Egypt’s birds
- A 15-month-long investigation has exposed the cracks in international conservation efforts around the hunting of Maltese falcons and other species in Egypt.
- Millions of euros have flowed from EU conservation funds to protect these species, only for them to be gunned down by Europeans in Egypt.
- With exclusive accounts from conservationists and hunting trip organizers, alongside public records of raids and arrests, this investigation highlights the urgent need for international cooperation to uphold global conservation commitments.

Pirates of the Pacific terrorize artisanal fishers on the Peruvian coast
- For more than 15 years, artisanal fishers in the Tumbes region of northwestern Peru have been plagued by an evil that seems straight out of an adventure book: pirate attacks.
- But this is no fiction: more than 20 fishers have been killed in the past 21 years during pirate attacks.
- To date, no one has been tried or even arrested for these crimes.
- Although the police dismantled a pirate gang in 2018, the situation hasn’t improved significantly, and fishers are forced to pay protection fees to the pirates.

Climate change spikes wildfire risk in Sri Lanka
- Almost all forest fire in Sri Lanka is human-caused; the two main forest fire seasons are February to March and July to August.
- Annually, 100-2,500 hectares (247-6,178 acres) of forest resources are damaged due to forest fires in Sri Lanka, and in the past few years, the damage to forest resources by fire has increased and is likely to continue increasing with global warming.
- Usually, wildfires are mainly occurring in forest plantations or grasslands where they do not spread to dense forest, but as of late, fires have begun to reach forest areas.
- Some ecosystems like savanna need fire to sustain them, as seeds in some of the trees need fire to crack their outer layer in order to germinate. But in areas with invasive guinea grass, which burns longer and hotter, large trees are also observed dying.

New allegations of abuse against oil palm giant Socfin in Cameroon
- For several years, coastal communities in Edéa, Cameroon, have been campaigning for the return of land they say Socapalm, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based Socfin, illegally seized from them.
- Now a series of reports published by environmental consultancy the Earthworm Foundation in February have substantiated new allegations land grabbing and of sexual harassment on Socapalm’s oil palm plantations.
- The Socfin group requested Earthworm’s investigations of its subsidiaries’ operations in Cameroon and elsewhere; following the release of the latest findings, the group has announced the launch of quarterly action plans aimed at addressing the rights violations.
- Financial institutions that have backed Socfin declined to say how they will in their turn respond to findings that show that guidelines for ethical investment have not been effective across Socfin’s operations in West and Central Africa, as well as Asia.

5 takeaways from the 2022 Repsol oil spill in Peru
- On Jan. 15, 2022, the largest oil spill in Peruvian history occurred when a pipeline broke during the offloading of oil from a tanker to a refinery owned by the Spanish company Repsol.
- 11,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the ocean off the coast of Callao, near Lima. It sullied miles of beaches, killed untold marine animals and upended the livelihoods of thousands of fishers.
- Three years later, the consequences of the tragedy persist, even as the oil industry’s activities along the coast of Peru continue to cause environmental disasters.
- These are the latest details of the case, which has continued to affect Peru’s marine ecosystem and the fishers who depend on it to survive.

Colombia’s top oil company concealed environmental damages: Investigation
- A newly released investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency and Earthworks into the workings of Colombia’s largest company, oil and gas giant Ecopetrol, reveals a pattern of environmental negligence and corporate misconduct.
- The investigation relies on the Iguana Papers, a collection of leaked documents and databases that show more than 600 instances of major environmental damages caused by Ecopetrol between 2010 and 2016. The company concealed about a fifth of these cases from the authorities, according to the report.
- The investigation also reveals that Ecopetrol maintained a database to map and monitor 1,200 individuals in areas where the company operates. Mongabay talked to environmental defenders who have felt threatened by Ecopetrol.
- Despite these findings, Colombian authorities have not responded to complaints about Ecopetrol, which continues to operate unhindered.

New dams call into question Cambodia’s commitment to REDD+ projects
- Three new irrigation dams have been approved in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, overlapping with two carbon credit projects
- The new developments join five hydropower projects that are already eating into these same forests.
- Communities in the affected area have described the onslaught of dam projects, from which they say they haven’t benefited, as “a war against the forest.”
- Experts say the approval throws into question the Cambodian government’s commitment to carbon credits as a viable climate tool.

Indonesian watchdog demands prosecution for environmental crime ‘cartels’
- Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, has filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing 47 companies in the palm oil, mining and forestry sectors of corruption and environmental destruction, allegedly causing 437 trillion rupiah ($26.5 billion) in state losses.
- Walhi identified 18 forms of corruption, including government officials altering forest status to legalize deforestation, granting permits for illegal concessions, and accepting bribes to ignore violations.
- Notable examples include a palm oil company that allegedly cleared 1,706 hectares (4,215 acres) of forest in Aceh province before obtaining an environmental permit, and nickel mining in North Maluku that has devastated marine ecosystems.
- The AGO has confirmed receipt of Walhi’s complaint, and said that it will pursue allegations of corruption in those cases; however, it noted that any environmental violations would fall under the jurisdiction of other agencies.

More Indigenous peoples request consultation as controversial road paves through Peru’s Amazon
- An ongoing federal highway construction project in Peru threatens Maijuna, Kichwa, Bora and Huitoto peoples’ lands and two protected areas, according to Indigenous residents, local organizations and legal experts.
- Many fear the highway will bring invasions, social conflicts, increased crime and environmental damage to the Peruvian Amazon.
- Not all communities oppose the project, but they agree that the government must carry out prior consultation processes that it has failed to do in all but one community so far.
- Legal experts have also called into question the government’s decision to divide the project into four parts, which they say is a mechanism used to obscure impacts and fast-track approvals.

Brazil’s crackdown on illegal mining in Munduruku Indigenous land sees success, but fears remain
- Government efforts to evict illegal miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon so far have led to a reduction in illegal mining, according to government officials and Munduruku organizations.
- Since the operation began in November 2024, agents have destroyed 90 camps, 15 vessels and 27 heavy machinery, in addition to handing out 24.2 million Brazilian reais ($4.2 million) in fines.
- While there has been some interruption to mining in the region, Munduruku organizations said the operation has not been completely effective, as there are still some invaders and machinery in certain areas of the territory.
- A Munduruku source told Mongabay they are worried that miners will return once security forces withdraw and also, without alternative income sources, Indigenous people involved in mining will have no option but to continue.

Documents, satellite data expose ongoing pollution near TotalEnergies’ Republic of Congo oil terminal
- For years, residents of the coastal village of Djeno in the Republic of Congo have complained of hydrocarbon pollution and the effects of gas flaring on their health.
- TotalEnergies EP Congo (TEPC), a subsidiary of the French oil giant, has had its contract to manage the Djeno terminal renewed, despite evidence of remaining pollution from half a century of operations.
- The environment ministry has prohibited toxic gas emissions, as well as the discharge of polluting substances, into marine and continental waters.
- In a statement, TEPC said it had taken steps to mitigate pollution in the area, adding that industrial activities by other companies had also contributed to the situation.

Wave of arrests as Madagascar shuts down tortoise trafficking network
- A crackdown on the illegal trade in Malagasy tortoises has led to a series of recent arrests.
- Following the arrest of a Tanzanian national with 800 tortoises in December 2024, officials said a major investigation had uncovered a major international trafficking network that led to the arrests of more than 20 people in Madagascar and Tanzania.
- Wildlife trade monitoring watchdog TRAFFIC says more than 30,000 trafficked radiated tortoises were seized between 2000 and 2021; the critically endangered Malagasy tortoises are in demand internationally.

CITES rejects proposed suspension of Cambodian monkey exports
- Cambodian exports of long-tailed macaques will remain legal until November 2025, despite recommendations for suspension due to concerns over poaching and the misrepresentation of wild-caught monkeys as captive-bred.
- Cambodian officials strongly objected to the call for a trade suspension, disputing claims about unrealistic birth rates at breeding facilities and accusing the U.S. wildlife officials of misusing data obtained without their consent during investigations into alleged monkey laundering.
- Japan, China, Canada, the U.S. and other countries that import macaques for use in medical research rejected the suspension, arguing for further review; some expressed confidence in Cambodian compliance, while Canada acknowledged the importance of the trade to its research industry.
- Conservation groups expressed disappointment, highlighting the ongoing threats to wild macaque populations, including poaching, habitat loss and zoonotic risks, and warning that the decision enables unsustainable trade practices in the face of mounting evidence of misconduct.

Military-backed conservation ‘without firing a single shot’: Interview with Nepal’s Babu Krishna Karki
- In 1973, Nepal’s government established Chitwan National Park, to fight pervasive poaching and habitat degradation, and deployed the military Nepal Army to protect threatened species such as rhinos and tigers.
- The role of the force, which still guards the national parks, remains controversial: proponents credit it with saving wildlife, while critics say it militarized conservation and sidelined Indigenous communities.
- The Maoist conflict from 1996-2006 severely impacted national parks across the country, leading to increased poaching and habitat destruction. But post-conflict initiatives strengthened protection measures, including advanced surveillance and community involvement, says Babu Krishna Karki, a retired general who headed the military’s conservation operations.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Karki emphasizes that the military’s role in national parks is temporary, as it envisages a future where local communities take over conservation efforts.

No justice in sight for World Bank project-affected communities in Liberia
- With one year delay, the International Finance Corporation has submitted its response to an investigation of human rights violations at a rubber project in Liberia to the World Bank’s board.
- While the case was pending, Socfin, the parent company of Salala Rubber Corporation, sold the plantation, creating uncertainty over its commitment to taking responsibility for failures identified by the IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman.
- Affected communities and civil society in Liberia say the IFC has watered down recommendations from its ombudsman and fear the change of ownership will prevent accountability.

Illegal trade is pushing Bangladesh’s freshwater turtles to the brink
- The Bangladesh Forest Department recently confiscated a large shipment of freshwater turtles from smugglers in the capital city.
- Experts say the consumer base for freshwater turtles is expanding in Bangladesh and attribute the raise in demand to the increasing foreign residents, mainly from East Asia, who are employed in the country’s infrastructural development projects.
- Conservationists warn that if the freshwater turtle trade is not controlled, it could drive multiple turtle species to extinction.

Introducing wildlife crime to Nepal’s law enforcement: Interview with Prasanna Yonzon
- Nepal is both a source and transit hub for wildlife crime targeting iconic species like tigers, rhinos and pangolins. Conservationist Prasanna Yonzon has led efforts for over two decades through an NGO to train law enforcement, gather intelligence and build networks for combating wildlife crime.
- The NGO, Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN), played a pivotal role in establishing a dedicated wildlife crime unit under Nepal Police. It collaborates with various law enforcement agencies, providing intelligence, capacity building and resources to curb illegal wildlife trade.
- Over time, WCN’s training programs have evolved to focus on practical skills, intelligence sharing and tools like visual aids, helping officers retain critical information and adapt their approach to combat wildlife trafficking effectively.
- WCN’s efforts have helped officials apprehend big perpetrators. However, Yonzon and his team faced personal risks, including threats, underscoring the dangers of addressing transnational wildlife crime.

Probe details the playbook of one of Amazon’s top land grabbers
- Professional land grabbers operating in the Brazilian Amazon have sophisticated strategies to steal and deforest public lands and get away with it.
- According to the Federal Police, Bruno Heller is one of Amazon’s largest deforesters and relied on legal and technical advice, including a fake contract, bribing police officers, and near-real-time monitoring of deforestation work through satellite imagery, investigators said.
- Low penalties and hurdles faced by federal bodies in seizing back stolen lands from criminals have spurred the land-grabbing industry in Brazil.

Indonesian scientist under fire for revealing extent of illegal tin mining
- An Indonesian forensic scientist whose testimony has proved crucial in securing rulings against environmental violators faces a third potential lawsuit.
- A complaint filed with police alleges that Bambang Hero Saharjo lacked competence to assess the damages in an illegal tin laundering case, which he calculated had caused more than $16 billion in environmental damages.
- Bambang’s testimony has led to several convictions in court, including for the CEO of Indonesia’s biggest tin miner.
- Prosecutors have defended his assessment, and activists say the campaign against him is a systematic attempt to silence him from speaking out against environmental crimes.

Bangladesh adopts new technology to fight wildlife crimes
- Bangladesh’s forest department has recently included modern technologies and tools to strengthen its crime combat arsenal, after having lagged behind its surrounding countries for over a decade.
- So far, Bangladesh’s wildlife crime control is mostly dependent on volunteers connected by telecommunication and social media.
- Experts say use of technology helps deploy the country’s limited resources to address wildlife crime and prevent wildlife deaths more effectively.

Poachers target South Africa’s ‘miracle’ plant with near impunity
- South Africa has faced a surge in poaching of rare succulents by criminal syndicates since 2019.
- A recent spike in prices paid for a different kind of plant, a drylands-adapted lily, the miracle clivia (Clivia mirabilis), has drawn the attention of plant-trafficking syndicates to the lone reserve where it grows.
- Large numbers of clivias have been seized by law enforcement, raising fears that this rare plant is quickly being wiped out from the limited range where it’s known to occur.
- Reserve staff and law enforcement agencies are underfunded and spread too thinly across the vast landscapes of South Africa’s Northern Cape province targeted by plant poachers.

Amazon Airstrips

Mongabay and Earth Genome detected 67 clandestine airstrips used for drug transport in the Peruvian regions of Ucayali, Huánuco and Pasco. The analysis used artificial intelligence to visually search through satellite information and cross-reference the results with official sources and field reports. Most of these illegal airstrips are located in and around Indigenous communities, reserves […]
Conservationists see progress for swordfish, problems for sharks at Atlantic fisheries summit
- The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages a wide range of fish stocks across the entire Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas, held its annual meeting in Cyprus Nov. 11-18.
- The parties adopted a “harvest strategy” for North Atlantic swordfish and developed harvest strategies for a number of other species that could be adopted in coming years, drawing praise from conservationists.
- They also came to an agreement on tropical tuna management after years of wrangling; the agreement included the loosening of rules governing the use of controversial fish aggregating devices that can lead to overfishing, in a concession to European industry interests.
- Dozens of member nations supported a rule that would have effectively banned shark finning, but Japan and China blocked the effort.

Indigenous leaders killed as narco airstrips cut into their Amazon territories

Mongabay and Earth Genome detected 67 clandestine airstrips used for transporting drugs in the Peruvian regions of Ucayali, Huánuco and Pasco. The analysis used artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery cross-referenced with official sources and on-the-ground observation to verify that each airstrip is associated with narco activity. Thirty-one airstrips are concentrated in Atalaya, which has […]
Leaders fail to address overfishing near Europe at ‘fraught’ international meeting
- The North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) held its annual meeting in London Nov. 12-15.
- NEAFC is a regional fisheries management organization, a multilateral body that controls fishing in international waters; its remit includes certain fish stocks in the Northeast Atlantic, near Europe.
- Among these, mackerel and herring have been overfished for years, yet NEAFC member countries did nothing to address the issue at the meeting.
- NGO observers have criticized NEAFC and its members for failing to address governance issues they say led to the overexploitation.

WWF gives banks a tool to see if they’re financing environmental crime

Banner image of deforestation in Malaysia, by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

WWF has released a toolkit that will help financial institutions spot and reduce their risk to environmental financial crime exposure. The new Environmental Crime Financial Toolkit (ECFT), which WWF co-developed with financial crime software company Themis, is an open-access platform designed to help financial institutions screen new clients and review existing ones, as well as […]
‘Five years and no justice’ as trial over Indigenous forest guardian’s killing faces delays
- Nov. 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon; the suspects haven’t been tried yet.
- Between 1991 and 2023, 38 Indigenous Guajajara were killed in Arariboia; none of the perpetrators have been brought to trial.
- Paulo’s case will be a legal landmark as the first killing of an Indigenous leader to go before a federal jury; as Mongabay reported a year ago, the start of the trial was contingent on an anthropological report of the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes.
- However, the report has yet to be made, given several issues that delayed the trial, including the change of judge, the long time to choose the expert to prepare the report and get the expert’s quote, and the reluctance from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU) to pay for the report.

The underreported killing of Colombia’s Indigenous land guardian, ‘The Wolf’ (Photos)
- Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo, a 30-year-old Indigenous land guardian and educator, was the 115th social leader killed in Colombia this year.
- He served as a member of the Kiwe Thegnas (or Indigenous Guard of Cauca) and protected the communities’ forests, land and youth from illegal armed groups and coca cultivation.
- The Indigenous territory and land surrounding it has become a hub for drug trafficking causing deforestation and land degradation.
- Mongabay spoke with members of Carlos’ family and community to gather more information on the underreported details of his life and killing.

Dam terrorism: How mining companies in Brazil scare residents into relocating
- Recent research shows how mining companies in Brazil are artificially inflating risk levels for some dams holding mining waste in an effort to scare residents into moving out of the area.
- This so-called dam terrorism began almost immediately after the deadly collapse in January 2019 of a tailings dam in Brumadinho municipality, Minas Gerais state, with several mining companies suddenly declaring their own dams were no longer certified safe.
- Residents living near these dams have been woken up by emergency sirens in the middle of the night, even though there was no evidence that the dams were about to collapse.
- Daniel Neri, the researcher behind the new study, says these scare tactics exploited “the terror of the tragedy in Brumadinho to make people leave everything behind.”

Angkor Plywood, the ‘timber cartel’ shipping Cambodian forests internationally
- A year-long Mongabay investigation shows that one of Cambodia’s most notorious logging companies likely illegally exported rare tree species to Vietnam and China for years.
- We found evidence Angkor Plywood has been illegally logging timber from protected areas and violating various laws by exporting sawn logs — and doing all this with impunity, in part thanks to its well-connected founders.
- Shipping records from 2021-2023 show Angkor Plywood exported a type of timber coveted in the furniture trade from a species it should never have been allowed to log or trade, according to a government source.
- A veteran activist calls Angkor Plywood a cartel and “driving force” behind the extensive logging and forest destruction taking place Cambodia.

S. Korea dune merchant, 72, held over sand mining in Indonesia mangrove forest
- The enforcement arm of Indonesia’s environment ministry in September arrested a South Korean national for allegedly running an illegal sand-mining operation in a protected forest on the west coast of Sulawesi Island.
- Investigators are reviewing the suspect’s network in collaboration with a state agency that reviews financial transactions, but it’s not yet unclear whether the sand was sold locally or mined for export.
- In May this year, civil society groups criticized a policy by President Joko Widodo to reverse a two-decade ban on the export of sand dredged from the beaches of the world’s largest archipelagic country.

Influential Vietnamese environmentalist released from prison two years early
- Vietnamese environmental advocate Hoàng Thị Minh Hồng was quietely released from prison Sept. 28, two years ahead of the end of her sentence.
- Hồng was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion, a charge frequently levied against environmental and human rights advocates in Vietnam.
- Her release, which was not publicized in official Vietnamese media, coincides with a trip to the United States by Vietnamese General Secretary and President Tô Lâm.

Report links killings to environmental crimes in Peru’s Amazon
- A new report from the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) says the Peruvian Amazon is experiencing a rise in murders against environmental defenders, most of which are related to illegal activities such as mining, logging and coca cultivation.
- Between 2010 and 2022, an estimated 29 environmental defenders were killed in the region.
- The frequency of killings has increased in recent years, with almost half taking place after 2020.
- Indigenous leaders and researchers said many of these killings remain unsolved while the state remains largely absent in protecting communities in these remote regions.

In Nepal, conservation battles head to Supreme Court amid civil society silence
- Nepal’s Supreme Court is becoming a battleground for conservationists due to the absence of civil society voices.
- Civil society’s silence contrasts with past protests over cultural and environmental issues, which led to policy reversals without court intervention.
- The court has historically supported sustainable development but it lacks a dedicated green tribunal, making it vulnerable to accusations of being “anti-development.”

In Vietnam, environmental defense is increasingly a crime
- In the past two years, six prominent environmental defenders have been imprisoned in Vietnam, sending a chill across civil society in the one-party state.
- In the past, activists in Vietnam were often charged with spreading anti-state propaganda. More recently, ambiguous tax laws have been used against environmental experts and advocates, and 2023 saw the use of a novel charge: misappropriation of state documents.
- Analysts say the moves against environment defenders are part of an effort to clamp down on civil society in general, and environmental activism in particular, due to fears that such movements could serve as an engine for broad-based organizing outside of party control.

Not merely ‘exploration’: PNG deep-sea mining riles critics & surprises officials
- Deep Sea Mining Finance (DSMF), an obscure company registered in the British Virgin Islands, recently conducted an exploratory mining operation off the coast of New Ireland province in Papua New Guinea (PNG), according to civil society members and a government official’s statements to the media.
- Satellite-based vessel-tracking data show that much of this mining activity took place in and around a controversial project site known as Solwara 1, where mineral-rich hydrothermal vents are located.
- Critics say the operation was illegal and that DSMF’s activities flout two ongoing moratoria that should prevent deep-sea mining in PNG’s territorial waters. On the other hand, a national official has said the company operated within its rights to explore the deep sea for minerals.
- The operation appears to have caught many by surprise, including government authorities meant to oversee such activities.

Luxury hunting firm linked to decades of poaching in Tanzania, whistleblowers say
- Whistleblowers speaking to Mongabay have reported instances of poaching over decades linked to a luxury hunting firm catering to UAE elites and royals.
- The insiders have experience working at Ortello — sometimes spelled Otterlo — Business Corporation (OBC), a UAE-based company that runs shoots in Loliondo, northern Tanzania.
- Tanzanian authorities have served waves of eviction notices affecting Maasai herders in and around Loliondo, as part of efforts to expand hunting and safari tourism.

African Parks embarks on critical conservation undertaking for 2,000 rhinos
- African Parks, which manages national parks in several countries across the continent, plans to rewild all 2,000 southern white rhinos from Platinum Rhino, winding up John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding project.
- The conservation organization needs to find safe spaces to translocate 300 rhinos to every year, as poaching of the animals for their horns continues.
- Potential recipient areas are assessed in terms of habitat, security, national regulatory support, and the recipient’s financial and management capacity.
- Earlier this year, 120 rhinos were translocated to private reserves operating as part of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation.

A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Illegal mining continues in the headwaters of the Tuichi River in northwestern Bolivia, with miners encroaching into the strictly protected areas of the Madidi National Park.
- As part of a project backed by La Paz’s government, a road is being built through the middle of the protected area,.
- Madidi’s park rangers are living under constant strain. They are threatened and attacked by miners, and are unable to enter some parts of the protected area to carry out their duties.

Sumatran province brings hammer down on illegal oil wells after fatal blasts
- Indonesia’s South Sumatra province was the site of some of the archipelago’s largest oil discoveries by U.S. and Dutch companies during the early 20th century.
- After many wells were abandoned in the 1990s, thousands of farmers who previously tapped rubber moved into freelance oil extraction.
- Fatal explosions at illegal drilling sites this year have prompted the province to form a task force to oversee a crackdown on the sector, which in some locations accounts for more than a third of local employment.

Sumatran tiger confirmed killed by snare in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province
- Officials have confirmed that a Sumatran tiger was found killed by a snare in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province in late July, after farmers had reported encounters with the animal in human settlements over a period of around four months.
- The Sumatran tiger remains the most threatened tiger subspecies in the world, with fewer than 400 individuals estimated to remain in the wilds of Sumatra.
- Tiger species endemic to the Indonesian islands of Java and Bali were declared extinct during the 20th century following decades of hunting and deforestation.
- Researchers are calling for the various conservation and protected forests in West Sumatra and to unified into a single national park and for increased government regulation on snares.

Madagascar lemurs, tortoises seized in Thai bust reveal reach of wildlife trafficking
- The recent seizure in Thailand of 48 lemurs and more than 1,200 critically endangered tortoises endemic to Madagascar underscores the global scale of wildlife trafficking networks that use Thailand as a transshipment hub.
- The operation was aided by intelligence from a joint transnational investigation between Thai law enforcement agencies and international antitrafficking organizations working to dismantle global wildlife trafficking networks spanning Asia, Africa and South America.
- Among the confiscated animals were ring-tailed lemurs, common brown lemurs, spider tortoises and radiated tortoises, all of which were suspected to be destined for illegal pet markets in Asia.
- While Madagascar authorities are keen to see the animals repatriated, experts caution that the country’s capacity to receive them are woefully lacking, and urge the government to step up law enforcement, combat systemic corruption and boost surveillance in Madagascar’s remote protected areas.

Investigation confirms more abuses on Cameroon, Sierra Leone Socfin plantations
- Findings from a second round of investigations into allegations of human rights abuses on plantations owned by Belgian company Socfin have been published.
- Supply chain consultancy Earthworm Foundation found evidence of sexual violence and land conflict, following similar findings from other plantations in West and Central Africa published in December 2023.
- Around one plantation, in Sierra Leone, a mapping exercise may signal action to remedy some problems, but communities and their supporters elsewhere say it’s unclear how Socfin can be held to account.
- International NGOs point out that the findings are in conflict with Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications that Socfin holds.

Environmental protests under attack: Interview with UN special rapporteur Michel Forst
- The repression that environmental activists using peaceful civil disobedience are facing in Europe is a major threat to democracy and human rights, according to U.N. special rapporteur Michel Forst.
- The 2016 Dakota Pipeline protests, led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, not only triggered a major crackdown but also a flood of anti-protest legislation in the U.S.
- Environmental defenders are increasingly stigmatized as criminals or terrorists in the public arena, which may lead to a spike in verbal and even physical violence.
- In Germany, laws of the past that were meant to deal with terrorist outfits such as the Rote Armee Fraktion were used to deal with the environmental group Letzte Generation (Last Generation).

Revealed: Illegal cattle ranching booms in Arariboia territory during deadly year for Indigenous Guajajara
- Commercial cattle ranching is banned on Indigenous territories in Brazil, but a year-long investigation reveals that large portions of the Arariboia Indigenous Territory have been used for ranching amid a record-high number of killings of the region’s Indigenous Guajajara people.
- A clear rise in environmental crimes became evident in the region during the middle of 2023, including an unlicensed airstrip and illegal deforestation on the banks of the Buriticupu River, which is key for Guajajara people’s livelihoods.
- With four Guajajara people killed and three others surviving attempts on their lives, 2023 marked the deadliest 12 months for Indigenous people in Arariboia in seven years, rivaling the number of killings in 2016, 2008 and 2007.
- The findings show a pattern of targeted killings of the Guajajara amid the expansion of illegal cattle ranching and logging in and around Arariboia: areas with the most violent incidents coincide with the tracked activities and with police operations aimed at curbing illegal logging.

How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- The European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, adopted in 2003, is a unique regional attempt to rein in the burgeoning global trade in illegal timber.
- A key component of FLEGT is bilateral trade agreements between the EU and timber-producing countries, known as voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs), which provide economic incentives to producer countries to strengthen regulation of timber production within their borders.
- But how well do the VPAs work, and what kind of environmental, social and economic benefits do they provide? To find out, scientists reviewed the scientific research on FLEGT VPAs, and we detail their results below. The upshot, they found, is that it’s too soon to tell.
- This is the ninth installment of Mongabay’s long-running special series, “Conservation Effectiveness.”

The harsh, dangerous gig of seizing thousands of illegal cattle in the Amazon
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration has removed thousands of cattle from illegal areas in the Amazon, but the task is far from the end; only in Pará state, more than 217,000 animals have been illegally moved from protected areas in the past four years.
- Raids to remove these cattle herds are logistically challenging, involving long distances, many personnel, life threats and even traps left in the middle of dirt roads.
- Tracking illegal cattle is only possible through the GTA, a document issued by state agencies and overseen by the federal government, but even environmental agencies have trouble accessing this information.

Efforts to save Cambodia’s coast tread water as fish stocks plummet
- Along the coast of Cambodia, illegal fishing is driving fish stocks toward collapse and fishing communities into poverty.
- The Cambodian government’s capacity for and will to counter fisheries problems are minimal, and several government fisheries reform efforts are off track or behind schedule.
- As one multimillion-dollar foreign project to bolster government capacity and revive Cambodian fish stocks comes to an end, another is just kicking off.
- Whether these efforts to salvage Cambodia’s coastal resources will pay off depends on a range of factors and actors, but so far the plans implemented haven’t been enough to stave off the impending collapse of marine fish stocks.

Verra suspends carbon credit projects following police raid in Brazil
- Verra, the largest registry of the voluntary carbon market, suspended projects targeted by the Federal Police in the Brazilian Amazon following an investigation by Mongabay.
- The “extraordinary action” prevents the selling of new credits, the organization stated.
- The raid occurred two weeks after Mongabay showed the links between the REDD+ projects and a suspected logging scam.
- Verra certified projects that had credits bought by top brands such as the carbon credit broker Moss, the Brazilian low-cost carrier GOL Airlines, the food delivery app iFood, Itaú, one of the country’s leading banks, and the international companies Toshiba, Spotify and Boeing.

Brazil police raid Amazon carbon credit projects exposed by Mongabay
- The Brazilian Federal Police arrested people and seized assets linked to some of the country’s largest carbon credit projects.
- According to the investigators, the group was running land-grabbing and timber laundering crimes in the Amazon for more than a decade and profiting millions of dollars.
- The projects were exposed at the end of May in a one-year investigation published by Mongabay, which showed links between the REDD+ projects and an illegal timber scam.
- Authorities and experts hope the findings will raise the bar for projects in the country and persuade lawmakers to create strict rules for the Brazilian carbon market, which is now under discussion.

Report: Illegal fishing and labor abuse rampant in China’s Indian Ocean fleet
- A recent report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) shows that the Chinese distant-water fleet is participating in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and exploitative practices such as shark finning and human rights violations in the Southwest Indian Ocean.
- The report also suggests that Chinese investment in the blue economy in the Southwest Indian Ocean region could contribute to these problems by obligating indebted states to grant fishing rights to Chinese vessels.
- China has previously stated that it has a “zero-tolerance” approach to illegal fishing activities by its distant-water fleet, but evidence suggests that China isn’t taking adequate action to stop these issues.
- At the recent meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), China tried to introduce a proposal that would limit scrutiny of its distant-water fleet, but this was rejected by other parties to the commission — a move that founder and CEO of EJF called a “big win” in the ongoing work to document illegal fishing activities.

Unrest and arrests in Sumatra as community fights to protect mangroves
- Police in Indonesia’s Langkat district, North Sumatra province, arrested three people in April and May over alleged criminal damage linked to a conflict over a local mangrove forest.
- Civil society organizations in North Sumatra allege that local elites have established oil palm plantations on scores of hectares zoned as protected forest.
- They also allege that these individuals have hired thugs to intimidate local residents who oppose the clearing of mangrove forests to plantations.

Cambodian companies tied to abuses promoted by UN program, rights group alleges
- The United Nations Development Programme’s internal watchdog is reviewing a complaint that a project led by the agency is platforming companies linked to human and environmental rights abuses.
- Local rights group Licadho had as early as December 2022 flagged the UNDP’s SDG Impact – Private Sector Capital project, which aims to assist in facilitating investment in Cambodian companies.
- Several of the companies promoted as “investment opportunities” by the project are linked to government and business bigwigs with track records of deforestation, illegal logging and forced evictions.
- Licadho said there was “no meaningful due diligence” by the UNDP in selecting the companies to promote, and that the project “lend[s] reputational support to companies with documented involvement” in issues as serious as child labor and trafficking in persons, among others.

Indonesian fishers mount a community-led fight against destructive fishing
- In coastal communities across Indonesia, local fishers are pushing back against destructive and illegal fishing methods by organizing into volunteer patrol groups known as Pokmaswas.
- These groups have become crucial in protecting Indonesia’s vast marine resources amid limited government resources and infrastructure.
- In recognition of their importance, the government has increased financial support for Pokmaswas and aims to strengthen these community-run surveillance networks further.
- Mongabay Indonesia met with members of two groups, one on the island of Sulawesi and the other on Lombok, to find out the shared challenges they face, the role they play as educators, and their use of social media to promote their mission.

Fishers left with no land, no fish, in fire sale of Cambodian coast
- Coastal communities in Cambodia are facing a double threat, from land and sea, as developers evict them from their homes and farms, and trawlers encroach on their nearshore fishing grounds.
- Illegal fishing, chiefly embodied by rampant, unchecked trawling in protected and prohibited waters, has devastated fish stocks, trashed marine ecosystems and left coastal communities in dire poverty.
- At the same time, the land is being sold out from under them: Nearly half of Cambodia’s coast has been privatized since 2000, with a slew of new projects tied to politically connected wealthy investors announced in the last five years, displacing families and closing off access to the sea.
- This is the second part of a Mongabay series about challenges faced by Cambodia’s small-scale fishers along the coast.

Mongabay video screening at Chile’s Supreme Court expected to help landmark verdict in Brazil
- The recent screening of a Mongabay video before Chile’s Supreme Court has intensified international scrutiny of the killing of 26-year-old Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara in Brazil 2019 — a case for which no one has yet gone on trial in Brazil.
- Alfredo Falcão, the Brazilian federal prosecutor leading the case, said he hopes the international exposure, part of a workshop for UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day Conference in Santiago, will put pressure on the Brazilian judiciary to schedule a long-awaited federal jury trial.
- The trial of Paulo’s case is expected to set a legal landmark as the first killing of an Indigenous land defender to go before a federal jury; it was escalated to that level because it was considered an aggression against the entire Guajajara community and Indigenous culture.
- Prosecutors plan to use excerpts from the Mongabay video and accompanying articles in the trial, whose schedule remains undetermined pending an anthropological report on the impacts to the Guajajara people as a result of Paulo’s killing.

Trial begins for Mother Nature Cambodia activists on conspiracy charge
- Ten environmental activists face up to a decade in prison as their trial gets underway in Cambodia on charges of plotting against the government.
- The members of Mother Nature Cambodia have long sought to highlight environmental harms being done around the country, including by powerful business and political elites.
- Six of them have already served time behind bars and have denounced what they say is a lack of justice from the state.

Governments are ramping up actions to fight environmental crime across the Amazon, but is it working? (commentary)
- In 2023, Amazon deforestation rates declined after years of record-breaking losses, thanks to efforts led by Brazil and Colombia. However, these gains are fragile, and anti-deforestation efforts show signs of weakening, with persistent risks of a tipping point, argues Robert Muggah, Co-Founder of the Igarapé Institute.
- Government measures focus on forest conservation, green development, and strengthening the rule of law but face challenges due to underfunding and limited municipal support. Public security forces are overwhelmed by environmental crimes like illegal mining and wildlife trafficking, exacerbating forest and biodiversity loss.
- Environmental crime is gaining more attention from decision-makers, law enforcement, and civil society, leading to increased media coverage and public commitments. Despite this, interventions remain fragmented, with inconsistent political backing and funding, writes Muggah.
- “Ultimately, Brazil and other countries in the Amazon Basin cannot reverse environmental crime through police and prosecutions alone,” he writes. “A comprehensive strategy that combines law enforcement with nature-based development opportunities is critical.” This post is a commentary, so the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Max sentence request for Javan rhino poacher too low, experts say
- Indonesian prosecutors are seeking a five-year-sentence for a poacher who confessed to participating in the killing of seven Javan rhinos.
- Experts say that while this sentence is the legal maximum and would be the longest they are aware of for a poaching offense in Indonesia, it remains too low to serve as a strong deterrent.
- As the trial continues, another alleged poacher has also been arrested in Ujung Kulon, the national park home to all of the world’s remaining Javan rhinos, a population believed to stand at fewer than 70 individuals.

Top brands buy Amazon carbon credits from suspected timber laundering scam
- An analysis of two carbon credit projects in the Brazilian Amazon has found that they may be connected to illegal timber laundering.
- Prior to the analysis, forest management plans had already been suspended in the areas over the same issue.
- The projects belong to Ricardo Stoppe Jr., known as the biggest individual seller of carbon credits in Brazil, who has made millions of dollars selling these credits to companies like GOL Airlines, Nestlé, Toshiba, Spotify, Boeing and PwC; his partner in one of the projects was convicted of timber laundering six years ago.
- Their REDD+ projects were developed by Carbonext, known as the largest carbon credit provider in Brazil, and certified by Verra, one of the world’s largest voluntary carbon market registries.

Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta
- Worldwide, many of the key players in wildlife trafficking are also involved in other criminal enterprises, from drug smuggling to human trafficking and money laundering.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Andrea Crosta, founder of Earth League International, talks about the group’s new report on shark fin trafficking from Latin America to East Asia and the concept of “crime convergence.”
- International wildlife trafficking, including the illegal trade in shark fins, is dominated by Chinese nationals, Crosta says.
- Since smuggling routes often overlap and criminal groups frequently work together across borders, Crosta calls for field collaboration among countries and law enforcement agencies to fight wildlife crime, the world’s fourth-largest criminal enterprise.

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

New illegal logging threatens Liberia’s forests amid vague ban
- Large-scale commercial operators are evading Liberian forestry regulations by illegally processing wood destined for export on-site in forests.
- Timber milled in forests with chainsaws is legally restricted to the production of boards by artisanal loggers for sale on the domestic market, but reporting by Liberian newspaper The Daylight and research by U.S.-based NGO Forest Trends has found large-scale operators producing thicker blocks of high-value wood for export.
- Chainsaw-milled timber isn’t entered into the country’s timber-tracking system, meaning producers can evade sustainable forestry regulations as well as taxes and benefits due to local communities.
- The country’s Forestry Development Authority says it has banned production of this type of timber, but campaigners say it has done little to publicize the ban or prevent traffickers from exploiting this loophole.

Etelvina Ramos: From coca farmer to opponent of the illegal crop
- Etelvina Ramos’ story encompasses the war in the Colombian Amazon. She grew up alongside coca crops, witnessed several massacres, and was displaced by violence due to the illicit, but profitable, crop.
- Now, at 52 years old, she is fighting to replace coca.
- Etelvina Ramos has a mission that is contrary to the interests of the drug trafficking industry: through her work in the Workers’ Association of Curillo (ASTRACUR), she is seeking the approval of a rural reserve. This would make it possible to close the pathway to coca production and illegal mining.
- Due to her work as an environmental and land defender, she frequently faces threats by illegal armed groups. She admits that she has learned to live with the fear of death.

Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island
- The Lanun Indigenous community of Indonesia’s Belitung Island have responded to increasing environmental damage by building their capacity in skills such as advocacy and mediation.
- At issue is the growth in illegal mining and forest clearing by the plantation industry on land that the Lanun consider to have long been theirs.
- In 2021, UNESCO announced this area of Indonesia would become an international geopark, which required joint applications by government and local communities to conserve a landscape of global significance.

How environmental crimes are covered up in the Amazon?

A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon. This strategy, described as commonplace in the Amazon, has long been a stumbling block for investigators. By hiding behind fronts […]
A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.
- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.
- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.

Sumatra villages count cost of deadly river tsunami swelled by illegal logging
- Several days of extreme rainfall beginning March 7 triggered fatal flash flooding across Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, resulting in at least 30 deaths and devastating villages on the fringe of Kerinci Seblat National Park.
- Deforestation upstream of the affected areas has exacerbated the risk of landslides and flash floods, according to officials.
- The Indonesian Forum for the Environment, a national civil society organization, called for government action to address illegal logging and land management practices to prevent future disasters.

Protected areas bear the brunt as forest loss continues across Cambodia
- In 2023, Cambodia lost forest cover the size of the city of Los Angeles, or 121,000 hectares (300,000 acres), according to new data published by the University of Maryland.
- The majority of this loss occurred inside protected areas, with the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary recording the highest rate of forest loss in what was one of its worst years on record.
- A leading conservation activist says illegal logging inside protected areas is driven in part by demand for luxury timber exports, “but the authorities don’t seem to care about protecting these forests.”
- Despite the worrying trend highlighted by the data, the Cambodian government has set an ambitious target of increasing the country’s forest cover to 60% by 2050.

Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.
- In Itaituba, the hub of the Amazon illegal gold trade, taxes from gold sales fell by more than 90% in just the first quarter of this year.
- Experts attribute this drop to police raids on illegal mining operations and on requirements for sellers to issue electronic invoices.
- But they warn the illegal gold still persists, shifting to unofficial channels to evade the eye of regulators.

Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests
- A new study indicates that significant networks of informal, unmapped and unregulated roads sprawl into forest-rich regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
- Slipping beneath the purview of environmental governance, construction of these “ghost roads” typically precede sharp spikes in deforestation and represent blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, the study says.
- The authors underscore that the relentless proliferation of ghost roads ranks among the gravest of threats facing the world’s remaining tropical forests.
- The findings bolster a growing momentum toward the development of AI-based road-mapping systems to help conservation biologists and resource managers better keep track of informal and illegal road networks and curb associated deforestation rates.

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

World Bank’s IFC under fire over alleged abuses at Liberian plantation it funded
- An investigation into the International Finance Corporation’s handling of human rights abuses at a project it financed in Liberia, the Salala Rubber Corporation, is expected to severely incriminate the World Bank’s private lending arm.
- The World Bank’s Compliance Advisory Ombudsman investigated whether the IFC did enough to address allegations of gender-based violence, land grabbing and unfair compensation by its client, Socfin, between 2008 and 2020.
- It’s anticipated that the report will find the finance institution didn’t act to prevent Socfin from violating its legal obligations to local communities and protect the environment; this finding would follow closely on a damning report into similar failures to hold another IFC client, Bridge International Schools in Kenya, to account
- The IFC missed a February deadline to respond to the CAO report and submit an action plan; the delay comes as a new remedial action framework for the IFC is due to be finalized and released

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

Cambodian official acquitted in trial that exposed monkey-laundering scheme
- A U.S. court has acquitted a senior Cambodian official accused of involvement in smuggling wild-caught and endangered monkeys into the U.S. for biomedical research.
- Kry Masphal was arrested in November 2022 and has been detained in the U.S. since then, but is now free to return to his job as director of the Cambodian Forestry Administration’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity.
- Evidence presented at his trial in Miami included a video of him appearing to acknowledge that long-tailed macaques collected by Cambodian exporter Vanny Bio Research were in fact being smuggled.
- The Cambodian government has welcomed news of the acquittal, while animal rights group PETA says that despite the ruling, “the evidence showed that countless monkeys were abducted from their forest homes and laundered with dirty paperwork.”

Nepal mulls policy shift to allow hotels back into tiger strongholds
- Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment is working new regulations to permit hotels to operate within national parks like Chitwan, a draft of the document seen by Mongabay suggests.
- The decision follows the closure of seven hotels in Chitwan National Park in 2009 due to ecological concerns and alleged involvement in poaching, with the last of them shutting down in 2012.
- Despite opposition from conservationists and local communities, the government has shown interest in allowing commercial activities, including large-scale hydropower plants, within national parks, raising concerns about environmental degradation.

Amazon prosecutors get sharper impact tool to charge illegal gold dealers
- New research from the NGO Conservation Strategy fund, working with federal prosecutors in Brazil, has refined a tool that puts a dollar value on the socioenvironmental costs of illegal gold mining across vital ecosystems in the Amazon.
- Brazilian environmental investigators and prosecutors say the updated Mining Impacts Calculator is improving cases they’re bringing against the largest buyers of illegal gold in the country.
- Each kilogram of gold of artisanal mining causes damage valued at up to $389,200, more than twice the market value of gold, the new study found.
- Prosecutors in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and other Amazonian countries are also adopting the new calculator, but with gold values soaring and official corruption entrenched, observers say that reducing illegal mining will remain a significant challenge.

Impunity for Cambodia’s exotic pet owners as trade outpaces legislation
- High-profile interventions by Cambodia’s former leader and weak legislation have allowed the illegal wildlife trade to persist largely in the open.
- The case of a gas station menagerie in western Cambodia is emblematic of the ease with which even endangered species can be bought and sold.
- The collection, owned by a police officer, includes cockatoos from Indonesia, marmosets and parakeets from South America, and a native gibbon.
- Authorities said they were aware of the collection, but were “following the format” set in the wake of their 2023 seizure of peacocks from a breeder, which culminated in them having to return the birds after then-prime minister Hun Sen criticized their actions.

Indonesia unveils plan to launch a satellite network for maritime monitoring
- Indonesia plans to launch a satellite constellation starting in July to monitor its marine and fisheries resources more effectively.
- This constellation of 20 nanosatellites aims to actively manage conservation efforts and ensure economic benefits from marine resources.
- The satellites will feature radio frequency, imaging and vessel-tracking equipment, allowing officials “to know every condition in Indonesia from one [data] center.”
- Challenges such as budget cuts and low compliance among fishing companies underscore the need for technological solutions to protect Indonesia’s vast marine areas.

Son of Cali Cartel leader tied to Colombia-Hong Kong shark fin trafficking
- Although Colombia banned the fishing and trading of sharks in early 2021, their fins — taken from sharks in Colombia and around the world — have continued to feed a global industry worth $500 million per year.
- This is the story of the largest seizure of its kind ever carried out in Colombian territory. A shipment of more than 3,400 shark fins destined for Hong Kong was intercepted at the airport in Bogotá in September 2021.
- For the first time, this investigation reveals the owner of this contraband: Fernando Rodríguez Mondragón. He is the son of the late Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who was the leader of the Cali Cartel, once one of the largest drug trafficking organizations in the world.
- This investigation reconstructs the shipment’s route from the department of La Guajira, on the border with Venezuela, to Colombia’s capital, passing through the mountains in the department of Valle del Cauca.

Maluku farmer turns guardian of eastern Indonesia’s threatened parrots
- Jamal Adam, a former farmer, began volunteering with forest rangers on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island before joining the region’s largest bird sanctuary when the rehabilitation facility opened in 2019.
- The Halmahera center admits mostly parrots on site and rehabilitates numerous species before later releasing them back into the wild.
- Indonesia’s North Maluku province historically saw relatively low tree cover loss compared to the rest of the country, but groups have raised concerns that a local nickel mining boom will threaten bird habitat in the medium term.

In East Java, social media push against Indonesia shark & ray trade lacks bite
- Over a period of four months in late 2023, Mongabay spoke with fishers and traders dealing primarily in rays and sharks in Indonesia’s East Java province.
- Advertisements for shark and ray products continued to feature on social media platforms despite pledges by companies to prevent users from conducting transactions in wildlife.
- Indonesia’s fisheries ministry said more needs to be done to enhance traceability to crack down on trade in protected shark and ray species.

From murder to mining, threats abound in Colombian Amazon Indigenous reserves
- A reporting team has analyzed the impact of environmental crimes in 320 Indigenous reserves that are part of the Colombian Amazon biome. According to Global Forest Watch, more than 19,000 hectares (more than 47,000 acres) of tree cover were lost in 218 of these reserves in 2022.
- Illegal coca crops were also recorded in 88 reserves, with illegal mining-related impacts reported in at least 10 reserves.
- Illegal groups that exercise territorial control with weapons are threatening Indigenous governance and keeping inhabitants confined to their territories.

Indonesia and Spain sign agreement to protect migrant fishing workers
- Indonesia and Spain have signed an agreement that will see Spanish regulators recognize competency certification issued by Indonesia for Indonesian fishing vessel workers.
- The move is part of efforts to boost protection of Indonesian migrant fishing workers in a global industry notorious for the exploitation and abuse of migrant deckhands.
- According to the fisheries ministry, some 1,000 Indonesians worked aboard Spanish fishing boats in 2021, earning on average about 1,000 euros ($1,075) per month.
- At home, Indonesia is also working to enhance training, certification, and protection for its large population of fishers and boat crews.

Labor abuse and work accidents on plantations of Cameroon’s largest sugar producer
- Industrial agriculture companies, considered drivers of economic growth in Cameroon, are also a source of conflict for workers and farmers following an increase in workplace accidents and the growing impact this industry has on the environment.
- With increasing accidents over the years, the industrial agriculture sector alone accounted for 26.4% of work-related accidents recorded in Cameroon in 2020, according to an estimate by the Cameroonian institution overseeing social protection, the CNPS.
- According to estimates from the seasonal workers’ union, the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (SOSUCAM), which holds a monopoly on sugar production in the country, is responsible for about a hundred accidents per year, some leading to death, on its plantations and in its factories.
- Local NGOs also accuse the company of polluting rivers and soil as well as destroying village plantations. Above all, the company is notorious for its glaring violations in applying Cameroonian labor, social security, and environmental protection legislation.

Critics push for more transparency at RFMOs that govern high seas fishing
- Around 17 regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) manage fishing in international waters, or the “high seas.”
- Scientists and civil society members have long criticized these international bodies for failing the high seas; many of the stocks they manage are overfished, research shows.
- Critics cite opaque decision-making as a key reason for conservation failures, and they’re making an increasingly vociferous case for RFMOs to become more transparent, citing their oversight of shared public resources.
- RFMO representatives, while citing internal rules as well as a need for privacy to maintain open negotiations among parties, point to recent steps toward transparency.

Grassroots efforts and an Emmy-winning film help Indigenous fight in Brazil
- The 2022 documentary “The Territory” won an Emmy award this January, shining a light on the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous people and the invasions, conflicts and threats from land grabbers in their territory in the Brazilian Amazon from 2018 to 2021.
- After years of increasing invasions and deforestation in the protected area, experts say the situation has slowly improved in the past three years, and both Indigenous and government officials in the region “feel a little safer.”
- Grassroots surveillance efforts, increased visibility of the problems, and a more effective federal crackdown against invaders have helped tackle illegal land occupiers and allowed the Indigenous populations to take their land back.
- Despite the security improvements, however, the territory still struggles against invasions and deforestation within the region, experts say.

Nepal’s ‘low-altitude’ snow leopard would face big hurdles in return to wild
- A snow leopard (Panthera uncia), typically found at high altitudes, has been brought to a zoo in Kathmandu from a town at a much lower altitude.
- The authorities are considering releasing the snow leopard back into the wild after it recovers, but experts say they believe this may be a challenging task, as the animal may have lost its hunting and adaptation skills during its time in captivity or recovery.
- The decision to release the snow leopard into the wild or keep it in the zoo is influenced by factors such as the animal’s potential habituation to humans, territorial nature and the limited space and financial challenges faced by the zoo.

Sanctioned timber baron wins new mining concessions in Cambodia’s Prey Lang
- A freeze announced late last year on new mining operations in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary comes with a massive loophole that benefits one of the country’s highest-profile deforesters.
- Try Pheap, a powerful tycoon and adviser to the previous prime minister, controls a company that was last year granted 28,000 hectares (69,000 acres) inside the sanctuary to mine iron ore.
- The name Try Pheap is synonymous with illegal logging in Cambodia, including the trafficking of high-value Siamese rosewood trees that drove the species almost to extinction in the country.
- While Try Pheap was hit by U.S. sanctions in 2019, his company that holds the mining concessions in Prey Lang, Global Green, isn’t on the sanctions list and appears to be ramping up its operations.

Indonesian palm oil firm fined for fires sues expert a second time over testimony
- Environmental law experts say palm oil company PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa (JJP) is attempting to shirk its liability and fines for a forest fire by suing an expert witness who testified against it.
- The lawsuit is the second that JJP has filed against Bambang Hero Saharjo, an expert on fire forensics at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB); the company dropped its previous lawsuit against him in 2018.
- The company blames Bambang, who testified about the extent of the fire damage on JJP’s concession, for the high amount that it was fined, saying his testimony was “false and exaggerated.”
- Bambang and fellow experts refute this, saying JJP’s repeated lawsuits are a frivolous attempt to avoid having to take responsibility or to pay; to date, the company hasn’t paid any of the $36.7 million that it was fined for the fire.

Spain sanctions fishing vessels for illegally ‘going dark’ near Argentine waters
- The Spanish government sanctioned 25 of its vessels for illegally turning off their satellite tracking devices while fishing off the coast of Argentina between 2018 and 2021.
- Experts say ships that “go dark” by turning off their trackers often do so to partake in illicit behavior, such as crossing into a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) without authorization.
- While some have praised the Spanish government’s actions, one expert says he doesn’t believe the sanctions go far enough.
- Most fishing activity in this region is also unregulated and unmonitored, which raises environmental concerns.

How independent journalism uncovered a massive crime against people and planet
- By the time it uncovered the massive 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, the independent media outlet Sarawak Report had built a solid reputation upon years of reporting about how corruption abets deforestation in Borneo.
- No longer able to enter Malaysia due to the political shakeup caused by the 1MDB exposé and her related reporting, the outlet’s founder, Clare Rewcastle Brown, speaks with Mongabay’s podcast about what inspires her reporting, including having been born in Malaysian Borneo.
- Podcast co-host Rachel Donald discusses with Rewcastle Brown — who was recently awarded the Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Anti-Corruption Excellence Award — how the global financial system became the repository for the billions in stolen funds, some of which ended up as luxury homes in the United States and even gifts to Hollywood celebrities, and the critical role of the press in holding people in power to account.

Elite appetite turns Bangladesh from source to consumer of tiger parts
- Previously a source country for live tigers and their parts, Bangladesh has transformed into both a consumer market and a global transit hub for the illegal trade, a new study shows.
- The shift is fueled by local demand from a growing elite, global connections, and cultural fascination with tiger products, and facilitated by improved transport infrastructure networks that have allowed two-way flow of tiger parts through Bangladesh’s airports, seaports and land border crossings.
- Despite some progress in curtailing tiger poaching and smuggling over the past two decades, enforcement remains weak and poaching continues, especially in the Sundarbans mangrove forest.
- Experts say there needs to be broader collaboration among state agencies, international organizations and other countries to combat wildlife trafficking more effectively.

Togo monkey seizure turns spotlight on illicit wildlife trafficking from DR Congo
- In December, Togo seized 38 monkeys in transit to Thailand.
- Nearly 30 of the animals in the shipment had not been declared in the official documentation.
- The monkeys, many of which were in poor health, were repatriated to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Only 24 monkeys from the group survived, and these have been taken in by a Lubumbashi animal refuge.

Illegal gold mining devastates Peruvian Amazon river and communities
- Mongabay Latam traveled along 38 kilometers (24 miles) of Peru’s Cenepa River, near the border with Ecuador, where illegal mining dredges run around the clock in search of gold, hemming in seven Indigenous Awajún communities.
- The constant mining activity and presence of the miners has brought violence, crime and sexual exploitation to the Awajún communities and wrought widespread environmental destruction that shows no signs of slowing.
- Police and environmental defense leaders conducted raids in early October, but the lack of permanent enforcement in this part of the Amazon has allowed the dredging rafts to returned and once again churn up the river basin.

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

Incentivizing conservation shows success against wildlife hunting in Cameroon
- Providing farming support to communities living near a wildlife reserve in Cameroon has been shown to lower rates of hunting, according to a three-year study.
- Thirty-five of the 64 hunters enrolled in the study near Dja Faunal Reserve were able to increase their income from fishing or cacao farming, the two main economic activities aside from hunting in the region.
- The participants spent more time working on their farms and less in the forest hunting with guns, an important indicator that they weren’t targeting “animals of conservation importance and primates in particular.”
- While the results of the experiment are promising, experts say it’s not a silver bullet and should be used alongside other solutions, including education, governance, and sustainable natural resource management.

‘Shark dust’ helps researchers ID threatened species in Indonesia fish trade
- Researchers have developed a new tool to identify a wide range of threatened and protected sharks being processed at fish factories in Indonesia.
- The method relies on DNA analysis of “shark dust,” the tiny fragments of skin and cartilage swept from the floors of fish-processing plants and export warehouses.
- From 28 shark dust samples collected from seven processing plants across Java Island, they found the genetic sequences of 61 shark and ray species.
- About 84% of these are CITES-listed species, meaning there are official restrictions in place on the international trade in these species.

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

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

Investigation shows ‘shadow companies’ linked to Indonesia palm oil giant First Resources
- The investigation is part of Deforestation Inc, a reporting collaboration coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involving journalists from 28 countries.
- The findings indicate that companies associated with First Resources may have been behind more deforestation in Southeast Asia during the last five years than any other corporate organization.
- First Resources continues to supply blue chip consumer goods companies with palm oil, including Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.

End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara
- Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo for a documentary film nine months before his death, returned to Arariboia in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
- “If those invaders had managed to kill us both, me and Paulo, they were going to hide us in the forest. Who would find us? Nobody was ever going to find me or Paulo again in a forest of that size,” Laércio says of his will to warn the guardians about Paulo’s murder, even as he suffered four gunshot wounds.
- Justice may soon be on the horizon for the Guajajara people: Paulo’s case will be the first killing of an Indigenous defender that will go before a federal jury, likely in the first half of 2024, after a court in late October denied a motion by those accused to try the case in state court.

The trial that could change the fate of the Guajajara

ARARIBOIA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — In November 2019, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a dedicated “Guardian of the Forest,” was tragically murdered in an ambush allegedly orchestrated by loggers in Brazil’s Maranhão state. As a member of the Indigenous Guajajara community in the Arariboia Territory, Paulo played a crucial role in protecting not only his people but also […]
Indonesia welcomes new Singapore regulation to help curb lobster smuggling
- A new reexport regulation in Singapore could help stem the smuggling of lobster larvae from neighboring Indonesia.
- The city-state is a key destination for the contraband and a transit point for lobster larvae reexported to third countries like Vietnam and China.
- Under the new regulation, reexporters in Singapore will have to get health certificates for live animals from the country of origin, which in theory should be impossible for smugglers.
- Indonesian authorities have cautiously welcomed the plan, but say both countries must work more closely on the long-running problem.

Remediation overdue: South American countries fail to enforce oil cleanup laws
- Existing legislation in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia provides for the remediation of environmental damage, though experts point to a “lack of political will” to enforce the laws.
- Bolivia is pressing ahead with its plans to expand activity of its hydrocarbon sector, while in Ecuador, there is an ongoing debate in international courts over an emblematic pollution case.
- In Peru, not a single environmental liability has yet been fully dealt with, while in Colombia a law has just been passed that will seek to catalog the damage caused by the oil industry.

Crime analysis sheds light on tiger poaching in Malaysia
- Conservationists have successfully applied an urban policing strategy to assess and fine-tune their efforts to tackle poaching of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia.
- They reported in a new paper that poaching success by hunters from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand — the main group of poachers in the country — declined by up to 40% during the study period.
- The conservationists used the EMMIE crime prevention framework (short for effect, mechanisms, moderators, implementation and economic costs) to identify what worked and areas to improve.
- There are fewer than 200 critically endangered Malayan tigers believed to survive in Malaysia, with snaring by poachers among the leading causes of their decline.

Can blockchain clean up the gold industry in Brazil and across the globe?

Gold, whose value has spiked by more than 55% since the 2008 financial crisis, is notoriously difficult to trace. Once mined, it can follow a maze-like path to market, passing through intermediaries that mix and melt it with other sources, often erasing signatures of its origin in the process. The result? Illicit gold routinely slips […]
How the U.S. financial system props up illegal logging and mining
- The U.S. has an estimated $466 billion in illicit funds floating around its economy, much of it from environmental crimes like illegal logging and mining sourced to Latin America.
- The FACT Coalition, a group advocating for a fair tax system in the U.S., recently made the case that more attention needs to be paid to “financial secrecy” in conservation circles fighting climate change, deforestation and pollution.
- Weak regulation of shell companies, financial institutions and the real estate market make it too easy for environmental criminal activity to hide illicit funds in the U.S., the coalition said.

Cerro de Pasco: The massive mine poisoning an entire city in Peru

Cerro de Pasco, a city in Peru, has a mining history that dates back almost 400 years to the early Spanish colonial era. In recent decades, the extensive extraction of metals like lead, zinc, and silver has transformed the landscape, with a massive open-pit mine, around 300 meters deep, now overshadowing this city of 80,000 […]
Study links pesticides to child cancer deaths in Brazilian Amazon & Cerrado
- According to new research, for every 5 tons of soy per hectare produced in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, an equivalent of one out of 10,000 children under 10 succumbed to acute lymphoblastic leukemia five years later.
- The researchers estimate that 123 childhood deaths during the 2008-19 period are associated with exposure to pesticides from the soy fields, amounting to half the deaths of children under 10 from lymphoblastic leukemia in the region.
- Experts say that the research is just the tip of the iceberg, and many other diseases and deaths may be associated with chemicals used in crops; further studies are needed.

Abandoned oil mess still plagues communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon
- The environmental damage caused more than half a century of oil activity in Ecuador’s Amazon are multiplying yearly without effective remediation by the government or the oil companies responsible.
- To date, there are 1,107 recorded “environmental liabilities” and another 3,568 sites in the Ecuadorian Amazon labeled by the environment ministry as “sources of contamination.”
- Although Ecuador has been extracting oil since the 1970s, there is a lack of research, data and statistics on the health conditions of the local populations directly affected by these extractions, who are now calling for an urgent investigation.
- State-owned oil company Petroecuador EP has inherited the responsibility for the environmental waste sites caused by Texaco, now part of U.S. oil major Chevron.

Poisoned for decades by a Peruvian mine, communities say they feel forgotten
- Communities in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, have been living for decades with contamination from mining activities, which has had serious health consequences, ranging from chronic to fatal diseases.
- Repeated environmental samplings have shown that heavy metal levels surpass by hundreds of times national and World Health Organization safe limits; the most recent research by the NGO Source International reveals persistently high levels of contamination in Cerro de Pasco’s waters and soils.
- IQ levels in children living in Cerro de Pasco have been significantly impacted by exposure to heavy metals.
- Both the Peruvian government and Volcan, the mining company operating in Cerro de Pasco, have done little to nothing to remediate contamination and respond to the communities’ pleas for help.

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

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

Logging route cut into Cambodia’s Prey Lang from Think Biotech’s concession
- A road carved from a reforestation concession into the heart of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia appears to be facilitating the illegal logging and trafficking of valuable timber, a Mongabay investigation has revealed.
- The road originates in the concession of Think Biotech, a company previously implicated in forestry crimes, but its director denies being involved in the new road.
- The road had advanced 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the ostensibly protected Prey Lang before authorities ordered a crackdown — one that activists say was just for show and targeted only small-time loggers.
- Community groups and activists say Prey Lang’s forests are being decimated at alarming rates, with satellite data showing nearly the same amount of forest cover loss in the past five years as in the previous 18.

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

New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Mobi, a new online interactive map, draws information from public databases, government statistics and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats that uncontacted Indigenous peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The exact location of uncontacted communities is deliberately displaced on the map to avoid any subsequent attacks against them from those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The tool can help Indigenous agencies deploy more effective protective actions to fend off threats such as diseases and environmental destruction, which can wipe out vulnerable populations.
- Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that ranks uncontacted populations according to the severity of threats against them, which can promote stronger public policies.

Experts slam massive ‘discount’ in fines for Indonesian palm oil billionaire
- Environmental experts have criticized an Indonesian court ruling that extends a palm oil billionaire’s sentence for corruption by just one year while slashing his fines by nearly 95%.
- The country’s highest court of appeal upheld the initial conviction of Surya Darmadi for conspiring with a local official to illegally obtain licenses for his oil palm plantation, but cut his fines from $2.7 billion to just $144 million.
- Experts who testified in Surya’s prosecution say the latest ruling sets a bad precedent for future law enforcement against corruption and environmental crimes in the country.
- And without fines, they warn, there can be no efforts to recover the carbon-rich and biodiverse peat ecosystems in Sumatra that Surya’s plantations destroyed.

In Indonesia, ‘opportunistic’ whale shark fishery shows gap in species protection
- Indonesia has since 2013 banned the capture, trade and exploitation of whale sharks, a protected species.
- Yet scores of records from 2002-2022 shown whale sharks continue to be butchered and sold along the southeastern coast of Java Island after either beaching or being unintentionally caught by fishers, according to a new study.
- The continuing illegal exploitation shows the need for more awareness raising against it by conservation authorities and groups, experts say.
- Indonesia is home to the longest coastline in Asia, and its waters serve as both a habitat and an important migratory route for species of marine megafauna like whale sharks.

Study: Wild meat trade from Africa into Belgium a health and conservation risk
- Up to 4 metric tons of wild meat is illegally entering Europe through Brussels’ international airport alone every month, a new study says.
- The source for much of this meat is West and Central Africa, with some of the seized meat found to be from threatened or protected species such as tree pangolins and dwarf crocodiles.
- The study comes more than a decade after the same group of researchers found an estimated 5 metric tons of bushmeat entering via Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris weekly, suggesting enforcement since then hasn’t been effective.
- Experts are calling for better detection of wild meat trafficking and stricter enforcement of penalties against the trade in protected species, as well as more frequent checks of the legal trade to uncover illegal shipments.

African Parks to rewild 2,000 rhinos from controversial breeding program
- African Parks, which manages national parks in several countries across the continent, announced it has purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding project
- The conservation organization plans to rewild all 2,000 southern white rhinos in Hume’s project, following a framework to be developed by independent experts.
- The biggest challenge African Parks will face is finding safe spaces to translocate 300 rhinos to every year, as poaching the animals for their horns shows little sign of diminishing.

Court order fails to stop poison fishing in Bangladesh Sundarbans
- According to the Bangladesh Forest Department, the Sundarbans mangrove forest in Bangladesh shelters about 210 species of white fish, 24 species of shrimp, 14 species of crabs, 43 species of mollusks and one species of lobster.
- About 1.7 million locals living adjacent to the mangrove forest directly or indirectly depend on forest resources, including fish and crabs, for their livelihood due to the region’s growing unemployment rate.
- Among them, some fishers have been using poison to catch fish, even during the banned period, which eventually damages forest ecology and the health of those who consume the fish caught with poison.
- Considering these damages to the world’s single largest mangrove forest as well as to human health, the Bangladesh High Court issued a verdict responding to a writ petition to stop the heinous practice in September 2021, though the practice is still ongoing.

Online trade in Philippine hornbills threatens birds and forests
- A recent study by the wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC found that Philippine hornbills are being sold on Facebook despite efforts by the social network and wildlife authorities to crack down on the trade.
- Birds found offered for sale on the platform included endemic species like the Luzon tarictic hornbill and critically endangered Visayan tarictic hornbill, as well as hornbills not native to the Philippines.
- Experts say this trade not only threatens to drive hornbill species to extinction, it also disrupts forest ecosystems, where hornbills play a crucial role in dispersing seeds.

Oil and gas exploration threatens Bolivian Chaco water supply
- Aguaragüe National Park is suffering from environmental damage caused by hydrocarbon exploration, the activities of which have been carried out for more than a century. In 2017, a study conducted by the Bolivian government and the European Union identified five high-risk environmental liabilities for the population, for which there is still no official information regarding remedial measures.
- There are at least 60 oil wells in this protected natural area, most of which are not closed, according to Jorge Campanini, a researcher at the Bolivian Documentation and Information Center (CEDIB).
- Per information from the Ministry of the Environment and Water, there are seven environmental liabilities and 94 oil wells in seven protected areas in Bolivia. No information was provided on the situation in the rest of the country.

Journalism’s role in the Nature Crime Alliance (commentary)
- Nature crime constitutes one of the largest illicit economies in the world, inflicting devastation and destruction upon people and planet.
- On August 23, 2023, the Nature Crime Alliance officially launched as “a new, multi-sector approach to fighting criminal forms of logging, mining, wildlife trade, land conversion, crimes associated with fishing, and the illegal activities with which they converge.”
- Mongabay is a founding member of the alliance. In this post, our founder Rhett A. Butler explains why Mongabay is involved and how it will contribute.
- “We decided to join the alliance because we firmly believe that journalism can contribute to real-world outcomes by highlighting the significance of nature, fostering accountability for environmental destruction, and inspiring people to work towards solutions,” writes Butler. “On the nature crime front specifically, we believe that shedding light on the corruption, collusion, and undue influence that drive environmental degradation can pave the way for more effective policies around the management of natural resources.”

Indonesia, Singapore to work more closely against lobster larvae smugglers
- Indonesia has called for Singapore’s commitment to shut its borders to illegal exports of lobster larvae.
- Indonesia has since 2021 banned exports of wild-caught lobster larvae, but Singapore still permits their import, serving as both a key market and a regional trading hub.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of larvae and baby lobsters costs the country billions of rupiah in lost revenue and threatens the declining wild population of the shellfish.
- The fisheries ministry puts the latest estimate of potential wild lobster stock in Indonesian waters at 27 billion, but many of the officially sanctioned fishing zones are overfished, with the rest being harvested at maximum capacity.

When it rains, it pours: Bangladesh wildlife trade booms during monsoon
- The illegal wildlife trade in Bangladesh increases during the wet season due to a shortage of livelihoods and poor surveillance, a study has found.
- Killing and trading wildlife has been illegal in Bangladesh since 2012, but a culture of hunting means the problem still persists, wildlife officials say.
- Wildlife markets trade in animals and parts from species such as tigers and crocodiles, with the more lucrative end of the trade thriving in areas with a weak law enforcement presence and close proximity to a seaport or airport.
- Efforts to tackle the trade are limited by law enforcement restrictions, with the Wildlife Crime Control Unit (WCCU) lacking the authority to arrest suspects and reliant on local agencies for investigations and legal action.

Energy company evades oil clean up as spills continue to contaminate Colombian town
- Oil activity in the town of Puerto Boyacá in Colombia is responsible for 109 contaminated sites, 37 of which have been caused by the company Mansarovar Energy, according to data from Colombia’s National Authority for Environmental Licencing (ANLA).
- Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto carried out a visit to the region to see the damage firsthand and hear stories of local inhabitants.
- Oil spills have polluted an important wetland, led to a 90% loss in fish and contaminated farmland — sparking a legal backlash by fishers and farmers who say their livelihoods have been gravely impacted.
- Although lawsuits over the damage caused to the local ecosystem and the region’s bodies of water have been filed by local inhabitants, fishers, farmers and even the municipal authorities of Puerto Boyacá, no work has yet been carried out to restore the contaminated sites by the company.

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

World’s largest private rhino herd doesn’t have a buyer — or much of a future
- Controversial rhino breeder John Hume recently put his 1,999 southern white rhinos up for auction as he can no longer afford the $9,800 a day running costs — but no buyers have come forward so far.
- Hume’s intensive and high-density approach is undoubtedly effective at breeding rhinos, but with the main issue currently a shortage of safe space for rhino rather than a shortage of rhino, the project’s high running costs and concerns over rewilding captive-bred rhino make its future uncertain.
- Platinum Rhino’s financial issues reflect a broader debate around how to move forward with rhino conservation and the role that private owners have to play when the financial costs of rhino ownership far outweigh the returns.
- Update: The nonprofit conservation organization African Parks has moved to buy the rhinos and reintroduce them to the wild.

The oil debt: More than 6,000 polluted sites fester across Amazonian countries
- A joint investigation by Mongabay Latam, La Barra Espaciadora, Cuestión Pública and El Deber looked into the impacts of oil industry activity in Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.
- Although more than 8,000 contaminated sites have been identified by the various governments, most of them have not been cleaned completely.
- Our journalists found forgotten oil pits, contaminated soil, abandoned oil wells, and wetlands covered in crude oil across Amazonian territories.

Oil palm and balsa plantations trigger deforestation in Ecuadorian Amazon
- Roads constructed for the oil industry have facilitated timber extraction in the Amazon for decades. Recent deforestation alerts show that this problem is ongoing.
- In Via Auca, one of the most deforested areas of Ecuador’s Amazon, farmers are turning to planting oil palm under the contract farming model.
- On the Via a Loreto, Indigenous Kichwa people are focusing on cultivating balsa trees used for a material that has been in high demand in the wind energy industry for the last five years.

Indonesian illegal shark and ray exports remain rampant amid poor monitoring
- Indonesia allows the trade of some endangered shark and ray species, but illegal exports remain rampant and unchecked.
- Mongabay-Indonesia conducted an investigation earlier this year to learn about the regulations, the loopholes and the challenges within the complex trade and fisheries of sharks and rays.
- The investigation found that the lack of oversight in the field was the leading cause of illegal shark and ray trade in the country.
- Indonesia is home to more than a quarter of the world’s 400 known shark species; a fifth of all shark species are endangered.

Researchers detect two of Suriname’s most powerful jaguar trafficking networks
- The findings of an investigation called “Operation Jaguar” shed light on the connections between the illegal trafficking of jaguar parts and other crimes, like human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal mining.
- The investigation also revealed how the illegal trade of jaguars has been integrated into international organized crime by involving several routes from Suriname to China.
- The investigation team recommends that authorities from different domains and different ministries support each other and work together to tackle this “convergence of crimes.”

Takin’ out the trash: How do transnational waste traffickers operate?
- Despite Western European countries having increasingly high rates of recycling, difficult-to-recycle plastic and other trash are frequently sent abroad.
- Sneaky use of waste codes, fake documentation, corruption and taking advantage of control loopholes are among the many ways waste is illegally trafficked to countries with more competitive rates and lower environmental standards.
- When discovered, however, these trash schemes can lead to international scandals like the lengthy one that recently involved Italy and Tunisia.

Cambodia awards swath of national park forest to tycoon Ly Yong Phat’s son
- A Cambodian tycoon notorious for his association with illegal logging has expanded his grip over the country’s largest national park, with a swath of forest awarded to his son’s rubber company.
- This gives Ly Yong Phat, a ruling party senator, and his family members effective control of tens of thousands of hectares of land inside Botum Sakor National Park.
- The carving up of the park, awarded in parcels to politically connected tycoons, has led to widespread deforestation that’s driven both people and wildlife out of Botum Sakor.
- Longtime residents evicted by Ly Yong Phat’s various operations in the park have protested to demand their land back, but to no avail, with many even being jailed for their activism.

Bangladesh orchid losses signal ecological imbalance, researchers say
- Bangladesh has lost 32 orchid species from nature in the last hundred years out of 188 once-available species.
- Habitat destruction, overharvesting, and indiscriminate collection for sale in local and international markets cause the disappearance, researchers say.
- Considering the unique position of orchids in the ecosystem and their herbal, horticultural and aesthetic value, researchers consider this loss alarming.

Despite lawsuit, Casino Group still sells beef from Amazonian Indigenous territory
- A new investigation shows that farms located in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon supplied two JBS meatpacking plants that sell beef to brands of the French supermarket giant.
- In most cases, animals were not transferred directly from ranches in the Indigenous land to JBS, but went through different farms before arriving at slaughterhouses, when it was no longer possible to differentiate between cattle from the Indigenous land and others.
- This maneuver is known as ‘cattle laundering’ and aims to hide any potentially illegal origin of the animals.
- Casino said its suppliers are required to detail the supply route and that it directly rechecks all farms, but it’s up to meatpackers to monitor indirect suppliers; meanwhile, the meatpacker says it has no control over indirect suppliers.

Indigenous villagers still lack safe land, water & food after 2019 dam burst
- In January 2019, a burst tailings dam in Brumadinho Valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil, devastated the territory surrounding the Paraopeba River, including the land inhabited by the Pataxó and Pataxó Hã-hã-hãe Indigenous groups.
- Part of the community remained in the original village of Naõ Xohã, where today the river remains unfishable and the soil is contaminated by heavy metals. Changes in eating habits have led to an epidemic of diabetes, intoxication and allergies in the community.
- As Vale did not fund a relocation program, other Indigenous families moved to slums on the outskirts of the city of Belo Horizonte, where they lived in precarious structures and underwent racial discrimination by people in the city.
- In 2021, a local Japanese-Brazilian association donated land to build a new village called Katurãma, where the Indigenous people in Belo Horizonte were able to move; still, they have dealt with lacking resources and threats from land-grabbers and wildcat miners.

Brazil claims record shark fin bust: Nearly 29 tons from 10,000 sharks seized
- Brazilian authorities announced the seizure of almost 29 tons of shark fins, exposing the extent of what they described as illegal fishing in the country. The previous record for the largest seizure reportedly took place in Hong Kong in 2020, when authorities confiscated 28 tons of fins.
- The seized fins, reportedly destined for illegal export to Asia, came from an estimated 10,000 blue (Prionace glauca) and anequim or shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) sharks, according to Brazil’s federal environmental agency IBAMA. Shortfin makos recently joined the country’s list of endangered species.
- IBAMA is filing infraction notices and fines against two companies over the seized fins. Other firms remain under investigation for illegal shark fishing related to the seizure, according to the agency.
- Through detailed analyses of the origins of these fins, an IBAMA statement said the agency identified a wide range of irregularities, including the use of fishing authorizations for other species and the use of fishing gear to target sharks.

When “cute” is cruel: Social media videos stoke loris pet trade, study says
- Conservationists are concerned that the popularity of social media videos depicting lorises as pets is stoking the illegal and often abusive pet trade, placing pressure on already flagging numbers in the wild.
- A study of the top 100 most-viewed loris videos on social media platforms found the vast majority depicted lorises far removed from their natural forest habitat, behaviors and ecology.
- Online videos of pet lorises consistently violated basic animal welfare guidelines, according to the study, with the most popular clips depicting stressed and ill animals.
- The authors say the online content could make it socially acceptable and desirable to own a pet loris, and by engaging with content showing trafficked animals in poor health, viewers are unwittingly complicit in abuse and illegalities.

No new mining operations on Yanomami land after raids and deaths
- The alerts of illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have zeroed for the first time since 2020, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian Federal Police.
- Military operations continue in the region to drive out the last of the illegal miners and federal operations are also underway to remove criminal activity in the Karipuna and Munduruku Indigenous Territories.
- At least 15 people have been killed in the Yanomami land since April and evidence suggests one of South America’s most powerful mafias is operating in the region, putting the safety of federal agents and Indigenous people at risk.
- On June 14, the Brazilian Senate unanimously approved a set of solutions to tackle the Yanomami health disaster, which critics said focuses more on legalizing development in the region than on addressing the humanitarian crisis.

Communities accuse Socfin and Earthworm Foundation of greenwash in West Africa
- A grievance assessment mission commissioned by Belgian oil palm and rubber company Socfin has been rejected by communities affected by the company’s operations in several African and Asian countries.
- Reasons include the Earthworm Foundation’s relationship with Socfin as a paying member, lack of adequate coordination with affected stakeholders, and the company’s history of refusing to enter conflict resolution suggested by third-party bodies.
- Phase one, consisting of missions to Liberia and Cameroon, has just been concluded without the participation of local groups, who say they were not included in the planning process.

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

Survival and economics complicate the DRC’s bushmeat and wild animal trade
- Hunting for bushmeat can impact the populations of rare and threatened wildlife in forests around the world.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, subsistence hunting is often intertwined with the trade of bushmeat and in some cases live animals to sate the demand from larger markets, which can increase the pressure on wildlife populations.
- The trade of bushmeat provides one of the few sources of income for hunters, porters and traders, as well as a source of protein for families, in the town of Lodja, which sits close to forests that are home to unique species.
- Activists in Lodja and the DRC are working to save live animals from entering the illicit trade of endangered species and encourage alternative sources of income to the commercial trade of wild meat and animals.

Study: Snares claim another local extinction as Cambodia loses its leopards
- Researchers say the Indochinese leopard is functionally extinct in Cambodia after a 2021 camera-trap survey failed to capture a single individual from what was once thought to be the country’s last viable population of the big cat.
- The study points to hunting as the most significant contributor to the decline of the subspecies, noting that the number of snares and traps observed in the study area increased despite years of law enforcement efforts.
- Experts have called for focused conservation measures in the critically endangered subspecies’ remaining strongholds in Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand.

Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
- Old-growth forest in Central Cardamom Mountains National Park is being cleared to make way for the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, but the environmental impacts remain opaque.
- NGOs and the Ministry of Environment provide minimal oversight to prevent illegal loggers from exploiting the project site, and former loggers detailed how bribes facilitate the illicit timber trade.
- Prison officials maintained that the timber is used in a skills development program, but former inmates alleged that officials have been exploiting prison labor to craft luxury furniture.

3 million hectares of Colombian Amazon deforested for illegal pasture: Study
- One of the main challenges that comes with analyzing satellite images is establishing whether a change in land use has taken place legally or illegally.
- A recent study, published in Nature magazine, used a new methodological approach that allowed the researchers to identify which areas had undergone illegal changes in land use between 1984 and 2019.
- Deforestation for the creation of pasture for illegal cattle ranching has seen an unprecedented, exponential increase since 2017.
- The researchers also said there is a good chance of restoring forest cover in areas that were once used for coca farming, meaning it would avoid the same fate as forested land that has been lost to illicit cattle ranching.

Snares don’t discriminate: A problem for wild cats, both big and small
- Millions of snares dot the forests and protected areas of Southeast Asia, set to feed the illegal wildlife trade and wild game demand, where they sweep up multiple species, including threatened wild cats; in Africa, snaring for subsistence hunting causes a similar problem.
- Snares are noose-like traps that can be designed to target certain groups, such as types of ungulates, while others may sweep up many more. Crafted from a variety of materials, such as wire, cable, rope or nylon, these low-tech and cheap devices are set to catch animals by either the neck, foot or torso.
- Snares have played a part in wiping out big cat populations from places such as Vietnam and Laos, but they also impact small cat species, such as the fishing cat, Asiatic and African golden cats, and clouded leopards.
- Conservationists say solutions to snaring must work at different levels to tackle drivers, which vary depending on the region. This includes working with communities and reducing demand for wild game.

A frontline view of the fight against illegal mining in Yanomami territory
- In the Brazilian Amazon, Yanomami Indigenous people have been suffering a health crisis aggravated over recent years by the dismantling of Indigenous health care support services and the illegal mining invasion.
- Since the start of operations against miners in February, Brazil’s environmental inspectors have been setting fire to gear used to support illegal mining activities, both inside and outside the Indigenous territory.
- “The Yanomami land is one of the most difficult areas in the country in which to conduct our operations,” said one inspector who spoke to Agência Pública.

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

Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy
- How does public land in the Brazilian Amazon, including chunks of protected areas and Indigenous territories, end up under private ownership?
- This investigation unveils the network of realtors and engineers who take advantage of Brazil’s disjointed land registration system to launder stolen land.
- Experts say the CAR land registry in particular, which was meant to prevent environmental crimes, has instead made land grabbing easier than ever.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.

‘Gold library’ helps Brazil crack down on Amazon’s illegal mining
- Launched in 2019, the Ouro Alvo program is creating a gold database with samples obtained from different parts of Brazil.
- The information is allowing the Federal Police to create a chemical fingerprint of each sample, which they can then use to cross-reference the origin of seized or suspicious gold.
- This strategy could be complemented with other methods, including physically tagging the gold and tracking transactions using blockchain.
- While technology can be a great ally to fight the illegal gold trade, experts say the country still needs stricter regulations governing the industry.

Element Africa: Gold in Ghana, oil in Nigeria, and fracking in South Africa
- One small-scale miner was killed and four injured as security forces moved to evict them from a concession held by Ghana’s Golden Star Resources.
- ExxonMobil’s plan to exit from onshore oil production in the Niger Delta is effectively an attempt to escape from its toxic legacy in the region, communities say.
- Plans to frack for gas in South Africa will have devastating environmental impacts and cannot form part of a just transition to cleaner energy sources, an advocacy group says.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

In central Brazil, mining company ignores Quilombola concerns over gold project
- Canadian mining company Aura Minerals plans to establish a major gold extraction project in Brazil’s Tocantins state without hearing the Quilombola (slave descendant) community that will be affected by the operations, thus violating their right to free, prior and informed consultation.
- So far, the company has not been transparent toward the community and has not described the potential impacts.
- Meanwhile, Aura Minerals has seen its value rise nearly 700% on the Toronto Stock Exchange between 2019 and 2022 — the best performance among 3,500 listed companies.
- The Quilombola estimate that, in the event of an accident with the company’s dam, the Baião community would be instantly engulfed and would disappear completely, with no chance to react.

Can a new regional pact protect the Amazon from environmental crime? (commentary)
- Police, prosecutors, money-laundering experts and others convened last week in Brazil to tackle drug and environmental crimes like illegal mining and logging that are growing in scale across the Amazon.
- The group resolved to move law enforcement beyond occasional raids and periodic destruction of machinery used by organized crime syndicates and toward a concerted and pan-Amazonian push for local, regional and global cooperation on law enforcement.
- While acknowledging the increasing scale of these crimes, participants were optimistic: “We are living in a new moment to fight environmental crime and protect the Amazon,” said the newly appointed director for Amazon environmental crime with Brazil’s federal police, for example.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- As the details of the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory unfold amid action to remove illegal miners, mercury left by the rampant gold mining in the area will remain a lingering toxic legacy.
- A range of solutions is needed to support communities at risk, monitor the situation, assist in the remediation of forests, and prevent continued pollution, experts say.
- New technologies that can filter mercury are under development and testing, but are still far from being viable solutions at the scale that the problem inside the Amazon calls for.

Colombia, Ecuador announce alert system to protect Indigenous Awá from armed groups
- Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a system designed to alert about risks of violence against residents who live near the border, many of whom are Awá Indigenous people.
- Since last August, thousands of Awá have been forcibly displaced or suffered threats, intimidation, torture or forced recruitment by organized crime groups participating in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
- Many Awá live in extremely biodiverse areas that serve as corridors to other parts of the Amazon. But they’ve struggled to protect their ancestral land.

Fishing industry transparency is key for a thriving ocean (commentary)
- As fish populations decline in many regions, unscrupulous fishing fleet operators have turned to illegal fishing, human trafficking, slavery and other abuses to cut costs.
- This is facilitated by the complex, opaque nature of global fisheries, but there is one essential step every government can and must take to end this and bring fisheries out of the shadows: introducing comprehensive transparency.
- “The fact that illegal fishing, human rights abuses and ecological collapse in the ocean are so closely interlinked means that systematic, rigorous transparency can help to resolve them all,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Element Africa: The platinum ‘bully’ and the secret oil deal
- South African authorities have extended the deadline for compensation talks over a platinum mine, after a no-show by the mining company that affected communities say is “run by bullies.”
- Also in South Africa, a community that only recently reclaimed land it was driven from during apartheid faces fresh eviction for a planned coal plant and steel mill.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, NGOs say a secret deal to allocate two of 30 oil blocks to a company with no industry experience should be grounds for suspending the whole auction.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories about land rights & extractives in Africa.

U.S. grocery chains flunk sustainability, human rights tests for tuna sourcing
- Greenpeace has scored the 16 largest U.S. grocery retailers on human rights and environmental sustainability in their tuna sourcing, giving just one, ALDI, a “passing” overall grade.
- The report gave just two of the retailers, ALDI and Whole Foods Market, passing grades for addressing sustainability issues.
- None of the retailers received a passing grade for efforts to rid their supply chains of forced labor and other human rights abuses.
- The U.S. is the world’s second-largest tuna importer and its retailers wield significant clout within the tuna sector, according to the report.

‘Mercury is a complex problem’: Q&A with Colombian Mining Minister Irene Vélez Torres
- Illegal gold mining has long plagued Colombia’s ecosystems and communities, while small-scale miners have lamented the difficulties they face in formalizing their operations.
- Despite Colombia’s 2018 ban on the use of mercury in mining, the highly toxic metal continues to be widely used to extract gold.
- The new government of President Gustavo Petro has vowed to tackle the problem of illegal mining and mercury contamination, but the prevailing mining legislation is outdated and ineffective.
- Authorities are developing a new Mining Code that aims to be inclusive, help formalize artisanal and small-scale miners, and eliminate mercury from the industry.

The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon
- This is the story of how three individual landowners engineered the single-largest instance of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The clearing of 6,469 hectares (or 15,985 acres) of forest in the southern part of Pará state could earn them nearly $20 million in profit at current land prices.
- The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms, or plant grass and sell it for cattle ranching.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.

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

Illegal mines and “floating towns” on the Puré River leave uncontacted Indigenous peoples at risk
- The Yurí-Passé are at risk of coming into contact with illegal miners and drug traffickers, which violates their right and deliberate decision to live in isolation from the Western world.
- According to one study, mercury levels in the blood of communities living along the Caquetá river and its tributaries, such as the Puré River, are much higher than the average.
- Although the Puré River area is located in a protected area, mining activity has increased following a number of threats made against park rangers and an arson attack on a cabin belonging to Colombia’s Natural National Parks authority (PNN) by FARC dissidents. Despite military operations, mining activities continue, with dozens of dredgers thought to be operating on the river.

Study aims to unmask fishing vessels, and owners, obscured by loopholes
- A new study reveals information about the shifting identities of the global fishing fleet, which can help tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) fishing.
- The research combines a decade’s worth of satellite vessel tracking data with identification information from more than 40 public registries to generate a first-of-its-kind global assessment of fishing compliance, foreign ownership of vessels, and reflagging.
- It found that nearly 20% of high seas fishing was likely unregulated or unauthorized, and that the reflagging of vessels, which operators may do to avoid oversight, mainly took place in ports in East Asia, West Africa and Eastern Europe.
- The researchers plan on making a broader data set publicly available soon and regularly updating this data so that authorities have access to timely information.

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

At a rubber plantation in Liberia, history repeats in a fight over land
- Last year, Mongabay visited the Salala Rubber Corporation in Liberia, which has been accused of sexually abusing women working on its plantation and grabbing community land.
- Salala is owned by Socfin, the French-Belgian agribusiness giant that operates rubber and palm oil plantations across West and Central Africa.
- In 2008, Salala received a $10 million loan from the International Finance Corporation, which advocates say was used to clear community land.
- In 2019, 22 communities in and around Salala’s plantation filed a formal complaint with the IFC, but the investigation has dragged on for years.

Poisoned by pesticides: Health crisis deepens in Brazil’s Indigenous communities
- A recent report reveals communities in Brazil’s Mato Grosso region are contaminated by the agriculture industry’s increasing use of pesticides. About 88% of the plants collected, including medicinal herbs and fruits, on Indigenous lands have pesticide residue.
- Samples discovered high levels of pesticides in ecosystems and waters far from crop fields, including carbofuran — a highly toxic substance which is banned in Brazil, Europe and the U.S.
- Experts blame the lack of control by government officials for widespread environmental damage and an escalating health crisis among Indigenous populations, as communities report growing numbers of respiratory problems, acute poisonings and cancers.
- A spokesperson for the biggest agrochemical companies operating in Brazil disputes the findings of the report and numbers of people far from crop regions affected by pesticide usage.

Dammed, now mined: Indigenous Brazilians fight for the Xingu River’s future
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, but faces opposition from Indigenous communities.
- In addition to the environmental impacts, experts warn of the risk of the proposed tailings dam rupturing, which could flood the area with 9 million cubic meters (2.4 billion gallons) of toxic waste.
- The same region is already suffering the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which diverts up to 85% of the flow of the Xingu River, leading to a mass decline in fish that traditional riverside dwellers and Indigenous people rely on.
- The Belo Sun project was legally challenged last year, prompting supporters to harass and intimidate those who oppose the mine’s construction; tensions in the region remain high.

Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park suffering increasing mining deforestation: report
- Satellite imagery analyzed by NGO Amazon Conservation revealed that illegal mining operations in Yapacana National Park, located in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, are clearing protected forest much faster than previously thought.
- Over 750 hectares (1,870 acres) of deforestation took place between 2021 and 2022 in the mining area of the park.
- Although law enforcement carried out raids in the area last December, many experts believe the problem will persist amid government complacency.

Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.

Rumors and misconceptions threaten tokay geckos in Bangladesh
- Widespread misconceptions about the medicinal benefits of tokay geckos are leading to these common nocturnal lizards being hunted across Bangladesh.
- Wildlife traffickers set an exorbitant price on trapped geckos, based on rumors about their international demand. There is no documented evidence that buyers pay a high price for geckos.
- In the last five years, more than 250 geckos were recovered and more than 30 suspected wildlife smugglers arrested. In Bangladesh, a study found that gecko populations are estimated to have declined by 50% due to trade on the international market based on claims that the species holds medicinal qualities.
- Tokay geckos maintain ecosystem balance by preying on invertebrates, including moths, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, crickets, cockroaches, mosquitoes and spiders.

Mongabay’s 10 most popular videos of 2022
- Here we rewatch the top 10 favorite videos of 2022 on Mongabay’s YouTube channel.
- Indigenous communities and wildlife are among the main characters of the most-watched videos of the past year.
- Mongabay launched two new video series called “Chasing Deforestation” and “Consumed.”

Top 10 notable Indigenous stories of 2022
- This year was a historic one for many Indigenous communities around the world that marked many ‘firsts’ with successful land rights rulings, both on the global and national level.
- As Indigenous rights, roles and contributions in biodiversity conservation gain more attention, underreported and critical issues impacting Indigenous peoples were thrust into the spotlight this year.
- To end this impactful year, Mongabay rounds up its 10 most notable Indigenous news stories of 2022.

Illegal orchid trade threatens Nepal’s ‘tigers of the plant world’
- Roughly 500 orchid species grow in Nepal’s forests, including a rare pale purple beauty that attracts thousands of pilgrims each April.
- Orchids are among the most diverse and charismatic plant groups in the world, and they are threatened by illegal and unsustainable trade, largely for Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine.
- Kathmandu-based NGO Greenhood Nepal has a project that outlines key steps for government agencies to take in efforts to curb illegal and unsustainable trade in Nepal’s orchids.

Into the Wasteland, part 3: Buried in Europe’s recycling
- The European Commission estimates that the illegal handling of recycling and other wastes represents around 15-30% of the total EU waste trade, generating EUR 9.5 billion annually.
- Our team visits a facility in Poland that's supposed to be handling U.K. recycling but finds it shuttered and infested with rats.
- We also speak with the 'James Bond of waste trafficking' who reveals that much recycling is being 'laundered' via the Netherlands and shipped on to countries where such resources are often dumped, not recycled.
- This is the final episode in Mongabay's three-part, “true eco-crime” series, where investigative reporters trace England’s -- and Europe's -- towering illegal waste problem.

Black Sea dolphin deaths prompt ecocide allegations against Russia
- On Dec. 7, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of ecocide during COP15, the U.N. biodiversity summit in Montreal, following unprecedented reports of dead dolphins and porpoises washing up on Black Sea beaches since Russia invaded Ukraine.
- On Dec. 2, researchers reported the first scientific analysis of changes in cetacean deaths and movement patterns since the war began in February.
- Mounting evidence is slowly painting a clearer picture of the mass mortality of Black Sea cetaceans.
- But estimates of the death toll vary and scientists diverge on whether research has progressed far enough to scientifically conclude the war’s effect.

Dalian Ocean Fishing, subject of Mongabay probe, now sanctioned by U.S.
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently announced sanctions on Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing while operating in distant waters.
- One sanctioned company, Dalian Ocean Fishing Co., Ltd. (DOF), was the subject of two Mongabay investigations: one uncovered widespread human rights abuses, and the other exposed extensive illegal shark-finning operations within the DOF fleet of longline fishing vessels.
- China, which operates the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet and has a long history of fisheries offenses, denounced the sanctions, saying that it is a “responsible fishing country.”

“Sinchiurco is coated with oil”: The Kichwa people going up against Petroecuador
- In 1985, a road opened through the Kichwa community of Sinchiruco, in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. With it came the Guanta 1 oil platform, which would lead to repeated complaints of human and environmental rights violations.
- Until 1990, Guanta 1 was operated by Texaco. Texaco and the companies that came later have been accused of oil and diesel spills, creating crude oil pools, and accidents that led to the death of a child and the loss of one girl’s sight.
- The platform was later managed by Petroamazonas and PDVSA. Now run by Petroecuador, the surrounding communities are still demanding compensation for previous spills and repairs to partially fixed pipelines that, they claim, continue to cause spills. After 37 years, the community is saying that enough is enough.

Is waste crime ‘the new narcotics’ in the U.K.? Into the Wasteland, part 2
- The U.K.’s Environment Agency calls waste crime — where instead of delivering recycling or rubbish for proper disposal, companies simply dump it in the countryside — “the new narcotics” because it’s so easy to make money illegally.
- It’s estimated that one in every five U.K. waste companies operates in this manner, and the government seems powerless to stop it.
- In a three-part, “true eco-crime” series for Mongabay’s podcast, investigative journalists trace England’s towering illegal waste problem.
- On this second episode, a lawyer describes her year-long campaign to get the government to deal with a single illegal dump site, but they failed to act before it caught fire. We also speak with a former official at Interpol who shares that his agency also lacks the resources to tackle the problem.

True eco-crime in the U.K., ‘Into the Wasteland’
- In a three-part, 'true eco-crime' series for Mongabay's podcast, investigative journalists trace England's towering illegal waste problem.
- The country is facing a mountain of waste problems, but 'fly-tipping' might not be one you've heard of: it's the clandestine, illegal dumping of household and business waste, even dead animals, in the countryside.
- In a country that throws away more plastic per person than anywhere else in the world, fly-tipping has become a much more serious – and dangerous – problem lately, with the involvement of criminal elements seeking easy profit.
- On this episode, a mild-mannered English IT professional shares how he's gone to great lengths -- and has had to run for his life -- for exposing the people behind the rubbishing of the country's farms, fields, and public spaces.

New criminal code rings alarms for environmental protection in Indonesia
- Indonesia has passed an overhauled criminal code that experts and activists say will weaken environmental protections and make it easier to persecute environmental defenders.
- Among the controversial provisions in the heavily criticized bill: an exemption from prosecution for companies that violate environmental laws; reduced punishment and the choice to pick a fine over a jail sentence for convicted violators; and a higher burden of proof for environmental crimes.
- It could also be used to prosecute environmental defenders who protest public works projects, on the pretext of insulting the president.
- The new code will not go into full effect until 2025, giving opponents time to challenge it at the Constitutional Court.

‘It was a shark operation’: Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat
- Rusnata was one of more than 150 Indonesian deckhands repatriated from the various vessels operated by China’s Dalian Ocean Fishing in 2020.
- Previous reporting by Mongabay revealed widespread and systematic abuses suffered by workers across the DOF fleet, culminating in the deaths of at least seven Indonesian crew members.
- In a series of interviews with Mongabay, Rusnata described his own ordeal in detail, including confirming reports that DOF tuna-fishing vessels were deliberately going after sharks and finning the animals.
- He also describes a lack of care for the Indonesian workers by virtually everyone who knew of their plight, from the Indonesian agents who recruited them to port officials in China.

Indigenous youths lured by the illegal mines destroying their Amazon homeland
- An increasing number of young Indigenous people in Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous Territory are leaving their communities behind and turning to illegal gold mining, lured by the promise of small fortunes and a new lifestyle.
- Work in the mining camps ranges from digging and removing tree roots to operating as boat pilots ferrying gold, supplies and miners to and from the camps; recruits receive nearly $1,000 per boat trip.
- The structures, traditions and health of Indigenous societies are torn apart by the proximity of the gold miners, and the outflow of the young generation further fuels this vicious cycle, say Indigenous leaders.
- Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of authorities monitoring the area, illegal mining in the region has increased drastically, with 20,000 miners now operating illegally in the territory.

A new tool to peer into fishing networks: Q&A with Austin Brush of C4ADS
- Washington, D.C.-based think tank C4ADS is launching Triton, a web tool to visually display the corporate structures behind fishing vessels.
- The initial cache of data focuses on the industrial fishing fleets of five key flag states: China, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, and Japan, which together account for most high-seas fishing.
- Understanding who owns these vessels ultimately reveals the factors driving a vessel’s movements at sea and fishing activity, according to C4ADS analyst Austin Brush.

Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Following the impacts of palm oil alliance: Violated regulations and penalty proceedings
- The journalistic partnership behind a 2021 database gathering information on the penalties for environmental violations given to palm oil producers in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras has added two more countries: Costa Rica and Brazil
- In these six Latin American nations, between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 companies and individuals involved in the palm oil industry, according to the details offered by authorities in response to requests from the journalists working on the database.
- The handing over of incomplete documents and lack of information are, once again, a common feature of how authorities across the region respond to journalists’ requests. In 181 cases, it was impossible to understand the stage of the penalty proceedings, while in 42 cases there was no concrete information on whether a sanction or fine had been applied. In 47 instances, the exact nature of the environmental violation committed by the target of the proceedings was not specified.

How Mitsubishi vacuumed up tuna from a rogue Chinese fishing fleet
- Last week, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark finning operation across the fleet of a major Chinese tuna fishing firm.
- The company, Dalian Ocean Fishing, mainly serves the Japanese market. Most of its tuna has gone to Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and its seafood trading arm, Toyo Reizo.
- While the general outlines of their partnership are well-documented, tracing specific tuna flows from individual fishing boats to Mitsubishi’s supply chain is impeded by the murky nature of the supply chain.
- Experts say this lack of transparency must be solved in order to prevent illegal fishing and labor abuses at sea.

If the US aspires to climate leadership, it must break its addiction to the products driving forest destruction (commentary)
- At the COP27 climate summit this week, the U.S. government reiterated its commitment to ending global deforestation, a significant driver of the climate emergency.
- Yet, as a recent major investigative report by Earthsight and Mongabay showed, the U.S. is continuing to contribute to illegal deforestation overseas through its unfettered consumption of the goods which result from it.
- This opinion piece argues that if the U.S. truly aspires to leadership on forests, the U.S. must first get its own house in order, improving and better enforcing existing legislation banning imports of stolen timber and urgently passing draft legislation extending such controls to ‘forest risk commodities’ like beef and soy.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

‘There are solutions to these abuses’: Q&A with Steve Trent on how China can rein in illegal fishing
- Earlier this week, Mongabay published an article uncovering a massive illegal shark finning scheme across the fleet of one of China’s largest tuna companies, Dalian Ocean Fishing.
- China has the world’s biggest fishing fleet, but oversight of the sector is lax, with many countries’ boats routinely found to be engaging in illegal and destructive practices, especially in international waters.
- Mongabay spoke with Steve Trent, the head of the Environmental Justice Foundation, which has also investigated the fishing industry, about DOF’s shark finning scheme and how China can better monitor its vessels.

Exclusive: Shark finning rampant across Chinese tuna firm’s fleet
- Dalian Ocean Fishing used banned gear to deliberately catch and illegally cut the fins off of huge numbers of sharks in international waters, Mongabay has found.
- Just five of the company’s longline boats harvested roughly 5.1 metric tons of dried shark fin in the western Pacific Ocean in 2019. That equates to a larger estimated shark catch than what China reported for the nation’s entire longline fleet in the same time and place.
- The findings are based on dozens of interviews with men who worked throughout the company’s fleet of some 35 longline boats. A previous investigation by Mongabay and its partners uncovered widespread abuse of crew across the same firm’s vessels.
- Campaigners said Dalian Ocean Fishing’s newly uncovered practices were a “disaster” for shark conservation efforts.

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

Loss of Brazilian pines threatens Kaingáng Indigenous culture
- The decline of the Paraná pine forests in the southern region of Brazil poses serious consequences for the Kaingáng culture, which uses pine trees as an important source of food, culture and resilience.
- The ecosystem is one of the most devastated in Brazil: Only 3% of its original area remains.
- The tree occupies a noble position in the Kaingáng culture, considered the third-largest Indigenous group in Brazil, with 45,000 people living in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná and southern São Paulo.
- “Efforts to revitalize Kaingáng culture must be aligned with the resurgence of araucaria planting in the territories of the Kaingáng people,” says an Indigenous expert.

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

In Colombia, a new president faces old environmental challenges
- Mongabay Latam spoke with experts about the environmental challenges Colombia’s former president, Iván Duque, leaves for his successor, Gustavo Petro.
- Deforestation looks to be the biggest issue left by the Duque government.
- Other challenges include strengthening protected areas, keeping environmentalists safe, containing environmental crime networks, and speeding up the development of sustainable energy.

Poaching surges in the birthplace of white rhino conservation
- Poaching has more than doubled this year in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, the birthplace of white rhino conservation.
- Conservationists say poaching syndicates have turned their attention to this and other parks in KwaZulu-Natal province because rhino numbers in Kruger National Park, the previous epicenter of rhino poaching, have been drastically reduced, and private reserves around Kruger are dehorning their animals.
- Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a very challenging game reserve for anti-poaching patrols to defend, exacerbated by leadership issues in Ezemvelo, the government body responsible for managing KwaZulu-Natal’s conservation areas.
- Unless more is done to tackle the wider issue of the illegal wildlife trade, the future looks bleak for the rhinos of HIP.

Element Africa: Diamonds, oil, coltan, and more diamonds
- Offshore diamond prospecting threatens a fishing community in South Africa, while un-checked mining for the precious stones on land is silting up rivers in Zimbabwe.
- In Nigeria, serial polluter Shell is accused of not cleaning up a spill from a pipeline two months ago; the company says the spill was mostly water from flushing out the pipeline.
- Also in Nigeria, mining for coltan, the source of niobium and tantalum, important metals in electronics applications, continues to destroy farms and nature even as the government acknowledges it’s being done illegally.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

Pluspetrol Norte: A history of unpaid sanctions and oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon
- The Kichwa community of 12 de Octubre in Loreto experienced multiple oil spills earlier this year due to activities in the region by the oil and gas producing company Pluspetrol Norte.
- The company has received 73 sanctions imposed by Peru’s Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA) between 2011 and 2021, with fines totaling over $47 million.
- Pluspetrol Norte has pending trials with the Peruvian government for attempting to liquidate the company and for not taking responsibility for their environmental liabilities.

Indonesian lobster larvae bound for Singapore reveal role of smuggling network
- Two recent seizures of lobster larvae shipments destined for Singapore have prompted an investigation by Indonesia into a smuggling network operating between the two countries.
- The shipments had an estimated value of $2.2 million, and were the latest in a string of attempts to smuggle the larvae to buyers in Singapore, Vietnam and China.
- Indonesia has banned the export of wild-caught larvae in an effort to its lobster stocks, and is encouraging the growth of the domestic lobster-farming industry.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal exports cost the country $64 million in lost revenue in 2019 alone, according to official data.

The Fixers: Top U.S. flooring retailers linked to Brazilian firm probed for corruption
- New evidence uncovered by a yearlong investigation by Mongabay and Earthsight reveals the corrupt deals made by Brazil’s largest flooring exporter, Indusparquet, and its suppliers.
- The company was charged in two corruption lawsuits in Brazil over its use of public officials to gain access to timber supplies. Mongabay and Earthsight gained access to dozens of hours of wiretaps and video footage, along with thousands of pages of court records, revealing how the alleged bribery schemes were carried out.
- One of the court cases showed the company used a local official to secure the supply of bracatinga, a tree species native to the Atlantic Forest, for an unnamed “U.S. client.”
- We also found indications that the American client was Floor & Decor, America’s largest flooring retail chain, which was previously involved in illegal timber scandals with Indusparquet, while LL Flooring, fined for breaching the Lacey Act in 2013 over its illegal timber exports, is also an Indusparquet client.

In Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, deforesters foot the bill for political campaigns
- In Brazil’s 2018 elections, 422 candidates running in executive and legislative races at state and federal levels across the country received donations from individuals and partners of companies linked to environmental crimes in the Amazon; 156 of them won election.
- The state of Mato Grosso led in the number of candidates bankrolled by environmental violators — 62 candidates, of whom 19 won — and in the donations made: 6 million reais ($1.5 million).
- Mauro Mendes, who would go on to win the state’s election for governor, received 1 million reais ($257,000) from environmental violators, and his track record in office to date has been marked by controversies over environmental protection and natural resource administration.
- Two federal legislators from Mato Grosso, recipients of environmental violators’ money, also appear to be aligned with their donors’ interests by sponsoring a bill that would effectively free up 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of land that can be legally deforested.

Road network spreads ‘arteries of destruction’ across 41% of Brazilian Amazon
- A groundbreaking study using satellite data and an artificial intelligence algorithm shows how the spread of unofficial roads throughout the Amazon is driving widespread deforestation.
- One such road is on the verge of cutting across the Xingu Socioenvironmental Corridor, posing a serious risk of helping push the Amazon beyond a crucial tipping point.
- Unprotected public lands account for 25% of the total illegal road network, with experts saying the creation of more protected areas could stem the spread and slow both deforestation and land grabs.
- Officially sanctioned roads, such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, also need better planning to minimize their impact and prevent the growth of illegal offshoots, experts say.

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

Indonesia urged to update fisher training program to international standards
- Many Indonesian seafarers on domestic and foreign boats lack proper training for safety and fishing operations, which experts say leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and endangerment.
- Fisheries and human rights observers are calling for a revamp of the government’s fisher training program ahead of a scheduled evaluation of measures to protect maritime workers at home and overseas.
- Indonesia in 2019 ratified an International Maritime Organization (IMO) convention on the protection of crews working aboard domestic and foreign boats, and its progress on implementing it is due for an assessment in 2024.
- Indonesia, one of the world’s largest fish producers, is home to some 2.3 million people who identify as fishers and boat crews working on domestic and foreign-flagged fleets.

As poachers poison wildlife, Zimbabwe finds an antidote in tougher laws
- Poisons like cyanide can be a deadly weapon for poachers, allowing them to kill dozens of animals without needing access to firearms or the backing of criminal syndicates.
- Wildlife poisoning is on the rise across Africa, targeting elephants as well as pushing endangered vultures toward extinction.
- A new study says Zimbabwe, which a decade ago witnessed some of the deadliest mass poisonings of elephants, has developed a sound basis for curbing poisonings by tightening laws to criminalize intent to use poison to kill wildlife.
- In addition to laws and renewed efforts to improve intelligence gathering, private players are pushing to ensure better law enforcement, resulting in more prosecutions and deterrent sentences.

Trial of palm oil tycoon Surya Darmadi begins in Jakarta
- Surya Darmadi returned to Indonesia on Aug. 15 and was arrested by awaiting officers at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
- Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office has estimated total losses amounting to almost $7 billion, including damages incurred by communities.
- Environmental groups have spent decades documenting harmful activities by Surya’s companies.

Indonesia pursues agreements to protect its fishers on foreign vessels
- The Indonesian government says it hopes to sign agreements with other governments to improve protection of its citizens working in those countries’ fishing industries.
- Indonesia is thought to be the largest source of labor in the global fishing fleet, but Indonesian deckhands are often subject to predatory recruitment processes, labor abuses, and even deadly working conditions.
- In May 2021, the Indonesian government signed one such agreement with the South Korean government, addresses key issues such as recruitment and placement mechanisms, and a dedicated training center for Indonesian fishers.
- The Indonesian foreign ministry is now seeking similar agreements with Taiwan and China, with the latter’s fishing fleet accounting for nearly as much activity in distant waters as the next four top countries combined.

In revising its criminal code, Indonesia risks unraveling environmental laws
- Indonesia’s plan to revise its outdated criminal code could lead to a systematic weakening of existing environmental laws, experts warn.
- The latest draft of the code contains provisions that would make it more difficult to prosecute environmental crimes, such as dumping toxic waste in rivers and setting forest fires, the experts say.
- They note also that it makes punishment more lenient and lets companies off the hook, while potentially making it easier to prosecute environmental defenders.
- The experts have called on the government and lawmakers to go back to the drawing board and ensure that environmental crimes are treated as the extraordinary crimes that they are.

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

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

Brazil miner sees Indigenous land as ripe for exploration if protections expire
- Mining company Oxycer has filed five applications to prospect for gold in the Piripkura Indigenous Territory, in anticipation of restrictions being lifted this October.
- The territory is home to two of the last three surviving Piripkura individuals, who live in voluntary isolation and already face threats from invasions of their territory by illegal loggers and cattle ranchers.
- Mining in Indigenous territories is currently illegal in Brazil, which is why the Federal Public Ministry is pursuing lawsuits to scupper mining requests being filed with the National Mining Agency (ANM).
- However, the ANM continues to accept and register these applications for what’s clearly an illegal activity, though it’s unclear if the agency has approved any of them yet.

Raids reveal how illegal gold from Indigenous lands gets laundered in Brazil
- Coordinated raids on mining company Gana Gold have revealed how gold mined illegally in Indigenous territories and other protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon makes its way into the legitimate trade.
- The company only has a permit to prospect, but is alleged to have doctored other licenses and sourced gold from illegal mines, before laundering it into the legitimate supply chain.
- The raids also uncovered strong links between drug traffickers and illegal miners, who were found to use the same trafficking routes to get their respective illicit commodities out of the forest and into the rest of the world.
- Experts say that given that the vast majority of Brazilian gold is exported, there’s an onus on overseas buyers to establish chain of custody controls to ensure they’re not buying illegally mined gold.

Bolsonaro agenda gets a lift from dominance of ‘new right’ in Congress
- A ranking of federal lawmakers in Brazil based on their legislative and voting records has highlighted the rise of a “new right” that’s firmly behind President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda of rolling back environmental and Indigenous protections.
- The Ruralômetro scale, developed by investigative news outlet Repórter Brasil, shows at least 351 out of 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies scored unfavorably on socioenvironmental issues.
- Among the legislation they helped draft or voted in favor of include those that weaken environmental law enforcement, favor predatory economic activities, undermine labor protections, hamper access to social benefits, and hinder agrarian reform.
- Joênia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman elected to the Chamber of Deputies, said the strengthening of this “ruralist” base has forced environmentalists on the defensive, without much room to advance their own bills.

Snares: Low-tech, low-profile killers of rare wildlife the world over
- Snares are simple, low-tech, noose-like traps that can be made from cheap and easily accessible materials such as wire, rope or brake cables. Easy to set, a single person can place thousands, with one report warning that snares “are a terrestrial equivalent to the drift nets that have devastated marine and freshwater biodiversity.”
- Used throughout the tropics, one estimate says 12 million snares are present in protected areas of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, with the number likely far greater across the wider Southeast Asian region. Snaring is also common in Africa.
- While many hunters target smaller game to eat or sell, snares are indiscriminate, and often maim or kill non-targeted animals such as elephants, lions and giraffes, and endangered species including gorillas, banteng, dhole and saola. One report calls snares “the greatest threat to the long-term presence of tigers in Southeast Asia.”
- Snaring is difficult to stop. Hunters hide snares from their prey, which makes them hard to spot, though rangers are known to collect thousands. It’s “like a game of hide and seek,” says one expert. “Forest rangers hasten to dismantle snare lines even as poachers reconstruct them at other locations.” Behavior change is one solution.

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

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

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

No permit? No problem for palm oil company still clearing forest in Papua
- A field observation by Greenpeace Indonesia has confirmed reports that a palm oil company has resumed clearing land on its concession in Indonesia’s Papua region despite its permit having been revoked.
- As of June, the company, PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), had cleared more than 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, according to data from Greenpeace Indonesia.
- The resumption of land clearing has prompted the district head to reprimand PNM, and raised the possibility that the company is committing a crime.

Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
- A sting operation led by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service has netted notorious alleged poacher Simon Ernesto Valoi and an associate in possession of eight rhino horns.
- Conservationists say Valoi and other poaching kingpins have operated freely from Massingir district to poach thousands of rhinos just across the border in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
- Valoi’s arrest, following the January sentencing of another major rhino horn trafficker to 30 years in jail, may be a further sign that Mozambique’s law enforcement authorities are successfully targeting high-level poachers.

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

Myanmar wildlife trade remains opaque, despite focus on border hubs
- Myanmar supports some of the last refuges of rare and threatened species, such as tigers, leopards and pangolins, but lax law enforcement and porous borders make it a hotbed of illegal wildlife trade, imperiling the country’s remaining biodiversity.
- While a lot is known about flagrant trade in notorious markets in towns bordering China and Thailand, much of the trade with Myanmar remains opaque, new research shows.
- One-quarter of prior studies on the country’s wildlife trade have focused on just two border trade hubs, while little is known about patterns of domestic wildlife trade and consumption.
- The researchers call on authorities to establish a central wildlife crime database to promote data sharing of enforcement and research knowledge; further research on poaching motives; and improved enforcement of existing wildlife laws.

Peru’s Amazon rainforest is threatened by an ecosystem of environment crime (commentary)
- While Brazil attracts more attention, deforestation is also substantial in the Peruvian Amazon, where forest clearing is on the rise.
- Carolina Andrade and Robert Muggah of Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank, write that “the scale and breadth of the assault” currently underway in Peru’s rainforest is “unprecedented”. They chalk up much of the damage to “resource pirates”.
- But while challenging, the situation isn’t without hope, argue Andrade and Muggah. “Resource pirates can be confronted,” they write. “Fostering closer cooperation between the many-layered and often competing oversight institutions could help focus government policy and action.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

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

Experts fear end of vaquitas after green light for export of captive-bred totoaba fish
- After a 40-year prohibition, international wildlife trade regulator CITES has authorized the export of captive-bred totoaba fish from Mexico.
- Conservationists say they fear this decision will stimulate the illegal fishing of wild totoabas and that this will intensify the threats facing the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.
- Only around eight individual vaquitas remain alive; they regularly drown in nets set illegally for totoabas in the Upper Gulf of California, where the two species overlap.
- The swim bladders of totoabas are sold in Asian markets at exorbitant prices because of their value as status symbols and their supposed medicinal properties.

In Brazil, an Indigenous land defender’s unsolved killing is the deadly norm
- Two years after the death of Indigenous land defender Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau in Brazil’s Amazonian state of Rondônia, questions about who killed him and why remain unanswered.
- Perpetrators of crimes against environmental activists are rarely brought to justice in the country, with a government report showing zero convictions for the 35 people killed in incidents of rural violence in 2021 — about a third of them in Rondônia.
- Indigenous groups and environmental activists in Rondônia say they fear for their lives as the criminal gangs that covet the Amazon’s rich resources act with impunity in threatening defenders and invading protected lands.
- Activists and experts point to a combination of the government’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric and the undermining of environmental agencies as helping incite the current surge of invasions and violence against land defenders in Rondônia and the wider Brazilian Amazon.

Study shines light, and raises alarm, over online trade of West African birds
- Researchers conducted a study on the online trade of West African wild birds in an effort to fill knowledge gaps about the trafficking of species from this part of the world.
- The study found that 83 species of wild birds from West Africa were being traded online, including three species protected under the highly prohibitive CITES Appendix I, and that many potential buyers originated from South Asia and the Middle East.
- In general, very little is known about wild birds in West Africa, so it’s difficult to assess whether the trade in certain species is sustainable, the researchers say.
- The authors have also raised concerns about the spread of disease upon viewing images of multiple species of birds confined together in small enclosures.

Indonesia’s Sangihe islanders score legal victory over mining company
- Residents of Sangihe Island in Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a Canadian-backed company planning to mine gold on their island.
- In its ruling, the court in the city of Manado declared the environmental permit issued to miner PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS) and ordered the local government to revoke it.
- The judges found that the permit was issued without following the proper procedures, and that the environmental impact analysis was inadequate.
- The victory comes a month after another court, in Jakarta, rejected a separate lawsuit by the villagers seeking to have TMS’s mining contract revoked; the court said the case was outside its jurisdiction.

The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)
- Journalists in Brazil and around the world are devastated about the tragic end of a 10-day search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border in northern Amazonas state. Bodies believed to be theirs were found on June 15 after a huge outcry against the federal government’s inaction following their disappearance. Indigenous patrols bravely conducted their own search while the government did little.
- The murders of Dom and Bruno are emblematic of the plight of journalists across Latin America as violence against both journalists and activists in the region escalates. It also raises an alarm for the need to protect reporters as we report on environmental crime from Nature’s frontline.
- But these crimes will not stop us: Exposing wrongdoing across Brazil’s critical biomes — from the Mata Atlantica to the Cerrado to the Amazon — is more necessary than ever now. At the same time, demanding justice for the murder of Bruno and Dom became a fight for all of us.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

Indonesia issues long-delayed rules to protect migrant fishing workers
- Indonesia has issued a much-anticipated decree to boost the protection of Indonesian deckhands working aboard foreign commercial and fishing vessels.
- Former migrant deckhands have previously described conditions in which they experienced overwork, withholding of wages, debt bondage, and physical and sexual violence.
- The decree was supposed to have been issued in March, but was held up for want of signatures; it was finally issued this month ahead of a lawsuit against the government over the delay.
- Marine activists have welcomed the decree, which they say should help improve the global fisheries sector, given that vessels where worker abuse is rife also tend to be engaged in illegal fishing activities.

Indonesian official charged, but not jailed, for trading in Sumatran tiger parts
- A local politician previously convicted of corruption has been charged in Indonesia for allegedly selling Sumatran tiger parts.
- Ahmadi, 41, the former head of Bener Meriah district in Aceh province, was arrested on May 24 with two alleged accomplices — but he wasn’t detained, pending an investigation.
- Critics say the authorities’ refusal to jail him is emblematic of a core problem in Indonesian wildlife conservation, which is the impunity that powerful politicians and officials enjoy when keeping and trading in protected species.
- Aceh province, at the northern tip of Sumatra, is believed to hold about 200 of the world’s remaining 400 Sumatran tigers — the last tiger endemic to Indonesia following the extinction in the last century of the Bali and Javan subspecies.

Study casts doubt on sustainability of regulated blood python snakeskin trade
- There’s no evidence to show that the trade in blood pythons from Indonesia, coveted for their skins for making luxury fashion items, is sustainable, a new study shows.
- In fact, the evidence indicates that much of the trade, which involves slaughtering and skinning the snakes by the tens of thousands every year, may be illegal.
- The species isn’t considered threatened or protected in Indonesia, the main producer of blood python skins, and exports are governed by CITES, the convention on the international wildlife trade.
- The study’s author calls on the Indonesian government to enforce stricter monitoring and scrutiny of annual harvests, traders to abide by the regulations, and global buyers to shift away from exotic leather and use alternatives.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.

Year of the Tiger: Illegal trade thrives amid efforts to save wild tigers
- As the world celebrates the Year of the Tiger in 2022, humans continue to threaten the cat’s long-term survival in the wild: killing, buying and selling tigers and their prey, and encroaching into their last shreds of habitat. That’s why they are Earth’s most endangered big cat.
- Undercover video footage has revealed an enlarged tiger farm run by an organized criminal organization in Laos. It’s one of many captive-breeding facilities implicated in the black market trade — blatantly violating an international treaty on trade in endangered species.
- Under a 2007 CITES decision, tigers should be bred only for conservation purposes. Evidence shows that this decision is being disregarded by some Asian nations, including China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. But CITES has done little to enforce it, which could be done through sanctions, say critics.
- With the world’s second Global Tiger Summit and important international meetings on biodiversity and endangered species looming, it’s a crucial year for tigers. In the wild, some populations are increasing, some stable, and others shrinking: Bengal tigers in India are faring best, while Malayan tigers hover on extinction’s edge.

Government inaction sees 98% of deforestation alerts go unpunished in Brazil
- A new study has found that Brazil’s environmental enforcement agencies under President Jair Bolsonaro failed to take action in response to nearly all of the deforestation alerts issued for the Amazon region since 2019.
- Nearly 98% of Amazon deforestation alerts weren’t investigated during this period, while fines paid by violators also dropped, raising fears among activists that environmental crimes are being encouraged under the current administration.
- Environmental agencies at the state level did better, but in the case of Mato Grosso state, Brazil’s breadbasket, still failed to take action in response to more than half of the deforestation that occurred.
- In an unexpected move, Bolsonaro on May 24 issued a decree raising the value of fines for falsifying documents to cover up illegal logging and infractions affecting conservation units or their buffer zones, among other measures.

In Singapore, a forensics lab wields CSI-like tech against wildlife traffickers
- A wildlife forensics laboratory launched in Singapore last year is making breakthroughs in tracking down criminal syndicates trafficking in wildlife.
- Singapore is a major transit point for the illegal ivory trade; the nation impounded 8.8 metric tons of elephant ivory in July 2019 — evidence from which led to the arrest of 14 people in China.
- The researchers use the same method to capture poachers that authorities in California used to arrest the Golden State Killer.
- Elephant ivory and pangolin scales account for the bulk of the new lab’s workload; figuring out how traffickers accumulate this material from two species could uncover much of their methods.

Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.

Illegal mining footprint swells nearly 500% inside Brazil Indigenous territories
- Illegal mining inside Indigenous territories and conservation units in Brazil increased in area by 495% and 301% respectively between 2010 and 2020, a new report shows.
- The worst-affected Indigenous territories were the Kayapó, Munduruku and Yanomami reserves, with a combined area of nearly 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) occupied by illegal miners.
- The trend is driven by the increase in international prices of gold, tin and manganese — the metals typically mined inside the reserves — as well as lax enforcement and lack of economic alternatives.
- While mining inside Indigenous territories and conservation units is banned under Brazil’s Constitution, the current government is pushing for legislation that would allow it.

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