topic: Indigenous Culture

topic: Indigenous Culture

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Respecting uncontacted peoples can protect biodiversity and our humanity (commentary)
- Protecting regions inhabited by uncontacted Indigenous peoples is vital from both a human rights and environmental perspective; these territories represent some of the planet’s last intact ecosystems, and are also rich carbon sinks.
- But in recent years, these communities that choose to live in isolation have been seen and contacted more frequently by outsiders like illegal miners and loggers, and the results have at times been violent, with reports about these incidents going viral.
- “Some argue that isolation is no longer possible, that climate change, deforestation and economic pressure will make contact inevitable. I believe that argument is defeatist and ethically indefensible. It assumes that outsiders know what is best for these communities, repeating the same paternalism that has caused centuries of harm,” the writer of a new op-ed states.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indigenous Dayak sound alarm as palm oil firm razes orangutan habitat in Borneo
- Indigenous Dayak communities report wildlife encroaching into villages, land grabbing, and loss of cultural and livelihood resources as a palm oil company begins clearing forests on their customary lands — in some cases without consent or even prior notification.
- PT Equator Sumber Rezeki (ESR) has already cleared nearly 1,500 hectares (3,700 hectares) of rainforest inside this region that’s designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and orangutan habitat, with much of the deforestation occurring this year and signaling far more destruction to come.
- The company’s parent group, First Borneo, is driving widespread deforestation across Kapuas Hulu with two other plantations, yet its palm fruit is still entering global “zero-deforestation” supply chains through intermediary mills despite corporate no-buy pledges.
- Environmental groups are urging the government to halt or revoke ESR’s permits and protect the orangutan-rich landscape, warning that continued clearing undermines Indonesia’s climate commitments and threatens both biodiversity and cultural survival.

Wolf hauls up crab trap to eat bait, hinting at possible tool use
Researchers in Canada have documented a wild gray wolf hauling a crab trap out of the water to eat the bait inside, according to a recent study. Researchers suggest it may be the first recorded example of possible tool use by a wolf (Canis lupus). The finding emerged from a program maintained by Indigenous Haíɫzaqv […]
From waffle gardens to terraces, Indigenous groups revive farming heritage in America’s deserts
- Native American farmers in the southwestern United States have long deployed weather-adaptive techniques to grow crops such as corn and beans in high-desert environments only occasionally visited by rain.
- In recent years, a variety of tribal groups have arisen to train the next generation of Native American farmers as a means of promoting cultural identity and improving self-sufficiency, health and well-being while using farming strategies that have worked for centuries on arid lands.
- The techniques range from hillside terracing and “waffle” gardening, to water conservation and leveraging microclimates on a piece of land.
- During Native American Heritage Month in November, Mongabay spoke with the leaders of these groups about their traditional farming techniques and how they can be replicated in increasingly dry regions around the world.

Plans to dispose of mining waste in Norway’s Arctic Ocean worries Sámi fishers, herders
- Mining company Blue Moon Metals plans to dispose of its mining waste in Repparfjord, a nationally protected salmon fjord in the Norwegian Arctic that Indigenous Sámi fishers rely on.
- When operational, the Nussir ASA copper mine will deposit between 1 million and 2 million metric tons of tailings at the bottom of the fjord annually, according to the company’s permit.
- The Norwegian Environment Agency told Mongabay that the company plans to place its mining waste into the fjord in a controlled manner to limit the dispersal of harmful residues.
- Some Sámi residents, whose livelihoods depend on fishing and reindeer herding, told Mongabay they fear the tailings and mine will destroy vital marine habitats for salmon and disrupt traditional reindeer breeding and migration areas.

Mongabay Fellows share their ‘Letters to the Future’
Uncertainty and hope — these sentiments prevail in a series of commentaries published by the latest cohort of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as they conclude their program and forge new paths into environmental journalism. Uncertainty centers on the future of our planet, the journalists who cover it and the people who defend it. […]
Healing life on Earth begins with healing our bonds: Voices from the land (commentary)
- When Indigenous activists in Samoa talk about healing the planet, what they are really talking about is healing the vā, the space between things and the invisible thread between people, land, ocean, ancestors and future generations, says Brianna Fruean, member of the Council of Elders for the Pacific Climate Warriors, or 350 Pacific.
- Fruean says many Indigenous knowledge systems, from the Pacific to the Amazon, already hold the principles of balance, reciprocity and care that our world needs.
- “We cannot solve this crisis with the same mindset that caused it,” she says in this opinion piece. “The path forward is not only paved with innovation, but with a return to watering and feeding our relationships.”
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Women can help rebuild our relationship with lions: Voices from the land (commentary)
- The inclusion of women in Africa’s lion conservation efforts is essential to not only to protect the species, but to do so sustainably with the buy-in of nearby communities — which at times can have a tense and challenging relationship with the predatory species, say members of the Mama Simba, a program within Ewaso Lions made up of Samburu women in Kenya.
- The women say they remember how, when they were young, wildlife was in abundance, that their parents and grandparents lived alongside wildlife in harmony and that lions held a powerful place in their culture, identity and daily lives.
- “Everything changes when women are not asked to sit on the sidelines but invited to lead,” they say in this opinion piece.
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Report urges full protection of world’s 196 uncontacted Indigenous peoples
- A comprehensive global report on uncontacted Indigenous peoples, published Oct. 27 by Survival International, estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Asia and the Pacific region.
- About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon — especially in Brazil, home to 124 groups. Survival International says that, unless governments and private companies act, half of the groups could be wiped out within 10 years.
- Nine out of 10 of these Indigenous groups face the threat of unsolicited contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups.
- After contact, Indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International says that, if these peoples are to survive, they must be fully protected, requiring serious noncontact commitments by governments, companies and missionaries.

Forest sanctuaries and spiritual balance in the Karen highlands of Thailand
- One of Thailand’s largest Indigenous groups, Karen Pgaz K’Nyau culture is deeply rooted in animist beliefs that emphasize the importance of living in balance with nature.
- Their approach to land management incorporates sacred and community forests and traditional small-scale farming, where rituals, prayers and customary regulations govern the use of natural resources.
- However, the pressures of modernization and exclusionary conservation policies undermine their capacity to continue their spiritual practices on ancestral land, threatening cultural identity, food security and ecosystem integrity in many highland villages.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
- For generations, the Pakayaku community in Ecuador’s Amazon has successfully kept unsustainable mining, logging and oil extraction activities out of forests while preserving their cultural traditions and ecological knowledge.
- Mongabay visited the community to see their guardian program, made up of 45 women warriors who constantly patrol 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of rainforest to detect incursions — which few have been allowed to witness firsthand.
- The community created a “plan of life” map that details their vision, identity and economic alternatives to extraction.
- Leaders worry Ecuador’s concentration on courting international investment in sectors like mining and natural gas could threaten the forests.

Booming sea otters and fading shellfish spark values clash in Alaska
- In Alaska, a state brimming with iconic wildlife — from grizzly bears to king salmon, humpback whales to harbor seals — the charismatic, densely coated sea otter stands out as perhaps the state’s most hotly debated, controversial species.
- Sea otters were nearly hunted into extinction a century ago for their luxurious pelts. But they have been surging in population in the Gulf of Alaska, bringing both benefits to nearshore ecosystems and drawbacks to the shellfish economy (due to the otters’ voracious caloric needs).
- Described by commercial shellfish harvesters and Native Alaskans as pillagers of clams and crabs, sea otters are seen by many marine biologists as having positive impacts on kelp forests — important for biodiversity and carbon storage. Scientists stress that shellfish declines are complex, with sea otters being just one among multiple causes.
- Native Alaskans are the only people given free rein to hunt sea otters. But long-standing federal regulations stipulating who qualifies as Native Alaskan make it illegal for most to manage their own waters. Tribes are fighting for regulatory changes that would enable them to hunt and help balance booming sea otter populations.

As the Andes’ glaciers melt, our values can help: Voices from the land (commentary)
- The snow-capped mountains in Colombia’s Andes range are rapidly melting due to climate change, says Yesid Achicue, an Indigenous mountain guide for local and international trekkers.
- He says this is extremely alarming, considering the role that snow-capped mountains play in various ecosystems and water sources, as well as the cultural and spiritual value nearby Indigenous communities have given them since time immemorial.
- “It is, in my opinion, our values, and how these belief systems manifest themselves in our societies and cultures, that help determine whether we can slow or cushion the impacts of these melting glaciers,” Achicue writes in this opinion piece. “Currently, treating the world and life as resources to be plundered is creating the climate crisis, and different values can change it.”
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

In Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, youths blend ancestral and world faiths to protect forests
- In the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, Indigenous youths continue to practice Arat Sabulungan, a cosmology that sees nature as filled with spirits, while blending it with Islam and Christianity.
- Researchers documented 11 rituals linking spirituality to forest management, such as offerings before tree felling and periods of abstinence, showing how traditions are adapted across generations.
- Scholars note that rituals can both restrain overuse and legitimize extraction, highlighting the complex role of Indigenous cosmology in shaping human-nature relations under modern pressures.
- Ongoing logging, land-use change and weak government support have stripped large tracts of forest from the Mentawais, undermining the islands’ ecosystems and the cultural practices tied to them.

COP26 pledge to support Indigenous & local forest tenure was just met. What was learned?
- The $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference has been met one year ahead of schedule.
- Sources told Mongabay that the pledge led to an increase in funding for Indigenous peoples and local communities’ tenure and guardianship, but direct funding to these groups still remained low.
- The pledge succeeded in meeting its goals thanks to the continuous coordination between donors, said stakeholders, and funding patterns shifted over the years to increase direct funding to Indigenous peoples and local communities, as well as to groups in Asia.
- Stakeholders said future pledges must involve early and consistent dialogue with communities, support for the rights of forest defenders, simplified processes and reduced administrative barriers for more direct funding, as well as greater inclusion of women and youth.

Saving Mexico City’s ancient floating farms
This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Mongabay. MEXICO CITY, Mexico — After years of working abroad in marine conservation, Cassandra Garduño returned home to find the chinampas of her childhood, Mexico City’s ancient floating farms, choked with pollution and abandoned. Instead of walking away, she bought a piece of land and […]
Brazil Supreme Court creates park to honor last man of the Tanaru people
Brazil’s Supreme Court has approved the creation of Tanaru National Park in the western Amazon state of Rondônia, protecting the land where the last member of the Tanaru Indigenous people, known as the “Man of the Hole,” or Tanaru, lived in isolation until his death in 2022. The park will serve as a memorial to […]
Indigenous myths reveal Amazon’s past truths: Interview with Stéphen Rostain
- Recent archaeological findings, bolstered by laser-based lidar mapping and by archaeologist Stéphen Rostain, reveal that the Amazon supported vast and complex ancient urban societies.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Rostain says the ancient Upano Valley culture in Ecuador collapsed due to severe drought, offering a stark warning for the Amazon’s current climate vulnerability.
- Rostain says he’s hopeful that a new archaeological understanding of the Amazon will challenge centuries of prejudice against Indigenous people and offer answers for the future.

The Indigenous tradition sustaining Nepal’s alpine pastures amid climate change
- The Gurung people of Nepal’s Himalayas manage fragile alpine pastures through the ‘thiti’ system, which sets annual guidelines for rotational grazing, forest use and herb collection.
- Livestock owners pay small per-animal fees that finance habitat protection and support herders, ensuring resources are used fairly.
- Conservationists view thiti as a proven Indigenous approach to protecting high-altitude grasslands threatened by climate change.
- Out-migration, shrinking pasturelands, tourism growth and lack of legal recognition are weakening the tradition.

Bridging Indigenous and Western knowledge with science and radio
Aimee Roberson, executive director of Cultural Survival, joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss how her organization helps Indigenous communities maintain their traditions, languages and knowledge while living among increasingly Westernized societies. As a biologist and geologist with Indigenous heritage, Aimee Roberson is uniquely suited to lead the organization in bridging these worlds, including via “two-eyed seeing,” […]
An ancient Indigenous civilization endures beneath an Amazon urban soy hub
- Ocara-Açu, a vast precolonial Amazon settlement, underlies the modern-day city of Santarém in Brazil, once serving as the core of a regional network that may have housed up to 60,000 people before the invasion of Europeans.
- Occasionally, Santarém’s rich Indigenous heritage surfaces through the cracks in the urban concrete, although archaeological sites have disappeared as a result of urban expansion, agriculture, and the construction of a soy terminal by commodities giant Cargill.
- Archaeological discoveries in the Santarém region challenge the long-held belief that the Amazon was too harsh to sustain large, complex human cultures, revealing a radically different urban paradigm.

Photos: Indigenous elders push for comeback of the revered Philippine crocodile
- The critically endangered Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) embodies strength and protective spirits for Indigenous Agta elders who are involved in efforts to rebrand the image of the predator.
- Thanks to conservation efforts led by the Mabuwaya Foundation in partnership with local and Indigenous communities, the wild crocodile population in a region of the northern Philippines increased from one adult in 1999 to 125 individuals by 2024.
- Community sanctuary guards, known as Bantay Sanktuwaryo, play a significant role in safeguarding the crocodiles and their habitat despite ongoing challenges posed by illegal fishing, agricultural encroachment and inadequate law enforcement.
- Conservationists warn that without stable funding and stronger government support, even successful grassroots efforts may not ensure the species’ long-term survival.

The making of an autonomous Indigenous nation in Peru’s Amazon
- The Wampís Indigenous people of northern Peru have spent decades resisting the expansion of oil drilling and other extractive projects in their Amazonian territory.
- In 2015, they became the first Indigenous group in the country to declare themselves an autonomous nation.
- While this has led to some positive results in the form of security and conservation work, the Wampís lack the resources to develop productive initiatives and expand guard posts across their 1.3-million-hectare (3.2-million-acre) territory.
- The state has not recognized the autonomous nation, a requirement for the Wampís people to receive direct funding from the state and international donors.

Amazon jambu blends tradition and science for numbing flavors and healthcare
- Besides being a star in Amazonian cuisine, new research confirms jambu’s spilanthol compound as a temporary pain reliever, circulation enhancer and anti-inflammatory.
- Promoting forest-sourced products like jambu, grown in home gardens and small farms, provides new revenue and a pathway for a development model that prioritizes Amazon conservation.
- Projections suggest the bioeconomy could expand 30-fold into a multi-billion-dollar market by 2040, while supporting small-scale, sustainable farmers.

Filipino communities use vast variety of endemic plants for health: Study
- In the mountains of Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines, the Manobo-Dulangan community continues to rely on plant-based medicine for everyday health needs, passing down healing knowledge through generations.
- A new study documents 796 plant species used by 34 Philippine ethnolinguistic groups, highlighting the deep ties between traditional knowledge, health care and biodiversity.
- Environmental threats like logging and limited state support are putting this knowledge system at risk, with most Indigenous medicinal practices still under-documented and unintegrated into formal health care.
- Community members and researchers alike are calling for stronger recognition, environmental protection and responsible efforts to preserve Indigenous knowledge in a rapidly modernizing world.

What we can learn from the Nuer people and their sacred birds
For the pastoralist Nuer people who migrate with the seasons between western Ethiopia’s Gambella region and Africa’s largest wetland, the Sudd, in South Sudan, birds are gaatkuoth or “sacred children of God.” The community has identified at least 71 bird species that are culturally important to them and useful in traditional medicine, as well as […]
Landmark Indigenous land title in Ecuador protected area still in limbo
- Twenty months after a landmark court ruling granted the Siekopai Nation land rights within a protected Amazon area, the Ecuadorian government has yet to issue the official title, with sources citing legal issues, government hesitancy and intercommunity conflicts.
- Tensions have escalated between the Siekopai and the Kichwa de Zancudo Cocha communities, which both claim ancestral ties to the land, with reported incidents of violence and a lack of compromise.
- Some critics say the conflict stems from improper agreements made by the state without adequate consultation and that or a growing scarcity of land in the Amazon.
- Indigenous leaders and experts call for greater government accountability, improved mediation and potentially a jointly managed protected area to resolve the dispute and prevent similar conflicts in other regions of the country.

Landmark Indigenous land title in Ecuadorian Amazon reserve mired in controversy
- A 2023 court ruling granted land rights in Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Reserve to the Siekopai people, recognizing their ancestral ties and setting a precedent for Indigenous land claims in protected areas.
- The decision has sparked controversy, as it affects the Kichwa de Zancudo Cocha, another Indigenous people with ties to the same land and a government agreement.
- The case has raised broader concerns about inter-Indigenous conflict, the role of NGOs and the limits of state agreements in resolving overlapping land claims.
- Many Indigenous leaders argue that land titling is essential but warn that current legal approaches risk intensifying disputes rather than promoting shared stewardship.

Indigenous groups debate use of land agreements in Ecuador’s protected areas
- The Kichwa de Zancudo Cocha community lost some of the land it had been managing in the Cuyabeno Reserve under an agreement with the Ecuadorian government when the Siekopai Nation was awarded a land title in a 2023 court case.
- While these agreements have allowed Indigenous communities to manage ancestral lands in protected areas, critics argue they offer limited autonomy and can favor the government.
- Land titles provide greater self-determination and legal permanence for Indigenous communities, though some argue they could impact conservation efforts in protected areas.
- Some Indigenous leaders worry that the case could have side effects that aggravate disputes over ancestral land claims and undermine their own agreements, while others highlight that it’s an opportunity for communities to obtain firmer land rights.

Ecuador’s government promised same land in the Amazon to two Indigenous peoples
- A court in Ecuador ordered the delivery of a property title within the Cuyabeno Reserve to the Siekopai Nation, intensifying a long-simmering dispute with the Kichwa de Zancudo Cocha community, which also has claims to the land.
- The ruling challenges an existing 2008 land and conservation agreement between the Kichwa community and the environment ministry, with the former set on armed resistance.
- Some observers argue that the government’s failure to properly consult all affected groups before signing land agreements has fueled this dispute.
- Indigenous people are calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict amid growing concerns that the ruling could impact other land agreements and intensify Indigenous land conflicts in Ecuador’s Amazon.

Indigenous rubber bounces back for Amazon conservation and higher income
- Rubber tapping in the forest was once the main Amazonian economic activity, and now an Indigenous group is bringing it back.
- Partnering with Brazilian organizations, Indigenous Gavião communities find they can simultaneously protect the forest and its cultural heritage while boosting their own livelihoods through the wild rubber trade.
- The initiative is part of a broader Indigenous-led bioeconomy movement in the Amazon that attracts younger generations by combining traditional practices with technical training and earning opportunities.
- Despite promising results, challenges such as drought and limited private sector engagement highlight the need for increased investment to scale up forest-based alternatives.

Ancient eco-friendly pilgrimage brings modern threats to Sri Lanka wildnerness
- The centuries-old Pada Yatra is a spiritual pilgrimage on foot that takes devotees through two major national parks in Sri Lanka, originally undertaken by Hindu devotees.
- Over time, it started to attract followers of other faiths, but many now join it as an adventure hike, raising concerns about the erosion of its spiritual essence and environment consciousness.
- Participation in the Pada Yatra has surged, with more than 31,000 pilgrims making the 20-day journey in 2024, and this year, this number was reached within the first seven days, raising serious concerns about increasing numbers and increasing environmental issues.
- Despite waste management efforts, the growing numbers of attendees are contributing to pollution and environmental degradation, like the impacts seen at Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka’s Peak Wilderness, where people leave a trail of environmental destruction.

After USAID cut, Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area aims for self-sufficiency
- The abrupt end of USAID funding has disrupted conservation progress in Ethiopia’s Tama Community Conservation Area (TCCA), where community-led efforts had curbed illegal hunting and led to an increase in elephant and giraffe populations.
- In response, local leaders and communities are working to become financially self-sufficient by establishing income-generating initiatives.
- But progress is hindered by the lack of a functioning office, expert staff, and basic operational resources.
- While experts recognize the area’s strong potential for ecotourism and community benefit, they warn that poverty, conflict and climate challenges, combined with weak infrastructure, make external technical and financial support critical for a successful transition to self-reliance.

Fire is both destruction and rebirth for Maya communities of Belize
- Wildfires in 2024 heavily impacted the Maya communities of southern Belize, burning 43,987 hectares (108,695 acres), a staggering 10.2% of the region’s forest and farmland.
- Fire has always been a sacred element to the Maya people, central in ancestral Mother Earth celebrations and in the traditional practice of slash-and-burn. But it has now become a debated topic, after the 2024 wildfires, exacerbated by the climate crisis.
- The Julian Cho Society, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to the conservation of the Indigenous lands of southern Belize, is working for a rebirth: distributing 30,000 seedlings of ancestral trees to restore fire-scarred farms and implement agroforestry.

Indigenous guards: The shield of Colombia’s Amazon
- For years, using organization and collaboration, unarmed guards in Colombia have acted as protective barriers of territories, the environment and communities.
- These days, the guards combine their traditional knowledge with monitoring technology, such as GPS and satellite imagery, so the data can be used by government entities.
- Working to protect their territory has put them in danger: Between 2014 and 2024, at least 70 Indigenous guardians have been killed in Colombia.
- A team of journalists tracked five cases in the Colombian departments of Amazonas, Putumayo and Guainía to get a firsthand look at these defense processes and the risks Indigenous guardians face.

From catching fish to picking trash, Thailand’s sea nomads are forced off the water
The Moken, a nomadic seafaring people in Thailand, have for generations lived most of their days at sea, moving from one place to another, fishing and foraging. However, with protected areas and increasing tourism restricting their access to fishing, and fish populations declining, the Moken are no longer able to follow their traditional way of […]
Nine takeaways on Brazil’s crackdown on illegal mining in Munduruku lands
Mongabay published a five-part series delving into Brazil’s ongoing operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories, deep in the Amazon Rainforest. While there has been some disruption to mining in the region, Munduruku organizations told Mongabay the operation is not yet completely successful, with small groups of illegal miners, or garimpeiros, still […]
‘Culture & nature are one’: Interview with Mudja Chief Bitini Ndiyanabo Kanane
- Bitini Ndiyanabo Kanane has been the customary chief of the Mudja community near Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2001, having ascended to power through family heritage and assuming the role of a protector — both of his community and the environment, which is home to many rare and endangered species.
- Over the course of decades, Indigenous communities with ancestral homes in Virunga have been expelled from the park; today, decades-old conflict has flared in the region, with a surge of M23 rebel violence that has displaced more than a million people in 2025 so far.
- The chief tells Mongabay that culture and nature are one, and that culture plays a critical part in the community’s conservation efforts in and around Virunga.
- Many of the Mudja community’s traditional customs work to preserve, rather than exploit, plant and animal species, the chief explains.

Stars & lighthouses: Marine conservation that blends Pacific Islander wisdom and Western knowledge (commentary)
- The U.N. Ocean Conference this week is tackling a range of issues, such as how to conserve and sustainably use the oceans and marine resources: a new op-ed argues that the strength of Indigenous islander conservation practices lies in their flexibility and adaptability, while Western conservation efforts bring clear, formal, and intentional goals — and that blending the two can return inspiring results.
- “Conservation is not just about the number of lighthouses we build — about visible policies and formal designations — but we must also name and recognize the stars that have guided us all along; the quiet, steadfast traditions that have protected our oceans for thousands of years,” the author writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Revived hydropower project to bring forced displacement, Peru communities warn
- The construction of the Pakitzapango hydroelectric dam in Peru’s Junín region should be a matter of national interest, according to a bill proposed in February that claims the project would boost national energy security.
- The dam would be constructed on a sacred gorge on the Ene River that is central to the mythology of the local Indigenous Asháninka population. The reservoir would flood homes and ancestral territories of more than 13 communities, as well as cemeteries where many Asháninka people who were killed during a recent internal war are buried.
- The proposal is a revival of a project that was canceled more than a decade ago due to environmental irregularities and local rejection.
- Community members speaking to Mongabay are worried they will be forced to move, while environmental experts challenged the project’s energy security rationale.

Methods to recognize the Amazon’s isolated peoples: Interview with Antenor Vaz
- Mongabay interviewed Antenor Vaz, an international expert on recognition methodologies and protection policies for Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact (PIACI), about the importance of confirming and recognizing the existence of isolated peoples.
- Vaz is a regional adviser for GTI-PIACI, an international working group committed to the protection, defense and promotion of the rights of PIACI, which recently launched a report to help governments, Indigenous organizations and NGOs prove the existence of Indigenous peoples living in isolation.
- In this interview, Vaz highlights strategies states can use to confirm and recognize the existence of isolated peoples while maintaining the no-contact principle.

Indigenous forest stewards watch over one of the world’s rarest raptors
The Philippine eagle is considered one of the world’s rarest birds of prey, with roughly 400 breeding pairs left in the wild. Amid ongoing threats from logging and hunting, Indigenous forest rangers are helping conservationists protect the species’ nests and habitat, Mongabay contributor Bong S. Sarmiento reported last year. Datu Julito Ahao of the Obu […]
A new mall for the village: How carbon credit dollars affect Indigenous Guyanese
- Indigenous communities in Guyana, such as the Kapohn people, have received funds from carbon credit sales negotiated by the government, but many criticize the lack of consultation, rushed implementation, and projects that have not met local needs.
- Although Indigenous lands contribute to the Guyanese carbon credit program, many remain without full legal recognition or protection, and leaders argue that their autonomy and traditional rights are being undermined in favor of state-managed initiatives.
- Amid growing concerns over land rights, mining concessions and transparency, Indigenous voices are calling for meaningful participation, cultural respect, and development plans rooted in their own priorities and knowledge systems.

Indigenous rights advocates petition to overturn Indonesian conservation law
- In Indonesia, where state-designated conservation areas often overlap with customary territories, Indigenous peoples have faced prosecution and imprisonment for living in and managing their ancestral lands as they always have.
- Many hoped a new 2024 conservation law would recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples to manage their lands; instead, the law continues to sideline communities and potentially criminalizes their traditional practices, despite scientific evidence that Indigenous peoples are among the most effective stewards of nature.
- Indigenous rights proponents say the new law was passed without meaningful participation of Indigenous peoples, and several groups have filed a judicial review petition with the Constitutional Court, seeking to overturn the new law.

Malaysian timber company accused of abuse & rights violations: Report
A new Human Rights Watch report alleges abuse and human rights violations in an Indigenous community in Malaysia’s Sarawak state. The report finds Malaysian timber company Zedtee Sdn Bhd (Zedtee) destroyed culturally valuable forests without the consent of Indigenous people, who are facing an eviction notice from their land. The HRW report says the Sarawak […]
Global prize longlists Mongabay feature on Maxakali reforestation in Brazil
A Mongabay feature on Indigenous-led reforestation efforts in southeastern Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has been longlisted for the environmental reporting category of the 2025 One World Media Awards, a leading journalism prize. Mongabay senior editor Xavier Bartaburu reported the story from Maxakali Indigenous land in Minas Gerais state, where the Maxakali, who also refer to themselves […]
Warming seas and illegal trawlers threaten West Africa’s fishing future, study warns
A new paper paints a grim picture for the future of fishing communities in the Gulf of Guinea along coastal West Africa. Faced with increasing ocean warming and declining fish stocks, fishing communities in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria struggle to survive. The paper’s authors advocate for income diversification among fishing communities as a critical […]
‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Mongabay interviewed José Homero Mutumbajoy, an experienced Indigenous rights defender in Colombia, to hear his take on some of the latest and biggest events affecting Indigenous communities and forests in the country’s Amazon.
- Events include protests against Libero Cobre’s copper mine, the impacts of armed groups, protections of forests for isolated peoples and plans for the upcoming U.N. climate conference.
- Homero Mutumbajoy and other Indigenous delegates came to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City to spotlight issues they face in their country.
- Homero Mutumbajoy is the human rights and peace coordinator for OPIAC, the national organization for Colombia’s Amazon peoples.

In Borneo village, Indigenous Dayaks leave farming amid stricter fire rules
- Rice growers from an Indigenous Dayak community in Central Kalimantan province say stricter rules enacted to prevent wildfires have contributed to a decline in the number of farmers growing rice, potentially elevating risks of food insecurity among rural communities on Indonesian Borneo.
- Remie, a 46-year-old from Mantangai subdistrict, said higher input costs have also worsened the business case for growing rice. Many Dayak farmers have migrated in search of alternative work, local officials said.
- “We don’t burn the forest,” the kepala adat, the customary law authority, in Mantangai Hulu village told Mongabay Indonesia.

How a remote diner in India is fueling a culinary and ecological revival
CHUNG VALLEY, India — Tucked away in the remote Chug Valley of Northeast India, Damu’s Heritage Dine is quietly leading a food revolution. Run by a group of Monpa women in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, this humble diner is bringing ancient mountain flavors back to life, one traditional dish at a time. […]
Indigenous aguaje tree climbers bring down profits in Peru’s Amazon — sustainably
- The aguaje, a tropical palm tree that grows in peatlands and other wetland areas in tropical South America, produces oval-shaped fruits that can be consumed raw or processed to make beverages, soap, oils and other products.
- The discovery of its market potential in the 1990s led to destructive harvesting and genetic degradation as people filed to palm swamps in the Peruvian Amazon to collect the fruits.
- Sustainable harvesting techniques, such as climbing the aguaje tree to collect the fruit instead of cutting it down, have taken hold in local communities that previously cut down the trees.
- Transportation, the lack of phone and internet connections, the impact of climate change on ecological processes and the lack of a secure market to sell aguaje fruits remain a challenge for communities.

How cultural and religious beliefs combine for snow leopard conservation (commentary)
- “Deep-rooted cultural beliefs and legal protections continue to play a crucial role in safeguarding snow leopards, supported by awareness campaigns that reinforce traditional practices and conservation,” a new commentary explains.
- In many areas across their range where livestock are killed by the rare predators, farmers’ religious customs often dictate that they must not harmed in retaliation.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Photos: Colombia’s Indigenous Nasa push back against cultural loss to reconnect with nature
- Ofelia Opocué, a Nasa elder, was forced to leave her community in southwestern Colombia 23 years ago, and is now reviving her culture by creating an Indigenous governing body and bringing back the Saakhelu ritual.
- The ritual celebrates life and Mother Earth, uniting Nasa people displaced by Colombia’s decades-long violent conflict through dance, music and planting seeds.
- Ofelia and her family are among the more than 5 million internally displaced people in the country, many of whom are Indigenous people.
- Indigenous communities are particularly vulnerable to cultural loss following displacement, as their cultural and spiritual practices are intricately tied to their ancestral lands, researchers say.

A Kichwa women’s collective uses ecotourism to safeguard Ecuador’s Amazon
- Sani Warmi is a women’s collective that runs ecotourism activities and practices agroecology to generate income and conserve the Ecuadorian Amazon.
- Its members guide tourists around the traditional chacra — a diversified agroecological system — and introduce them to their traditional foods and practices.
- The group produces organic chocolate with cacao grown on a community plot and on their smallholdings and has a fish-farming project.
- These initiatives reduce the need to extract resources from the forest, protecting this area which is home to approximately 600 bird species.

India’s Indigenous restaurateurs bring tribal cuisines to the city
Indigenous entrepreneurs in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand are popularizing traditional tribal foods with urban restaurants, reports Mongabay India’s Kundan Pandey. One such restaurant is Ajam Emba in Jharkhand’s capital, Ranchi. The name means “delicious taste” in Kurukh, the language spoken by the Indigenous Oraon community. Founded by Aruna Tirkey, a member of the […]
Sumatran culinary heritage at risk as environment changes around Silk Road river
- Research shows that landscape changes across the Musi River Basin in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province risks food security across the river delta as fish stocks diminish and protein availability declines, including in the provincial capital, Palembang.
- Some fish traders and artisans in the city of 1.8 million worry culinary culture in Palembang is becoming endangered as rising sedimentation in the Musi River threatens the freshwater snakehead murrel fish.
- Reporting in March, during the fasting month of Ramadan, showed prices of food staples made from this fish increasing sharply from previous months as demand surged for fast-breaking events.

Indonesia’s Indigenous Akit community faces exploitation & land loss (commentary)
- For the Akit tribe of Sumatra and countless other Indigenous communities, their land is more than what provides their livelihoods. Rather, it is their past, present, and future, and more than that, it is like their body, a new op-ed explains.
- But the Akit community has steadily seen rights to its territory eroded, as the land continues to fall into the possession of private companies.
- “Respecting Indigenous self-determination is not just a matter of justice, but a journey to a more resilient future,” the authors argue.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

With biological and cultural diversity at literal crossroads in the tropics, a new approach is needed (commentary)
- Both biological and linguistic diversity are greatest in tropical regions, and both are endangered by unprecedented rates of road expansion.
- Will current paradigms for language and species protection help to protect this wealth of diversity into the next century, a new op-ed asks.
- While a “no roads” approach is unlikely to work in areas of overlapping cultural and biological richness, a framework of “people with nature” that acknowledges issues of justice and social equity, recognizes that local people have a right to environmental self-determination, understands that people and other-than-human species are intrinsically intertwined, and that solutions must be inclusive, could work, this commentary argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

10 unique community-led conservation solutions in the face of environmental despair
- Recent events and policy decisions across the world are worrying conservationists and climate researchers.
- Events include funding cuts to conservation projects, countries and companies rolling back on their climate commitments, and reports of declining wildlife populations as governments continue pursuing unsustainable economic development efforts.
- Although environmental efforts globally have been impacted, community conservation solutions persist with proven impacts for biodiversity conservation while restoring nature and benefiting people.
- Here, Mongabay lists out ten unique community-led initiatives across the world that show positive and proven impacts.

Yaku Raymi: The Quechua Ritual to Save a Glacier
SANTA FE, Peru — What happens when a glacier dies? In the community of Santa Fe, in Peru, water is disappearing, animals are dying due to a lack of pasture and rainfall has become sporadic. The community members know that climate change is affecting the apu, or mountain god, but they say that transforming a […]
Gaza and West Bank farmers salvage olive harvest amid displacement, destruction and Israeli settler violence
- The recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire prompted Gazan farmers to salvage what remained of their 2024 olive harvest two months late.
- However, Israeli settlers tripled their attacks on West Bank olive farmers during the 2024 harvest, destroying 3,100 trees and injuring dozens. Restricted access to their land cost Palestinian farmers 1,365 tons of oil, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture.
- Despite violence and restrictions, the West Bank produced 27,300 tons of olive oil — far exceeding forecasts.
- Israeli settlers have degraded Palestinian agricultural areas through arson, wastewater pollution and trash dumping as the Israeli state exploits Ottoman-era laws to seize land.

In Australia’s little-known rainforests, tradition and science collaborate for good
- Australia’s Kimberley region houses some of the country’s most botanically diverse ecosystems: monsoon rainforest patches.
- Although they’ve been harvested and cared for by First Nations groups for millennia, the patches remain largely unsurveyed by modern science as the tropical climate and rugged terrain make access difficult.
- Indigenous ranger teams have been working for more than 20 years to implement land management programs, including traditional burning regimes, in order to conserve the rainforest.
- A recently published general interest book has called for the preservation of Kimberley Monsoon Rainforest patches and for ongoing, close collaboration between First Nations communities and academic teams.

Funerary practices in Fiji protect marine areas while honoring the deceased
- Indigenous (iTaukei) people across Fiji have historically protected their freshwater and marine areas in memory of chiefs and community members who have passed away. These are called aquatic funerary protected areas (FPAs).
- Researchers published a study to shine a light on this sustainable resource management practice, which they say could present a community marine conservation solution in the region but is largely absent from scientific literature and rarely implemented as a strategy.
- FPAs differ in size and practice but can stretch from shoreline to fringing reefs and tend to ban fishing and harvesting of many species for 100 nights after they are declared.
- From 1960 to 2019, communities established a total of 188 FPAs where 44% of FPAs were protected for 100 nights, and 47% protected all resources and associated ecosystems form fishing and harvesting.

Expected ban on Mexican GM corn fetches praise — and worry over imports
- A constitutional ban on transgenic corn production in Mexico is expected to be approved this month and has been lauded by the government as a measure to protect the country’s native corn varieties.
- In recent years, Mexico issued controversial presidential decrees to ban human consumption of transgenic corn and its use in dough and tortillas, claiming genetically modified varieties have adverse health impacts.
- Mexico is the largest importer of U.S. transgenic corn, and in December, an independent USMCA panel ruled the claims that consumption causes negative health impacts weren’t scientifically supported.
- Mexico’s large-scale import of U.S. genetically modified corn is considered by local experts to be a risk to small and Indigenous farmers, as they say it exposes native species of the crop to potential cross-pollination with transgenic seeds.

Native trees, local wildlife thrive under Philippine tribes’ ‘rainforestation’
“Rainforestation” projects led by Indigenous communities in the southern Philippines are reaping benefits for both native trees and local wildlife, reports Mongabay’s Keith Anthony Fabro. On the island of Mindanao lies Mount Kalatungan Range Natural Park, a protected area that’s two-thirds primary forest and is home to Manobo tribespeople. Since 2021, NAMAMAYUK, an Indigenous organization […]
Traditional ecological knowledge isn’t dying — it’s adapting and transforming (Commentary)
- Traditional ecological knowledge in the central Peruvian Amazon is not simply being lost to time, but is rather adapting and evolving to a new modern context.
- Ecotourism is providing important job opportunities for Peruvian Amazonian young adults.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily Mongabay.

Indigenous runners complete seven-month journey for Mother Earth and solidarity
- In May 2024, Indigenous representatives left from opposite ends of the Western hemisphere — Alaska and Patagonia — to embark on a ceremonial relay run to fulfill ancient prophecies.
- Indigenous peoples have undertaken this intercontinental run every four years since 1992, involving sacrifice and physical exertion, to strengthen Indigenous collaborations, share ancestral wisdom, and unite their voices in a powerful display of solidarity.
- History was made this year when the two routes met in Colombia for the first time — the heart of the Americas. The routes arrived with hundreds of sacred staffs from native communities, calling for unity, spiritual regeneration, land rights, water protection and community empowerment.
- The journey concluded with a four-day meeting at the headquarters of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), bringing together global Indigenous leaders and representatives.

Photos: Top new species from 2024
- Scientists described numerous new species this past year, from the world’s smallest otter in India to a fanged hedgehog from Southeast Asia, tree-dwelling frogs in Madagascar, and a new family of African plants.
- Experts estimate that fewer than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science, with potentially millions more awaiting discovery.
- Although such species may be new to science, many are already known to — and used by — local and Indigenous peoples, who often have given them traditional names.
- Upon discovery, many new species are assessed as threatened with extinction, highlighting the urgent need for conservation efforts.

Brazil’s Kadiwéu force international debate about authorship of Indigenous art
- A French publisher has pushed back plans to publish a book containing drawings made by Indigenous Kadiwéu women in Brazil and gifted to French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1935.
- The move followed widespread criticism that the Kadiwéu people were never consulted about the project, given the importance of drawings in their culture.
- While negotiations are now underway to ensure their participation, the incident has revived the long-running debate about copyright and the erasure of Indigenous artistic expressions.
- The Kadiwéu’s graphics, used in body painting and ceramics, are one of the most representative traditions of their culture; their main guardians are women, who now use this art as to both earn income and keep traditions alive.

Scientists, Māori experts uncover new insights into rare spade-toothed whale
- Spade-toothed whales (Mesoplodon traversii) are among the rarest and least-studied whales, partly due to their deep-diving behavior and long periods spent underwater in the vast, underexplored South Pacific Ocean.
- Until recently, only six records of spade-toothed whales had been documented over 150 years, all but one found in Aotearoa New Zealand, a known hotspot for whale strandings.
- The seventh and most recent record, a 5-meter (16-foot) male, stranded in New Zealand in July 2024, was recently dissected by scientists and Māori cultural experts at a scientific research center.
- A key finding was the presence of tiny vestigial teeth in the upper jaw, offering insights into the species’ evolutionary history, with further discoveries anticipated as analysis continues.

‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
- In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury.
- In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

Paraguay’s Indigenous Paĩ Tavyterã communities fight invaders, fires and drought
- In Paraguay’s Amambay department, the arrival of agribusiness, armed groups and drug traffickers has caused the fragmentation and displacement of Indigenous Paĩ Tavyterã communities, who have been threatened and in some cases killed by the invaders.
- The region has been greatly affected by climate change, which has caused cycles of floods, droughts and deadly wildfires that destroy people’s homes and food gardens.
- With little protection from the state, the Paĩ have had to build fences to keep invaders out and have enrolled in firefighting courses to learn how to combat fires more effectively.
- Residents also participate in agroforestry workshops where they exchange ancestral knowledge and learn how to restore native plants and forests.

Borneo’s ‘omen birds’ find a staunch guardian in Indigenous Dayak Iban elders
- In Indonesian Borneo, a community of Indigenous Dayak Iban have fought for the past four decades to protect vast swaths of rainforest that are home to a diverse number of songbirds.
- For the Sungai Utik community members, these birds are regarded as messengers sharing omens and warning from spirits, and must therefore be protected under customary laws that restrict deforestation and the hunting and trading of the birds.
- With the widespread songbird trade across Indonesia driving a decline in songbird species, ornithologists say the traditional knowledge and forest management practiced by groups like the Dayak Iban offer a holistic approach to conservation through a reciprocal relationship with land and forest.
- To ensure this traditional knowledge is passed on to younger generations, Dayak Iban elders share it at an Indigenous school, and a young filmmaker from the community has made a documentary about their struggle to protect the forests.

Genetically modified cotton was planted in a Mato Grosso exclusion zone
- For five years, a farmer in Brazil disregarded biosafety measures and advanced into areas that prevented contamination of native cotton.
- In May 2024, Embrapa, which owns patents for genetically modified cotton, managed to eliminate the exclusion zones in Mato Grosso state.
- Indigenous people fear that the authorization to plant genetically modified cotton throughout the state will lead to contamination of their native varieties, which are used for handicraft production and medicinal purposes.

How a lineage of chiefs built a thriving fish oasis in Lake Malawi
- Lake Malawi accounts for more than 90% of landlocked Malawi’s total fish catch, and a key fishing ground is the water around Mbenje Island.
- The community here has since the 1950s practiced, and enforced, a fisheries management regime that continues to benefit both fishers and local fish stocks.
- Even as fish stocks dwindle and average fish sizes shrink elsewhere across Lake Malawi, around Mbenje Island the fish are bigger and fishers are “assured [of] a good haul.”
- The success of the management scheme is credited to the fact that it’s embedded within the community’s existing power structures, giving it “legitimacy among fishers as it has not been imposed from outside,” according to a researcher.

In Bhutan, a smoked fish tradition helps sustain a vanishing ethnic group
- Bhutan’s last remaining Olep hunter-gatherers rely on a traditional smoked fish, Nya Dosem, made from snowtrout (Schizothorax genus), to sustain their livelihoods.
- The community obtains special fishing permits to allow them to fish for these snowtrout, spending months along the Harachhu River and its tributaries in an area that is also home to the critically endangered white-bellied heron (Ardea Insignis).
- The Oleps’ fishing practices are monitored to ensure the local ecology is preserved, that spawning seasons are honored and that other local species are conserved; in this way, the environment sustains the Oleps, and the Oleps sustain the environment.

Evolution of the Pan Amazon in the post-Jesuit era
- Once the economy fostered by the Jesuits withered away, the population, now much diminished, reverted to the subsistence livelihoods that had always been a mainstay of the region.
- The pace of colonization in the Portuguese Amazon accelerated following the Jesuits’ expulsion. The Companhia de Comércio do Grão-Pará e Maranhão’s primary business model was to accelerate the African slave trade in the coastal provinces of Maranhão, but it also radically changed the economics and demographics of the Amazon floodplain.
- In the case of Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, after the abolition of slavery, the countries imported labor from India (under the rule of the British Empire) and from the Dutch East Indies. Their shared history is more similar to that of the Caribbean than that of the Amazon.

If all life mattered, what would decision-making look like? (Analysis)
- Across the world, Indigenous and other communities embedded in nature have articulated, as part their resistance to external domination, an inseparability of nature from all human activity.
- The authors say these worldviews challenge a dominant strand of Western thinking: that humans alone are possessed of rights and that other species exist only for human use.
- As Indigenous leaders at the COP16 U.N. biodiversity conference underline the need for humanity to live at peace with nature, the authors say people who live in urban-industrial contexts alienated from the rest of nature need to understand the principles of traditional governance systems, and support communities in strengthening them. However, they say, we should also bring in changes to deal with the internal inequities or weaknesses of these systems.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indigenous advocates lament decade of failures by Indonesia’s Jokowi
- Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president for the past decade, failed to make good on his promises to recognize and protect Indigenous people’s rights, Indigenous rights groups says.
- With Jokowi, as he’s commonly known, leaving office on Oct. 20, the advocacy group GERAK MASA compiled a list of 11 policy actions that it said had harmed Indigenous peoples and their rights over the last 10 years.
- These include pro-investor policies that sideline local communities and make it easy to expropriate their land without their consent or participation.
- AMAN, the country’s main Indigenous alliance, says there’s little hope of improvement under the new president, Prabowo Subianto, given that he’s pledged to continue Jokowi’s legacy — even taking on Jokowi’s son to be his vice president.

The Panamanian shamans working to save their ancestral medicinal plants
- In Santa Marta, a small village in Panama’s Ngäbe-Buglé Indigenous region, aging shamans are seeking to preserve and pass down knowledge of traditional medicinal plants.
- Village members say knowledge of how to identify and use local sacred medicinal plants has assisted the community to treat illnesses and viruses, such as COVID-19.
- Fearing this ancestral knowledge will be lost, Santa Marta’s shamans made a book with photos, names and information about the curative properties of local plants.
- In 2022, researchers from the Technological University of Panama published an ethnobotanical study on the species of Santa Marta’s traditional medicine plants in an effort to safeguard this sacred knowledge.

Revealed: Biomass firm poised to clear Bornean rainforest for dubious ‘green’ energy
- Indonesia’s strategy for increasing renewable energy production could see Indigenous communities lose huge swathes of their forests to biomass plantations.
- Mongabay visited the planned site of one such project on the island of Borneo, where three villages have signed over at least 5,000 hectares of their land to a biomass company. Much of this area, locals say, is covered in rainforest that would presumably be cleared for the project.
- Despite its billing as sustainable, research has shown that burning woody biomass emits more climate change-causing CO2 than coal per unit of electricity produced. The company in Borneo, moreover, has said it plans to export the wood pellets to be produced on its plantation.
- Villagers we spoke to complained of unfair dealing by the company, from inadequate compensation to outright land grabbing with no payment or consent.

In Mexico, Totonac spiritual guides work with scientists to revive ecosystems
- Abuelos de Tajín, spiritual guides from Totonac communities in Mexico, say people are losing their traditional beliefs and ancestral knowledge as their connection with a fast-degrading environment rupture.
- Totonac spirituality is strongly connected to the surrounding ecosystem: Losing biodiversity can precipitate the decline of traditional beliefs, and this loss of traditional spirituality further ruptures values and duties to protect the ecosystem.
- To assess and tackle the state of biodiversity loss and contamination in their environment, the spiritual guides are working with researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico City. Preliminary results show the deforestation rate increased by 44.4% from 1986 to 2023 in one region.
- Spiritual guides are trying to restore and “renovate” their rituals, spirituality and community identity as a way to strengthen their connection to their environment, conserve it and live abundant lives.

Why the Maxakali people are calling on their spirits to recover the Atlantic Forest
- Self-identified as Tikmũ’ũn, the Maxakali people now live in a small fraction of their original territory, which extended across the northeastern hills of Minas Gerais state.
- Confined to four small Indigenous reserves taken over by pasture, the Maxakali suffer from hunger, diseases and high mortality rates; they also lack the Atlantic Forest, essential for maintaining their rich and complex cosmology.
- To reverse deforestation and ensure food sovereignty, the Hãmhi project has been training Maxakali agroforestry agents to create agroforests and reforestation areas; the presence of the yãmĩyxop, the spirit-people, has been essential in this process.

As logging intensifies forest fires, Wet’suwet’en fight to protect old growth
- Members of Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia want to conserve a pristine old-growth watershed, Caas Tl’aat Twah, in its traditional territory. The nation has obtained a logging deferral for Caas Tl’aat Twah and is planning how to protect it permanently.
- Scientists have shown that industrial logging can increase fire intensity in forests by drying out the land. Conserving remaining intact forests such as Caas Tl’aat Twah can prevent fires from getting even worse, they say.
- After decades of large-scale industrial logging only 20% of old growth forests remain in British Columbia. In 2020, the province reported that one-quarter of remaining forests were at high risk for logging and pledged to pause cutting while making land use decisions.
- But four years on, less than half has been deferred — and the province could ultimately authorize logging it.

Bats & bees help ni-Vanuatu predict storms — but will climate change interfere?
- In disaster-prone Vanuatu, Indigenous ni-Vanuatu people traditionally rely on plants and animal species as indicators that predict extreme weather events and help them prepare.
- But climate change is affecting weather patterns, and species’ behavior may impact the accuracy of this knowledge and predictions, elders say.
- Government, national organizations and scientists launched a national booklet and a mobile app to both document these traditional knowledge indicators and assess how climate change is impacting their accuracy.
- Researchers use a citizen science approach that encourages youth and community people’s hands-on participation in documenting species and changes.

Youth leaders revive Indigenous seafood harvesting heritage
This video won for Best Coverage of Indigenous Communities as part of the 2025 Indigenous Media Awards. VANCOUVER ISLAND, Canada–The Nuu-chah-nulth Youth Warrior Family, also known as the Warrior Program, fosters leadership skills in boys and young men across several Indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Part […]
It’s not the end, we have several possible futures: Interview with Indigenous author Ailton Krenak
- ‘Ancestral Future’, a book by Ailton Krenak, the first Indigenous person elected to join the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters), was published in English on July 30, 2024.
- An Indigenous leader, environmentalist, philosopher, poet and writer, Krenak advocates for a paradigm shift away from modern Western notions of progress, development and unrestrained economic growth that are the root cause of global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.
- He says he believes we can change course and that several possible sustainable futures exist if humanity reconnects with ancient wisdom, recognizes Earth as a living organism and lives in harmony with nature.
- In this interview, Krenak discusses his newly translated book and what he thinks our possible futures look like.

Indigenous midwives in Panama strive to preserve traditional medicine for maternal health
- An organization of midwives from Panama’s Ngäbe-Buglé Indigenous group use traditional medicinal plants endemic to the region to assist women with pregnancy and childbirth.
- Known as ASASTRAN, the organization trains midwives and traditional medicine doctors to provide health services to remote villages where hospitals and clinics aren’t accessible.
- Deforestation has reduced the availability of medicinal plants in the Ngäbe-Buglé territory, and ASASTRAN is seeking more government assistance to preserve the curative plants.
- For some Ngäbe-Buglé women, traditional curative plants are the only healing options during childbirth, as Western medicine is often unavailable.

Photos: For Kenya’s Maasai, will a new faith undo age-old conservation traditions?
- Maasai traditional religion, practices and values, led by a laibon, or spiritual leader, have conserved the Loita Forest in Kenya for generations.
- However, the spread of Christianity and government plans to privatize land in the forest worry traditionalists and environmentalists who say the new converts won’t stick to the old community-based conservation ethos, as seen elsewhere in the country.
- Different religious worldviews come with different ways of relating to land, with the age-old customs guided by the laibon no longer carrying the same authority.
- The Loita Forest is an integral part of the greater Serengeti-Masai Mara ecosystem, covered in old-growth cloud forests and home to a collection of charismatic species.

Shaping the next generation of Indigenous rangers: Interview with Manni Edwards
- Aboriginal elders in the far north of Australia’s Queensland state are preparing the next generation of junior rangers to conserve endangered southern cassowaries, take care of their traditional land, safeguard their culture, and hold on to millennia of acquired knowledge.
- Along with declining southern cassowary numbers, traditional knowledge and values are diminishing in youth who put more attention on Western knowledge and technology.
- The young rangers not only spend time learning in classrooms; they also go out into the traditional country with elders who help shape their character and identity as caretakers of their people, land, Mother Earth and themselves.
- Ranger Manni Edwards says the way to effective conservation in his community, and in Australia, is by bringing together scientific and traditional ecological knowledge, which includes wisdom and values that forge a connection between people and nature.

How Europe’s only Indigenous group is inspiring a greener Christianity
- The Sámi are Europe’s only recognized Indigenous group, having hunted, fished and herded reindeer across Arctic Europe for millennia before the arrival of Christianity.
- Today, the Sámi are fighting across their territories to resist mining, logging and energy projects that disrupt traditional activities.
- Sámi thinkers and religious leaders are pushing Scandinavia’s national churches to become allies in their fight for self-determination.
- These churches are increasingly interested in better understanding Indigenous Christian theology like that of the Sámi, which may present an alternative to a traditionally anthropocentric worldview. Some churches and followers, however, are not convinced.

Traditional foods have the potential to help Kashmir communities adapt to climate change: study
- A new study documented an array of wild edible plant species that four ethnic communities in the Kashmiri Himalayas traditionally depend on for food, medicinal use and to earn a living.
- Although the authors say the wild food sources show promise to alleviate food scarcity a and adapt to climate change, threats persist from over-extraction, changing climate, and traditional knowledge loss.
- Local food advocates are urging communities to cultivate and eat wild edible plant species to conserve traditional knowledge of their rich array.

Is ‘legal personhood’ a tool or a distraction for Māori relationships with nature?
- Over the past decade, several Māori iwi (tribes) in Aotearoa New Zealand have made history and fetched international recognition by gaining “legal personhood” status for natural features, including a forest (Te Urewera), a river (Te Awa Tupua), a mountain (Taranaki) and recently, whales and dolphins.
- The move has been mirrored by Indigenous groups and others around the world seeking to boost protections for critical landscapes and natural entities.
- Recognition of legal personhood is seen by some as a reconciliation tool, which can help to undo some of the harm caused by the colonial alienation from the natural world.
- Yet questions remain for Māori, and many other commentators, about the extent to which such a legal instrument can enact meaningful change within a capitalist system, and whether or not such efforts serve to distract from, or contribute to, deeper transformation.

The Wixárika community’s thirteen-year legal battle to stop mining in their sacred territory
- Wirikuta is the most important sacred place for the Indigenous Wixárika people in the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
- In 2010, the communities discovered that mining companies were threatening this place, which is of great importance for biodiversity and culture.
- Since then, they have been fighting a legal battle to expel the 78 contracts threatening the site’s existence.
- Although mining activity is currently suspended thanks to a protection order obtained by the Indigenous community, there is still no definitive resolution. In 2024, they hope this will finally change, and the Mexican judicial system will rule in their favor.

#AllEyesonPapua goes viral to highlight threat to Indigenous forests from palm oil
- Two Indigenous tribes from Indonesia’s Papua region are calling for public support as the country’s Supreme Court hears their lawsuits against palm oil companies threatening to clear their ancestral forests.
- Large swaths of Awyu customary forest lie inside three oil palm concessions that are part of the Tanah Merah megaproject, in Boven Digoel district, while part of the forest of the Moi tribe falls within a concession in Sorong district.
- The cases now being heard mark the latest chapters in long-running legal battles by the tribes to prevent the concession holders from clearing the forests to make way for oil palms.
- Using the hashtag #AllEyesonPapua, in a nod to the #AllEyesonRafah campaign, the tribes and their supporters have gone viral with their cause as they seek to save the forests on which their livelihoods — and lives — depend.

Restoring Indigenous aquaculture heals both ecosystems and communities in Hawai‘i
- The loko i’a system of native fishponds in Hawai‘i has for generations provided sustenance to Indigenous communities, supported fish populations in surrounding waters, and generally improved water quality.
- These benefits, long understood by native Hawaiians, have now been supported by scientists in a new study that looked at the restoration of one such fishpond.
- Unlike commercial fish farms, loko i‘a thrive without feed input and need little management once established — aspects that highlight the holistic thinking and values-based management behind them.
- The study authors say the finding is another step toward communicating Indigenous knowledge to support governmental decision-making, part of wider efforts across the archipelago to weave Indigenous and Western ways of knowing to heal both ecosystems and communities.

As Wall Street assigns a dollar value to nature, Indigenous economics charts different path
- Last year, the New York Stock Exchange proposed a new nature-based asset class which put a price tag on global nature of 5,000 trillion U.S. dollars.
- Though the proposal was withdrawn in January to the relief of many, Indigenous economist Rebecca Adamson argues that an attempt to financialize nature like this — which doesn’t account for the full intrinsic value of ecosystems, and further incentivizes destruction of nature for profit — will likely be revived in the future.
- On this episode of Mongabay's podcast, Adamson speaks with co-host Rachel Donald about Indigenous economic principles based on sustainable usage and respect for nature, rather than unmitigated exploitation of it for profit.
- "The most simple thing would be to fit your economy into a living, breathing, natural physics law framework. And if you look at Indigenous economies, they really talk about balance and harmony, and those aren't quaint customs. Those are design principles," she says.

Indigenous Alaskans drive research in a melting arctic
- In Utqiagvik, Alaska, the Iñupiat rely on whaling and subsistence hunting for the bulk of their diet, a practice dating back thousands of years.
- Powered by mineral wealth, the Iñupiat-run North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management employs a collaborative team of scientists and hunters.
- Though the arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average, the Iñupiat are confident in their ability to adapt their practices to changing conditions.
- The Department of Wildlife Management provides a potential model for collaborations between Indigenous peoples and western researchers — with Indigenous leaders in charge of funding and resource allocation.

Amplifying Indigenous voices at the global level: Interview with Dario Mejía Montalvo
- Dario Mejía Montalvo, an Indigenous leader of the Zenu people of Colombia, recently stepped down from his role as president of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
- With this year’s U.N. biodiversity summit set to take place in his home country, he reflects on some of the major issues affecting Indigenous peoples, including sovereignty, self-determination and direct funding.
- Despite progress made in recognizing Indigenous people’s key role in protecting nature and climate mitigation, they still don’t have enough of a voice or negotiating power in global talks, while communities on the ground continue struggling for their rights to land and to healthy ecosystems and livelihoods.

An ancient Indigenous lagoon system brings water back to a dry town in Ecuador
- The town of Catacocha, located in the south of Ecuador, is in a province known for being almost a desert: dry forest, barren soil and rains that only appear two months in the year.
- A historian discovered the water collection system long ago used by Palta Indigenous people and persuaded locals in Catacocha to apply it.
- By building 250 artificial lagoons, the inhabitants of this region have succeeded in managing rainwater.
- The change that has happened in nine years is visible: They sowed 12,000 plant,s and UNESCO has included the area in its list of ecohydrology demonstration sites.

On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Indigenous women in Indonesian Borneo often have to combine domestic responsibilities with food cultivation, known as behuma in the dialect of the Dayak Pitap community in South Kalimantan province.
- Swidden agriculture relies on burning off discarded biomass before planting land in order to fertilize soil and limit pest infestations. But a law enforcement campaign to tackle wildfires has seen criminal prosecutions of at least 11 Borneo women for using fire to grow small-scale food crops from 2018-2022.
- Dayak women and several fieldworkers say the practice of burning is safe owing to cultural safeguards against fires spreading that have been passed down families for centuries.
- Indonesia’s 2009 Environment Law included a stipulation that farmers cultivating food on less than 2 hectares (5 acres) were exempt from prosecution, but Mongabay analysis shows prosecutors and police have pressed charges against small farmers using other laws.

Secrets from the rainforest’s past uncovered in Amazonian backyards
- Riverbank communities in Amazonas and Rondônia are helping to piece together the puzzle of human presence in the rainforest over the last 10,000 years with archaeological remains found in their backyards and nearby their homes.
- Preserved in household museums, pottery fragments compose a collective project drawing together scientists and communities seeking to understand Amazonia’s past.
- Ancestral soils known as Amazonian Dark Earths with remains of farming and food preparation are offering clues about how humans transformed the forest over time

In a Himalayan Eden, a road project promises opportunity, but also loss
- In Nepal’s sacred Tsum Valley, Buddhist community members are conflicted about the ongoing construction of a road that will pass through the region.
- The Tsum Valley is one of the few, if not last, remaining beyul, or sacred valleys, governed by customary and Buddhist laws, where humans and wildlife have lived together in harmony for more than a millennium.
- The valley has maintained its religious and cultural traditions that have conserved biodiversity and its cultural uniqueness due to its remote location.
- The road is part of a government project that aims to connect every town across the country, bringing economic development and government services closer to remote mountainous communities.

Plastic pollution talks end & Arctic peoples return home to a ‘sink’ of plastic
- In the wake of the plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, a new report highlights the severe impacts of plastics and petrochemicals on Arctic Indigenous communities.
- Indigenous delegates were left with bittersweet feelings that negotiations did not lead to commitments to cut plastic production, while oil companies and producing countries say more recycling is the answer.
- The Arctic is a hemispheric sink collecting plastic pollution from all corners of the world and is melting four times faster than the rest of the world.
- Indigenous communities in Alaska are among those who bear the brunt of climate change and plastic pollution, with studies finding toxic chemicals in peoples’ blood, breast milk and placentas, and melting ice impacting hunting and food security.

Indigenous Bolivians flee homes as backlash to mining protest turns explosive
- Indigenous communities have been threatened and attacked for protesting mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change in the community collective of Acre Antequera.
- The collective, or ayllu, is an Indigenous territorial structure made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture.
- But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater.
- While protesting earlier this month against the harmful impacts of mining, several women in the community said dynamite was thrown into their homes and their children weren’t allowed to attend school.

Goldman Prize Winner Murrawah Johnson says First Nations must be at the forefront of creating change
- Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, an Indigenous Wirdi woman and Traditional Owner from the Birri Gubba Nation, has been awarded the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize in the category of climate and energy.
- Johnson is the co-founder of Youth Verdict, an advocacy group that successfully won a court case against Waratah Coal in Queensland, Australia. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the significance of this case for First Nations rights in Australia, as well as the legal implications for similar cases in the future.
- The case Waratah Coal Pty. Ltd. vs. Youth Verdict Ltd. & Ors (2022) resulted in the Land Court of Queensland recommending a rejection of a mining lease in the Galilee Basin that would have added 1.58 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over its lifespan.
- The case also set multiple precedents in Australia, including being the first successful case to link the impacts of climate change with human rights, and the first to include “on-Country” evidence from First Nations witnesses.

Ecuador’s first Indigenous guard led by Kichwa women: Interview with María José Andrade Cerda
- In 2020, over 40 Kichwa women began organizing themselves to defend their territory and expel mining from the Ecuadorian Amazon. This is how Yuturi Warmi, the first Indigenous guard led by women in the region, began.
- María José Andrade Cerda, one of the leaders of Yuturi Warmi, explains that Indigenous women have an integral vision for territorial defense. Accordingly, Yuturi Warmi’s work includes not only physically guarding and overseeing their territory but also the defense of their culture, ancestrality, language, education, and health.
- In May 2023, María José Andrade Cerda spoke with Mongabay Latam about how they organize themselves and the challenges that women face when defending their territory.

Communities worry anew as PNG revives seabed mining plans
- Coastal communities in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province rely on the sea for their livelihoods and culture.
- But Solwara 1, a resurgent deep-sea mining project aimed at sourcing metals from the ocean floor, could threaten their way of life, community leaders and activists say.
- They also say they haven’t been properly consulted about the potential pros and cons of Solwara 1, and government and company leaders have provided little information to the public about their plans.
- A coalition of leaders, activists and faith-based organizations called the Alliance of Solwara Warriors is opposing the project in Papua New Guinea and abroad, and calling for a permanent ban on seabed mining in the country’s waters.

E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration underscores Indigenous rights as a conservation solution (commentary)
- The E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration calls attention to the key role of Indigenous peoples to (as well as the challenges they face from) climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation programs.
- A word meaning ‘gill of the manta ray’ and released ahead of COP28 last year by Asian Indigenous leaders, the E-Sak Ka Ou Declaration is a reminder of what remains undone toward upholding the rights of Indigenous communities.
- Commitments at the global level to recognize Indigenous knowledge and protect communities’ rights must also be reflected in regional and national policy frameworks, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New report details rights abuses in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ project
- Human Rights Watch has detailed forced evictions, property destruction and violence against Indigenous communities living within a REDD+ carbon offset project area in southwest Cambodia.
- Trade of carbon credits from the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project were suspended last year amid similar allegations, and the project’s carbon certifier recently announced it’s expanding its ongoing investigation.
- Residents told Mongabay that Wildlife Alliance, the NGO that manages the project, has effectively outlawed their traditional methods of farming and livelihood, including restricting their access to sustainable forest products.
- Wildlife Alliance has denied the allegations, suggesting HRW has an agenda against carbon offsetting projects, but says it’s making improvements in response to the allegations.

Why language is central to the survival of cultures and communities
- More than half the world’s languages could go extinct by 2100, The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues says.
- Roughly 4,000 of the world’s 6,700 languages are spoken by Indigenous communities and contain knowledge key for conservation and human health, but multiple factors threaten their existence along with their speakers’ cultures.
- Joining the podcast is Jay Griffiths, author of ‘Wild’ and other seminal books about how language and relationship are central to cultural survival, and why connection to the land is a universal human right.
- The guest also draws parallels between humans, nature and culture: “There’s great research that suggests that we learned ethics from wolves [of taking] an attitude to the world of both me the individual, and of me the pack member,” she says.

Culture and conservation thrive as Great Lakes tribes bring back native wild rice
- Wild rice or manoomin is an ecologically important and culturally revered wetland species native to the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, which once covered thousands of acres and was a staple for Indigenous peoples.
- Over the past two centuries, indiscriminate logging, dam building, mining, and industrial pollution have decimated the wild rice beds, and today climate change and irregular weather patterns threaten the species’ future.
- In recent years, native tribes and First Nations, working with federal and state agencies, scientists and funding initiatives, have led wild rice restoration programs that have successfully revived the species in parts of the region and paved the way for education and outreach.
- Experts say more research and investments must be directed towards wild rice, and such initiatives need the support of all stakeholders to bring back the plant.

A feathered cape bridges past and present for Brazil’s Indigenous Tupinambá
- Used in rituals by the ancestors of the Indigenous Tupinambá people in Brazil, sacred capes made from bird feathers were lost in time and today survive only as museum pieces in Europe.
- Only 11 of these capes are known to exist today; one of them, held in Denmark, is set to be returned to Brazil.
- A key player in the negotiations to secure its return was Indigenous artist and activist Glicéria Tupinambá, who in 2020 started making these sacred capes once again.
- “The Tupinambá who made the original cape lived more than 400 years ago, so the first person to make it, to design this cape, [manifests themselves] through my hands,” she says of her painstaking work.

PNG communities resist seabed mining: Interview with activist Jonathan Mesulam
- The government of Papua New Guinea appears poised to approve Solwara 1, a long-in-development deep-sea mining project in the country’s waters.
- However, PNG has signed onto several seabed mining moratoria, and scientists have urged caution until more research can determine what the effects of this practice will be.
- Proponents say the seafloor holds a wealth of minerals needed for batteries, especially for electric vehicles, and thus are vital for the transition away from fossil fuels.
- But coastal communities in PNG’s New Ireland province have mounted a fierce resistance to Solwara 1, arguing that it could damage or destroy the ecosystems that provide them with food and are the foundation of their cultures.

On Kaho’olawe, new technology could restore a sacred Hawaiian island
- The small Hawaiian island of Kaho‘olawe is a sacred site for Indigenous Hawaiians, who used it for navigational training, religious ceremonies, and fishing.
- But the island has faced decades of ecological destruction due to invasive plants and animals, erosion, and bombings as a test site by the U.S. military.
- A new conservation project has successfully tested a novel method using AI-equipped camera traps and an aerial drone to collect images of invasive cats, which have destroyed the island’s seabird populations, in dangerous and difficult-to-access parts of the island.
- But funding for the work on Kaho‘olawe remains scarce, and the drone project is now on hold as local organizations seek further funding to deal with the feral cats.

New fund supports Indigenous-led land management in biodiverse area of Bolivia
- A new funding mechanism aims to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous groups in the region, including the Tacana, Lecos, T’simane Mosetene and San José de Uchupiamonas Indigenous peoples, who also contributed to the creation of this fund, along with the Regional Organization of Indigenous People of La Paz (CPILAP).
- The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) launched the new funding mechanism, in collaboration with Bolivia’s Foundation for the Development of the National System of Protected Areas (FUNDESNAP); the new mechanism will channel conservation funds to Indigenous organizations in the Madidi Landscape.
- The Madidi Landscape is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial protected areas in the world, where scientists have recorded the most plant, butterfly, bird and mammal species.
- The new fund, announced Oct. 30, has so far attracted $650,000 in initial support from the Bezos Earth Fund.

First ever U.S. Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area declared in California
- The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Resighini Rancheria, and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community designated the first ever Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the U.S. along the northern California coast.
- The tribes plan to steward nearly 700 mi2 (1,800 km2) of their ancestral ocean and coastal territories from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California.
- As sovereign nations, the tribes say they’re not seeking state or federal agencies’ permission to assert tribally led stewardship rights and responsibilities; rather, they want to establish cooperative relationships recognizing their inherent Indigenous governance authority.
- The tribes aim to restore traditional ecological knowledge and management practices that sustained the area’s natural abundance before colonial disruption.

Caribbean traditional plant knowledge needs recognition or it’s lost: Study
- Knowledge of Caribbean ethnobotany has so far been limited and little comprehensive island- or region-wide inventories of Caribbean traditional plant knowledge have been developed.
- A recent study highlights an eight-step action plan to foster greater academic recognition of the botanical tradition of Afro-descendent farmers in research, education and policymaking.
- Considering these farmers’ important roles in promoting plant diversity, the study authors say financial support from local and national governments can strengthen their work as plant stewards.

‘Hope is the last to die’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Jose Parava on land rights
- Jose Antônio Parava Ramos is a young leader of the Chiquitano people from the Portal do Encantado Indigenous land, in Mato Grosso state, west-central Brazil, bordering Bolívia.
- The Chiquitano people are an Indigenous group divided by borders, and their largest population currently lives in the neighboring Andean country.
- In Brazil, Parava’s land is the Chiquitano territory closest to completing its demarcation process; the people have waited more than a decade for this, and Portal do Encantado is just one of the many territories in the country in this situation.
- In a Mongabay interview, the Indigenous leader, who is also a health worker, sheds light on the pressures of deforestation and land conflicts on his territory and highlights the importance of demarcation to preserve his people’s identity.

Indigenous women filmmakers form collective, using cameras to fight for rights
- In 2022, a group of Indigenous women created Rede Katahirine, a network composed of 60 filmmakers, producers and screenwriters who represent Indigenous women from nearly all of Brazil’s biomes.
- In placing Indigenous audiovisual arts in the hands of women, the network aims to use its cameras as tools to fight for the preservation of Indigenous territories and memory.
- Aside from funding new productions, Rede Katahirine organizes monthly meetings for screenings and conversations.

The waters of the Xingu: A source of life at risk of death
- In Xingu Indigenous Park in the Brazilian Amazon, rivers and lakes are natural arteries that provide life for animals and Indigenous communities, serving as a base for eating, bathing, social interaction and refuge in times of drought.
- The waters of the Xingu, however, are threatened by monocrop plantations around the park, which dry up the springs and pollute the rivers with pesticides.
- At the same time, climate change is exacerbating the periods of drought, with some rivers drying up entirely during these times.
- In this photo essay, photographer Ricardo Teles shows the relationship that the Indigenous peoples of the Xingu have with the waters that bathe their territory.

Promise of full demarcation for isolated Amazon tribe rings hollow for some
- The 23-year struggle to declare a territory for the isolated Kawahiva people of the Brazilian Amazon could finally conclude this year after the government announced the closing stages of the demarcation process will begin soon.
- The physical demarcation will formally define the boundaries of the 412,000-hectare (1.02-million-acre) territory in Mato Grosso state, home to some 45-50 Kawahiva, which is a crucial step before a presidential declaration recognizing the Indigenous territory.
- However, some Indigenous experts remain skeptical the territory will ever be fully demarcated in the face of ever-present delays and structural problems within the Indigenous affairs agency.
- The territory sits within the “Arc of Deforestation” in the southern part of the Brazilian Amazon, which is slowly moving north as cattle ranchers, miners, loggers and soy growers clear forest for more land.

Historic land win for Ecuador’s Siekopai sets precedent for other Indigenous peoples
- Following 80 years of displacement, Indigenous Siekopai communities gained ownership of Amazonian land on Ecuador’s border with Peru.
- The provincial court of Sucumbíos ruled in favor of the community, saying the environment ministry must deliver a property title for 42,360 hectares (104,674 acres) to the Siekopai, as well as a public apology for its violation of their collective territorial rights.
- The ruling is historic because it’s the first time an Indigenous community will receive title to land that lies within a nationally protected area.
- According to experts, this new ruling may change the approach communities use to obtain their ancestral lands in Ecuador, and the country may see more communities filing similar lawsuits to obtain lands locked away for state conservation.

Xingu waters: source of life at risk in the Brazilian Amazon
XINGU INDIGENOUS PARK, Brazil — Xingu Indigenous Park, located in the southern Brazilian Amazon, spans 26,400 square kilometers and is home to 16 Indigenous groups. These communities rely on the park’s rivers and lakes for food, social interaction, bathing, and as a refuge during droughts. However, the Xingu water basin faces significant threats from monoculture […]
Indigenous Gurung farmers revive climate-resilient millet in Nepal
- Indigenous Gurung farmers in central Nepal are trying to revive the cultivation of an almost-forgotten, drought-resilient crop: foxtail millet.
- This hardy grain was traditionally farmed as a famine crop because it grows at a time of the year when farmers are finished harvesting other crops like rice, maize and wheat.
- With Nepal experiencing increasingly unpredictable changes in weather and droughts that affect their harvests, proponents say local crops like foxtail millet have the potential to help farmers adapt to the changing climate.
- Over the past seven years, organic farming of the crop has seen consistent growth, thanks to the help of a community seed bank.

Reports allege abuses by Glencore in Peru and Colombia, and the banks funding them
- Mining giant Glencore continues to commit serious environmental and human rights violations in its mines in Peru and Colombia despite public promises to respect human rights and the environment, according to three news reports by advocacy organizations.
- The reports document cases of air and water pollution, extensive environmental damage, lack of consultation with communities, and restricting access to land.
- European banks and investors, including Groupe BPCE, HSBC, Abrdn and BNP Paribas, hold the largest investments in Glencore, pumping $44.2 billion into the company between 2016 and 2023.
- Glencore denies the allegations made against it and says it has continued to make progress on its climate targets and remains on track to meet its environmental and human rights commitments.

Photos: Top species discoveries from 2023
- Scientists described a slew of new species this past year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squid, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons.
- Experts estimate less than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to local and Indigenous people and have a common name.
- Many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction as soon as they are found, and many species may go extinct before they are named, experts say.

Mongabay’s top 10 podcast episodes of 2023
- It was a packed year on Mongabay’s podcast calendar, with a new season of “Mongabay Explores” taking a deep dive into the Congo Basin.
- At the same time, the Mongabay Newscast continued publishing conversations with leading researchers, authors and activists, and it introduced a new co-host, Rachel Donald.
- Our top 10 list includes examinations of the Congo Basin’s cobalt mining industry, a conversation with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a botanist discussing the worrying decline of botany education, and a National Geographic photographer’s project highlighting the key role of traditional ecological knowledge for Indigenous communities and conservation.

How a 160-year-old pelt piqued new findings on Indigenous ‘woolly dog’ breed
- Researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History recently studied and analyzed a 160-year-old pelt of an extinct woolly dog, part of a breed that Indigenous Coast Salish communities cared for for thousands of years.
- For the first time, the study sequenced the woolly dog’s genomes to analyze the species’ ancestry and genetics and the factors contributing to its sudden disappearance at the end of the 19th century.
- Based on the genetic data, they estimated that woolly dogs biologically evolved from other breeds about 5,000 years ago.
- Researchers say numerous socio-cultural factors are likely responsible for the species’ disappearance. Chief among them were the impacts of European colonization.

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

Vast new MPAs are PNG’s first to be co-managed by Indigenous communities
- On Nov. 12, the government of Papua New Guinea declared two large new marine protected areas totaling more than 16,000 square kilometers (6,200 square miles) that reportedly triple the country’s marine area under protection.
- The announcement capped a six-year effort led by U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society to consult with local communities about how to set up the MPAs to curtail the harvest of threatened species and restore the health of fisheries that people have depended on for generations.
- The NGO called the announcement “one of the first and most ambitious community-led MPA wins” since countries agreed last year to protect 30% of land and sea area by 2030 under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.
- However, some observers note the potential problems that could arise from foreign-led conservation in an area experiencing poverty, conflict, and minimal government support, and there is widespread agreement that the MPAs’ success will depend on securing financing for enforcement.

‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars
- Researchers have launched a new book that catalogs hundreds of plant species from Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that have known medicinal uses.
- The book draws on the knowledge of Indigenous communities who have found a use for these plants over the course of generations, and whose livelihoods and cultures are closely intertwined with the fate of these species.
- The book also serves to highlight the imperiled situation of Prey Lang and its native species as deforestation by politically linked timber-trafficking networks continues to destroy vast swaths of this ostensibly protected area.
- “If the current trends of deforestation continue,” the authors warn, “an immense body of knowledge about nature will be lost, reducing the resilience and adaptability of future generations.”

A lithium ‘gold mine’ is buried under one of Europe’s last heritage farming systems
- The hilly Barroso region of northern Portugal has been recognized for its centuries-old and “globally important” farming system that combines agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage.
- But the region is also home to what’s believed to be one of Europe’s largest deposits of lithium, an element that will be critical in the ongoing clean energy transition, with EU and Portuguese officials saying mining projects in Barroso will be key to securing domestic supplies of the metal.
- Residents and environmental activists, however, warn the mines will scar the landscape, contaminate the water, erode the soil, disrupt local livelihoods, and deprive them of communal lands.
- Yet even as they continue to oppose the planned mines, the state can declare lithium projects to be of strategic public interest to force residents to lease the lands needed for the mining projects.

Latest planned Amazon dam project threatens Indigenous lands, endemic species
- A study led by an Indigenous organization has found inconsistencies in the planning and licensing processes of the Castanheira hydroelectric project that it warns could alter the course of the Arinos River, one of the last still flowing freely in the Juruena River Basin.
- An area the size of 9,500 soccer fields would be flooded for the dam’s reservoir, affecting a region that’s home to Indigenous territories, small and medium-sized family farms, and the ancestral territory of the Tapayuna Indigenous people.
- The federal government has still not released a statement defining a timeline for the dam’s construction, even though feasibility studies began in 2010; the project is currently awaiting its environmental licensing.

Traditional healers push for recognition and licensing of age-old Himalayan practice
- Traditional healers from Nepal’s Himalayas are trying to preserve Sowa Rigpa, an ancient medicinal system based on ethnobotany, which has been gradually disappearing as youths move to urban areas and the species used in medicinal formulas are at risk.
- Sowa Rigpa includes traditional knowledge of the properties of hundreds of endemic species and local varieties of plants, fungi and lichens, as well as dozens of types of minerals.
- Two associations of Sowa Rigpa healers are trying to get the medicinal practice officially recognized by the Nepali government as a way to protect it, and are seeking official medical licenses for new practitioners.
- The healers, known as amchi, are partnering with a university, NGO and the government to further research, conserve and find potential substitutes for threatened plant and animal species used in Sowa Rigpa.

Ancient Amazon earthwork findings spotlight Indigenous land struggles today
- The authors of a new study say they have found 24 previously unrecorded pre-Columbian earthworks in the Amazon, and they estimate there may be more than 10,000 such sites still hidden throughout the forest.
- Ancient earthwork structures represent one of the types of formations found in the Amazon that provide evidence of Indigenous occupation by pre-Columbian earth-building societies.
- An airborne sensor was used to scan data from areas of the Amazon in what the scientists say is “groundbreaking” research.
- This research demonstrates that the Amazon has long been home to Indigenous peoples and is also important for organizations and communities in their efforts to demarcate new Indigenous territories, the general coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) says.

The man who made a pact with wild bees in Colombia’s Amazon
- Delio de Jesús Suárez Gómez, a member of the Indigenous Tucano community in Colombia, is combining ancestral knowledge with science to help pollinating bees survive the harsh conditions of life in the rainforest.
- In return, the bees provide honey for families, which is sold, and boosts the communities’ food and fruit supply through pollination.
- The newly-formed group Asomegua (Asociación de Meliponicultores del Guainía) is the result of a decade of beekeeping in La Ceiba, a community on the banks of the Inírida River near the famous Mavicure Hills.
- Bee populations around the world, which participate in the pollination of 75% of the world’s food crops, are on the decline, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Palestinian olive farmers hold tight to their roots amid surge in settler attacks
- Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank face economic devastation as a surge in violence by illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military prevents them from harvesting their olives. Around 100,000 Palestinian families are estimated to rely on these trees as a source of income.
- The start of the war in Gaza coincided with the autumn olive harvest, but the Israeli military has cut off West Bank farmers’ access to their orchards, while reportedly allowing illegal settlers in to steal the olives and destroy the trees.
- Yet despite the settler attacks and restrictions on the olive harvest, Palestinian farmers are determined to remain steadfast and help each other harvest as much as possible before the nearing end of the season. With its long history of rootedness in the land, the olive tree is often seen as one of the most evocative symbols of resilience, and representative of a generational bond with the land.
- According to a spokesperson for the Israeli military, the restrictions faced by farmers are part of “security operations” in the area aimed at capturing militant groups and protecting Israeli settlers who claim the land, in violation of international law.

The coveted legacy of the ‘Man of the Hole’ and his cultivated Amazon forest
- Tanaru, also known as The Man of the Hole, was an Indigenous person who survived several massacres that decimated his relatives in the state of Rondônia, in the Brazilian Amazon, in the 1980s and 1990s.
- He was the last of his group and refused contact with non-Indigenous Brazilian society and with other Indigenous people for decades, and he died peacefully in 2022.
- Tanaru’s dramatic story was told in Corumbiara, a documentary by Vincent Carelli, who hoped to capture Tanaru’s footage to persuade the Brazilian state to recognize the land as an Indigenous territory.
- Now Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.

Glencore’s coal expansion plans face shareholder and Indigenous opposition
- Swiss-based mining giant Glencore says it plans to challenge the proposed listing of a heritage site, the Ravensworth Homestead, that could deter the planned expansion of its Glendell coal mine.
- Glencore, the largest coal producer in Australia, faces criticism from shareholders for its lack of transparency on how it plans to meet its climate targets, especially in light of proposed thermal coal mine expansions in the country.
- Listing the homestead, which is a culturally significant site for the Indigenous Wonnarua people, is now being reconsidered by heritage officials after a process that sources say has dragged on.
- The Glendell mine is one of several that could increase their emissions under a loophole in the government’s revised “safeguard mechanism” that’s intended to bind the mining sector to a reduction in emissions.

Amazon women create sweet business success with wild, vitamin-C packed fruit
- A women’s group in Colombia’s Amazon is successfully leading a sustainable, and profitable, business by harvesting camu-camu, an acidic wild fruit with more vitamin C than an orange or lemon.
- The business has been able to produce four to 14 tons of fruit pulp per year for sale around the country, while sustainably managing the plant species’ population.
- The women played a pioneering role in Colombia by showing that non-timber forest resources could be used to generate income in areas of protected rainforest.
- The sustainable use of such resources has become a successful conservation strategy that has received praise from scientific institutes and environmental authorities.

Calls grow to repurpose land squandered in Cambodia’s concession policy
- The mismanagement of large swaths of Cambodia’s land by the country’s elites under the policy of economic land concessions has displaced thousands of rural families and accounted for 40% of total deforestation.
- With even the government seeming to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of ELCs as an economic driver, calls are growing to return the land to dispossessed communities or repurpose them in other ways.
- One expert says the role of local communities will be central to the success of any reformation of the ELC system and will need to be carefully considered to avoid the pitfalls of the old system.
- Another proposes giving land currently owned by nonperforming ELCs to agricultural cooperatives managed by communities, placing more negotiating power in the hands of farmers rather than concessionaires.

To keep track of salmon migrations in real time, First Nations turn to AI
- Partnering with First Nations, a new interdisciplinary study proposes harnessing artificial intelligence and computer-based detection to count and produce real-time data about salmon numbers.
- Monitoring their population when they return to the rivers and creeks is crucial to keep tabs on the health of the population and sustainably manage the stock, but the current manual process is laborious, time-consuming and often error-prone.
- Fisheries experts say the use of real-time population data can help them make timely informed decisions about salmon management, prevent overfishing of stocks, and give a chance for the dwindling salmon to bounce back to healthy levels.
- First Nations say the automated monitoring tool also helps them assert their land rights and steward fisheries resources in their territories.

Namibia hosted Africa’s 1st community-led conservation congress. Where will it lead?
- Namibia hosted the first community-led conservation congress in Africa in late October.
- Hundreds of Indigenous and local community groups, conservation organizations, governments and policymakers gathered to strategize how communities can play a bigger role in African conservation efforts, which are typically dominated by big international NGOs.
- Participants said more work will be required on the local, regional and national levels to address the challenges of turning goals for the inclusion of communities in conservation into practical actions.
- Organizers say this congress is a starting point to elevating community voices in Africa while they’ve chosen a new alliance, the Alliance for Indigenous People and Local Communities for Conservation in Africa (AICA), to be a representative voice for communities across the continent.

Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.

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

The Amazon’s archaeology of hope: Q&A with anthropologist Michael Heckenberger
- A professor at the University of Florida, Michael Heckenberger has been visiting and studying Indigenous peoples at the Upper Xingu River for decades and says the Amazon is already facing its tipping point: “It’s a tipping event.”
- In this interview for Mongabay, he tells how he and his colleagues have been practicing an “archeology of hope” — helping the Indigenous peoples in the region to prepare for climate change, using ancestral knowledge pulled out from archaeological research.
- “It should be the default, not the exception, to assume that there were Indigenous people living or dwelling in some way on almost every inch of Brazilian land,” he says about the marco temporal thesis, which aims to limit new Indigenous territories, now being discussed in Brazilian Congress.

Indigenous environmental defenders among favorites for Nobel Peace Prize
- Indigenous leaders Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Juan Carlos Jintiach were shortlisted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) as possible winners of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
- This was the first year the PRIO included a topic for Indigenous environmental defenders.
- Both leaders say they are grateful for the recognition, especially for recognizing the international Indigenous peoples’ movement, and priority areas remain the protection of Indigenous rights and access to direct climate funding.
- The first and only time an Indigenous person won the Nobel Peace Prize was in 1992 when Guatemalan rights defender Rigoberta Menchú Tum received the award.

Brazil’s Indigenous women march again for the rights of their people and lives
- Trying to consolidate their leading role in the fight for territory and political prominence, around 8,000 Indigenous women occupied Brasília during the III March of Indigenous Women.
- Aware of the role of Indigenous peoples in preserving biodiversity, the meeting was scheduled to discuss climate emergencies and the importance of Indigenous women’s participation in the U.N. Climate Conference, to be held in Belém, in northern Brazil, in 2025.
- Amid debates in Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, the demarcation of Indigenous territories was brought to the top of the list of urgent issues at this year’s march.

First Nation and scientists partner to revive climate-saving eelgrass
- Seagrass meadows, of which eelgrass is a key species, are some of the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the ocean, and play a crucial role in sequestering carbon.
- But eelgrass is disappearing rapidly around the globe, and in Canada, questions remain about where exactly these meadows are distributed, and how effective they are at storing carbon.
- A collaborative project between marine biologists and Indigenous Mi’kmaq communities is attempting to answer these questions in eastern Canada while also restoring lost eelgrass meadows.
- The project could help with eelgrass’s long-term survival in the area, as researchers identify eelgrass populations that are more resilient to climate change, and communities work toward eelgrass conservation.

Pacific alliance adopts moratorium on deep-sea mining, halting resurgent PNG project
- The Melanesian Spearhead Group put in place a moratorium on deep-sea mining within its member countries’ territorial water in a declaration signed Aug. 24.
- Leaders from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and an alliance of pro-independence political parties known as FLNKS from the French territory of New Caledonia said more research is needed to establish whether mining the seabed below 200 meters (660 feet) is possible without damaging ecosystems and fisheries.
- The moratorium ostensibly thwarts the return of Nautilus Minerals, a Canadian company, to Papua New Guinea and its Solwara 1 project in the Bismarck Sea, where it had hoped to mine gold and copper from sulfide deposits on the seafloor.
- Proponents of deep-sea mining say that minerals found deep beneath the ocean are necessary for the production of batteries used in electric vehicles and thus are critical in the global transition away from fossil fuels.

Transgenics contaminate a third of Brazil’s traditional corn in semiarid region
- A new study identified the presence of up to seven transgenic genes in single seeds of traditional, or “creole” corn from more than 1,000 samples collected in 10% of the towns in Brazil’s Caatinga.
- The results indicate cross-contamination in the fields; it is estimated that pollen from transgenic corn can travel up to 3 kilometers, contaminating nearby traditional corn crops.
- The loss of agricultural biodiversity due to contamination by transgenic plants leaves Brazil vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity. Farmers have put their faith in community creole seed banks.

Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
- Cambodia expanded the coverage of its protected areas by 1.06 million hectares (2.62 million acres) in July and August, a flurry of subdecrees shows.
- However, civil society groups have expressed skepticism about the lack of consultation involved in the process and the ability of authorities to police this much larger area, given the ineffective enforcement of existing protected areas.
- Much of the newly protected land appears to be corridors neighboring existing protected areas, where homes and farms are already established.
- This has raised concerns about a surge in conflicts over land and access to natural resources, particularly affecting Indigenous communities.

Will Brazil’s Supreme Court rule against Indigenous land rights? (commentary)
- On the 30th of August, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court is set to rule on the Marco Temporal, a legal argument that would severely limit Indigenous peoples’ land rights.
- Bill 490 was overwhelmingly approved by representatives of the Lower House of Congress and introduces a time frame to create Indigenous territories, reduces the area of Indigenous lands, and opens Indigenous areas to mining and infrastructure projects, among other changes.
- “If the Supreme Court determines the Marco Temporal is valid …all legal recourse for future land titling would be blocked, and titled territories could be at risk as communities could be obligated to prove their claim within the new, limited framework,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Deep-sea mining project in PNG resurfaces despite community opposition
- An embattled deep-sea mining project appears to be moving ahead in Papua New Guinea, according to officials in the Pacific Island nation, despite more than a decade of opposition from local communities on the grounds that it could harm the fisheries on which they rely as well as the broader ecosystem.
- Backers of deep-sea mining say it could help provide the gold, copper and other minerals necessary for the transition to electric vehicles and away from fossil fuels.
- But deep-sea mining has not yet happened anywhere in the world, and scientists, human rights groups and Indigenous communities highlight the lack of evidence demonstrating its safety.
- The Alliance of Solwara Warriors is a group of Indigenous communities and church organizations that have been fighting the Solwara 1 project in Papua New Guinea, which received the world’s first deep-sea mining license from PNG in 2011.

Niéde Guidon’s 50-year fight to protect Serra da Capivara, the Americas’ largest prehistoric site
- Having celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this year, the archaeologist Niéde Guidon spoke to Mongabay about her work to protect Brazil’s Serra da Capivara National Park, in the northeastern state of Piauí, which is home to the largest and oldest concentration of prehistoric art in the Americas.
- On top of her efforts to create the national park, Guidon’s innovative approach in the 1970s contributed to the social development of the local communities in the surrounding area by supporting the building of schools, incentivizing tourism, opening a ceramics factory and transforming housewives of the region into “guardians” of the park.
- In the 1980s, Guidon challenged the orthodox Clovis First theory, which claimed that Homo sapiens arrived in the Americas 12,000 years ago by crossing the Bering Strait. The archaeologist claimed to have found human remains in Serra da Capivara dating back as far as 32,000 years.
- Today, the Olho D’Água Institute, created by the current head of the national park, is preserving Guidon’s legacy by continuing collaborative archaeological work, which involves the local population in efforts to preserve prehistoric heritage.

Three new studies on Indigenous conservation for International Indigenous Peoples Day
- Indigenous peoples and local communities have nuanced, in-depth knowledge of climate change impacts that needs to be recognized by scientists and policy-makers, according to researchers.
- Industrial development threatens nearly 60% of Indigenous lands worldwide and renewable energy infrastructure expansion could become a dominant driver, according to a new peer-reviewed study.
- Indigenous groups and a growing body of studies emphasize the importance of Indigenous leadership, rights and land tenure for climate change mitigation.

In the land of honey and nuts: Indigenous solutions to save Brazil’s Cerrado
- Indigenous groups including the Terena, Kayapó and Kuikuro peoples are helping to both protect biodiversity and improve their welfare in the Cerrado by producing honey, roasted baru nuts and babaçu palm oil.
- Brazil’s second-largest biome and one of its most deforested, the Cerrado has lost half its original vegetation due to pressure from agribusiness and infrastructure projects.
- The paving of the BR-242 and MT-322 highways and construction of the EF-170 rail line are among the controversial projects driven by agribusiness that are expected to highly impact Indigenous territories in the biome.
- Indigenous communities are developing economic projects centered on the sustainable production of food resources native to the Cerrado, in the process helping to safeguard the world’s most biodiverse savanna and one of its richest in cultural diversity.

‘A psychedelic renaissance’: How hallucinogens can aid conservation
- Mind-altering substances from plants and fungi, such as ayahuasca, are having a moment in popular culture, but they’re also starting to gain attention from the medical and conservation communities.
- Famed ethnobotanist, conservation advocate and best-selling author Mark Plotkin joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about what he dubs the “psychedelic renaissance” and how this moment can be a hook to inspire conservation.
- Many Amazonian plants and fungi have medicinal properties understood by traditional healers, but can also be frequently abused if applied improperly.
- Plotkin talks about the importance of protecting this traditional ecological knowledge, both for the responsible application of these plants, and for realizing their potential as a vehicle for conservation.

Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Brazil’s controversial bill 490 was overwhelmingly approved in the country’s Lower House by representatives and farmers, including political allies of President Lula’s party.
- The bill introduces a time frame to create Indigenous territories, reduces the area of Indigenous lands and opens Indigenous areas to mining and infrastructure projects, among other changes.
- According to opponents of the bill, this breaks with land rights guaranteed in the Constitution to Indigenous peoples. Proponents of the bill argue that more land should rather be given to farmers and economic development projects.
- The text now goes to the Senate, the majority of which are conservative and in favor of the reduction of the area of Indigenous territories. If approved, it goes to President Lula, who can veto the bill or be overridden by Congress.

In the Colombian Amazon, Indigenous communities protect the sacred black caiman
- In the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve, two communities are working to protect the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), a species that has been hunted for decades for its commercially valuable skin.
- After 14 years of fighting to protect the caiman’s habitat, in January 2022, the communities carried out the first-ever survey of the species, recording 123 specimens of various ages.
- Local leaders say the community’s children will soon be able to learn about the caiman not only in a new book with illustrations and information from the conservationists’ work — but also in real life.

Second chance for Lula as controversial Amazon dam goes up for renewal
- In the biological and cultural hotspot of the Volta Grande in Brazil’s Amazon, Indigenous communities and scientists have teamed up to monitor the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric project, one of the biggest in the world.
- The dam complex has diverted 80% of the Xingu River’s water flow, significantly affecting the aquatic life in the Volta Grande river bend and pushing the entire ecosystem toward collapse, along with the local communities who rely on it.
- The complex’s environmental license, which lasts six years and dictates the amount of water flowing through Belo Monte, is currently up for review by the federal environmental protection agency, IBAMA.
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva played a key role in pushing for the construction of Belo Monte, and now, back in power, can influence a new path for the environment and local communities, activists say.

A Guarani community brings native bees back in the shadow of São Paulo
- The Guarani living in the Jaraguá Indigenous Territory in the northwestern corner of the mega city of São Paulo have managed to recover nine species of native bees that had died out in the region, today thriving in 300 hives.
- Unlike the better-known Africanized honey bees, native Brazilian bees have no stingers and are less aggressive.
- Native bees are sacred to the Guarani, who use the wax to keep bad spirits away and honey and propolis to cure a range of ailments.
- These bee species are also important pollinators: some Brazilian plants can only be pollinated by native bees.

Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Two years since the Feb 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Indigenous activists continue their struggle to protect the Salween Peace Park, an Indigenous Karen-led protected area, from conflict.
- The park was subject to military-led deadly airstrikes in March 2021 and renewed violence in the vicinity of the park continues to force people to flee their homes into the forest.
- The Salween Peace Park was launched in 2018 and encompasses 5,485 square kilometers (nearly 1.4 million acres) of the Salween River Basin in one of Southeast Asia’s most biologically rich ecoregions.
- With many examples around the world, peace parks seek to preserve zones of biodiversity and cultural heritage using conservation to promote peacebuilding. The SPP includes more than 350 villages, 27 community forests, four forest reserves, and three wildlife sanctuaries.

Hawaiian communities restore Indigenous conservation, from mountains to sea
- In Hawai’i, an Indigenous stewardship and conservation system known as ahupua’a is slowly being revived on a mountain-to-sea scale in partnership with U.S. government agencies.
- Three Indigenous communities that have successfully reintroduced the ahupua’a system are seeing some conservation successes, such as a 310% increase in the biomass of surgeonfish and an increase in the Bluespine unicornfish (Naso unicornis) population.
- The inclusion of Indigenous Hawaiian conservation, social and spiritual values, like Aloha kekahi i kekahi, have been key to building these conservation areas and forming better working relations with the government.

After Bruno Pereira’s murder, widow Beatriz Matos strives for Indigenous rights
- In an interview with Mongabay, anthropologist Beatriz Matos, widow of Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira, tells of the duties she assumed on Feb. 14 as head of the Department of Territorial Protection and of Isolated and Recently Contacted Peoples inside the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
- Matos tells of her recent return to the Javari Valley, where she and Pereira met, and of the challenges in reverting the destruction of and negligence toward Indigenous rights in the recent past.
- Matos also explains how mapping of isolated peoples in Brazil works and how the department has been structuring itself to carry out this work together with Funai, the National Indigenous Peoples Foundation.
- According to Matos, the current priority is to “work to guarantee safety and protection for Indigenous peoples and their territories.”

Apache tribe decry loss of sacred site to massive copper mine at both court and the U.N.
- The San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona, United States, has taken its legal battle against the U.S. government to the United Nations to save its traditional territory from what could be North America’s largest copper mine.
- The Indigenous tribe say that the mine will permanently alter desert ecosystems and destroy their most sacred site, akin to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount or Mecca’s Kaaba.
- The mine could produce up to 40 billion pounds of copper over 40 years, providing about 1,500 jobs, millions in tax revenue and compensation and minerals for renewable energy development.
- Both sides are awaiting a ruling from the 9th Circuit Court on whether destruction of the site violates the religious rights of the Apache people.

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

‘I’ll keep fighting’: Indigenous activist and Goldman winner Alessandra Munduruku
- Indigenous leader and human rights activist Alessandra Korap Munduruku was one of the six winners of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize.”
- The award recognizes her relentless resistance to illegal mining within the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, including prospecting attempts by mining giant Anglo American.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Alessandra discusses what the prize means to her, the policy changes she’s seeing in Brazil, and the current crisis in the Munduruku territory.
- While she praises some actions of the current government, she says her fight isn’t over yet, as she warns of possible environmental issues arising from upcoming infrastructure projects.

A mountain of gold: Mining titles threaten Indigenous lands in Guainía, Colombia
- A potential gold rush is awaiting in the surroundings of the Mavicure Hill and the Fluvial Star of Inírida, two of Colombia’s particular ecosystems. Authorities approved 13 proposals for mining concession contracts for extracting gold and gold concentrates.
- Mongabay Latam and Vorágine visited the Indigenous communities surrounding the Fluvial Star of Inírida. Their residents now live in a climate of uncertainty because of the promises of a better future based on mining. There is simultaneously ignorance and enthusiasm about the prospect of new jobs.
- Mining has not started yet in the area, and there is already division surrounding this issue in the Remanso Chorrobocón Indigenous Reserve. Some people view mining positively, but there are also complaints that the mining titles are being managed in the name of the Indigenous people, even though they have not been consulted.

At the United Nations, Indigenous Ryukyuans say it’s time for U.S. military to leave Okinawa
- Opponents of the latest U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan, are calling for urgent intervention by the United Nations to halt the construction of the new base, release military groundwater test data on toxic spills, and close all 32 U.S. military bases.
- The new facility and other military bases have been linked to toxic environmental pollution and construction threatening marine species, along with historical land conflicts between native Okinawans and the mainland Japan and U.S. governments.
- Latest water tests by the Okinawa government reveal PFAS levels up to 42 times higher than Japan’s national water standards with contamination found in drinking and bathing water for roughly 450,000 people.
- Amid rising tensions with China and efforts to counter its influence in the region, Japan and the U.S. cite Okinawa’s proximity to Taiwan and location in the Indo-Pacific as a strategic reason for maintaining bases on the island.

Report links financial giants to deforestation of Paraguay’s Gran Chaco
- Major banks and financial institutions including BlackRock, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Santander continue to hold substantial shares in – or provide financial services to – beef companies linked to illegal deforestation in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay.
- A report by rights group Global Witness released last month says these financiers knowingly bankroll beef traders accused of having links to deforestation, despite warnings in 2020 by U.K.-based NGO Earthsight about the beef industry’s impact on the Gran Chaco.
- Almost all of the banks, investment managers and pension funds named in the new report are members of voluntary initiatives to eliminate and reverse commodity-driven deforestation from their portfolios.
- Paraguay has one of the highest rates of tropical deforestation in the world, having lost a quarter of its net forest cover between 2000 and 2020 — an area almost twice the size of Belgium.

Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests
- A new decade-long study estimates forests in Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon can potentially prevent about 15 million cases of respiratory and cardiovascular infections each year by absorbing thousands of tons of dangerous pollutants emitted by forest fires.
- Forest fires are mainly caused by deforestation to clear the land, releasing noxious fumes which contain carbonaceous aerosol, the main component of fine particulate matter which enters the bloodstream and can cause heart disease and lung cancer.
- Health impacts from forest fires are not only restricted to nearby populations. Intense smoke can travel hundreds of kilometers away from the point of origin.
- The researchers say the study’s findings demonstrate the need for Brazil’s government to resume Indigenous territories’ demarcations and public policies.

RSPO suspension of Brazil palm oil exporter tied to Mongabay land-grabbing report
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a members organization including palm oil growers, traders, manufacturers, retailers, banks, investors and others — has had its certificate “temporarily suspended” since February.
- In December 2022, Mongabay published a yearlong investigation revealing that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma in northern Pará state derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau. Part of the area overlaps ancestral land claimed by Indigenous peoples and Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — including two cemeteries, which is at the center of a seven-year legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Just a few weeks after the publication of the investigation, representatives from the certifiers contacted Quilombola leaders “to understand the denouncements” published by the report, they went to the region and carried out audits in all affected communities; soon after, IBD Certifications Ltd. suspended Agropalma’s RSPO certificate.
- Assurance Services International (ASI), which evaluates the work of certifiers, confirmed that “the report was a reason for ASI to conduct a compliance assessment to IBD, the certifier of Agropalma, at the Certificate Holder’s premises.” University professors hired by ASI as local experts also cited the Mongabay investigation and this reporter when they contacted other key sources quoted in the report, as shown in email correspondence seen by Mongabay.

‘They will not put us in a display case’: Q&A with Indigenous artist Daiara Tukano
- In an interview with Mongabay, artist, educator and political activist Daiara Tukano talks about the pathways by which art inspires critical thinking for the general public and helps in the fight for Indigenous rights.
- Daiara Tukano says people need to understand about the immense diversity among Indigenous peoples to dispel with the long-held archetype of the Brazilian “Indian” and recognize that they’re not only native to the Amazon.
- Given the gradual changes in attitude happening at some museums with regard to Indigenous artistic and linguistic expression, Daiara Tukano says the space must be occupied “through the front door,” while being conscious of potential traps laid by power games.
- “What is driving our fight isn’t a cry of rage, but rather a song of love,” she says. “Happiness seems like a far-off dream when you’re born into this genocidal system. But it’s because of these [happy] moments that our people are still standing.”

Cultural heritage is an essential resource for climate change science too, reports say
- Four reports by the International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change highlight that human cultural heritage has a wealth of knowledge to contribute to grapple with climate change.
- The reports also say that this diverse human heritage is under threat from climate change, poverty, rapid urbanization, policy, and failure to recognize land rights or grant access to resources.
- The authors share a list of cultural practices and knowledge systems that can mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, from food systems and forest conservation to architecture and natural resources management.
- The International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change reports are co-sponsored by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UNESCO and ICOMOS.

Indigenous funding model is a win-win for ecosystems and local economies in Canada
- First Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii of Canada, have successfully invested in conservation initiatives that have benefited ecosystems while also increasing communities’ well-being over the past 15 years, a recent report shows.
- Twenty-seven First Nations spent nearly C$109 million ($79 million) toward 439 environmental and economic development projects in their territories, including initiating research, habitat restoration, and guardian programs, that attracted returns worth C$296 million ($214 million).
- Funding has also set up 123 Indigenous-led business and was spent towards sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy projects.
- One of the world’s first project finance for permanence (PFP) models, this funding scheme is exemplary of how stable finance mechanisms can directly benefit Indigenous communities and the environment, say Indigenous leaders.

What Indigenous knowledge can teach the world about saving biodiversity
- Nearly 80% of the world’s biodiversity is stewarded by Indigenous peoples and local communities, each practicing their own traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK.
- With the world facing twin biodiversity and climate crises, experts emphasize the need to recognize the land rights and sovereignty of Indigenous people from a human rights perspective to protect the planet’s wildlife and ecosystems.
- On this episode of the podcast, National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan discusses his latest project that shares stories of Indigenous stewardship, “The Guardians of Life: Indigenous Stewards of Living Earth.”
- This podcast episode won a 2024 Indigenous Media Award.

Indigenous Comcaac serve up an oceanic grain to preserve seagrass meadows
- The Indigenous Comcaac community of northwestern Mexico is working to preserve eelgrass and promote the renaissance of the grain they obtain from it.
- Known as xnois, this grain from the Zostera marina seagrass was once a vital ingredient in Comcaac food, and was sustainably harvested without harming seagrass meadows.
- Current generations of Comcaac hope to revive the ancient traditions while preserving the seagrass meadows off the coast of their territory.
- Through a recent cultural festival, they showcase the versatility of xnois in both traditional and modern cuisine, from tortillas to energy bars.

Finland’s debate over Indigenous identity and rights turns ugly
- In Finland, a controversial new bill would redefine who is eligible to vote and stand for the assembly of the country’s Indigenous Sámi community, removing a criteria that allows those with distant northern ancestors to participate.
- Critics say the bill will disenfranchise hundreds of people who identify as Sámi, but community leaders, legal experts and historians say these groups fail to meet the definition of an Indigenous community.
- Sámi leaders say the bill will reinforce their right to free, prior and informed consent on any new developments affecting their livelihoods and territories’ ecosystems, but its passage is uncertain in the face of strong opposition.
- The Sámi community across northern Europe is facing increasing pressure from “green energy” developments, such as wind farms and rare earth mines.

Indigenous women record age-old knowledge of bees in Colombia’s Amazon
- A team of Indigenous Yucuna women in the Colombian Amazon are rescuing and documenting the remaining oral knowledge on bees and their roles in the ecosystem, along with the traditional classification system of diverse bee species.
- With the help of nine elders, they are documenting and sketching tales and songs to gather bee names, characteristics, behaviors, roles in their crop fields and the places where bees build beehives.
- Biologists part of a bee inventory program and the women from the reserve are working to compare each other’s findings on bee species in the Indigenous territory, where researchers say bees are better protected than other regions of Colombia.
- Some of the traditional tales and knowledge are even surprising to the women documenting it; they say the details and scientific information will be shared with the communities and local schools to raise awareness on the importance of protecting bees.

Indigenous communities threatened as deforestation rises in Nicaraguan reserves
- Nicaragua’s Bosawás and Indio Maíz biosphere reserves both experienced deforestation at the hands of illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers last year.
- Deforestation of the country’s largest primary forests has been a violent, ugly process for Indigenous communities, who were granted land titles and self-governance in the area in the 1980s but don’t have the resources to protect themselves.
- Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders believe the situation will only get worse moving into 2023, as gold mining accelerates and the government cracks down on opponents.

Climate crisis puts Indigenous Amazonians’ Quarup funeral ritual at risk
- The inhabitants of the Xingu Indigenous Territory have had to adapt their Quarup funeral ceremony to avoid fires and guarantee enough food for all visitors.
- The climate crisis has left the forests drier and more flammable: over the past 20 years, 1,890 square kilometers (730 square miles) of protected forest in the Xingu have been lost to fires.
- Deforestation because of soy and corn monocultures in neighboring regions has muddied rivers and caused wild pigs to invade traditional vegetable gardens.
- The loss of rivers makes it difficult to properly store the pequi fruits needed during Quarup, while drought and wild pigs are damaging yucca harvests, also threatening a staple serving for the ceremony.

Series of small dams pose big cumulative risk to Amazon’s fish and people
- Small hydropower plants and small-scale fish farming in the Brazilian Amazon basin are often thought to cause negligible environmental harm, yet a new study reveals their cumulative damage is greatly underestimated and can be more impactful than large dams.
- Dwindling fish populations caused by the construction of thousands of small dams has impacted the livelihoods of millions of Indigenous and riverside people who depend on fishing for food, income and culture.
- Small hydropower plants and aquaculture farming are encouraged through economic incentives, simple licensing procedures, and loose requirements for environmental impact assessments before construction.
- More than 350 dam proposals in the Amazon basin are under consideration and 98 medium-sized dams will be prioritized in Brazil as of next year, ensuring the construction of hydropower plants will continue.

Top 15 species discoveries from 2022 (Photos)
- A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world’s largest waterlily are among the new species named by science in 2022.
- Scientists estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Even among the most well-known group of animals, mammals, scientists think we have only found 80% of species.
- Unfortunately, many new species of plants, fungi, and animals are assessed as Vulnerable or Critically Endangered with extinction.
- Although a species may be new to science, it may already be well known to locals and have a common name. For instance, Indigenous people often know about species long before they are “discovered” by Western Science.

Brazilian archbishop is threatened for defending Indigenous peoples — even during Mass
- Dom Roque Paloschi, president of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and archbishop of Porto Velho in the state of Roraima, Brazil, has been under attack because he denounced Indigenous people’s rights violations.
- It has always been risky to live in Amazonia and defend social-environmental issues, but Paloschi says the situation has worsened greatly in the last four years — the period that coincides with Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- In 2021, 355 attacks against Indigenous people were reported in Brazil — the most since 2013, according to a CIMI report.

In Brazil’s Amazon, Quilombolas fight major palm oil firm for access to cemeteries
- Areas along the Acará River in northern Pará state are at the center of a six-year legal battle where Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — accuse Agropalma, the country's second-largest palm oil exporter, of land-grabbing over their ancestral lands, including cemeteries, as revealed by Mongabay's yearlong investigation.
- One of these areas is Our Lady of Battle Cemetery, where Mongabay witnessed in November 2021 Quilombolas celebrating the Day of the Dead for the first time in decades. They say access to the area was hampered since it became Agropalma’s “legal reserve” — the proportion of land that the Brazilian legislation obliges a private property owner to maintain in its natural state — in the 1980s.
- In this video, Mongabay exhibits what is called a “historic moment” and firsthand footage and interviews with Quilombolas going to this cemetery for the first time. This video also has impressive images of palm trees just a few steps from the graves at Livramento Cemetery, completely surrounded by Agropalma’s crops. Quilombolas accuse Agropalma of destroying three-quarters of its area to make way for its plantations; the company denies.
- “To support future lawsuits,” prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma.

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

‘We are digital guerrilla fighters’: Q&A with young Indigenous activist Samela Sateré Mawé
- Samela Sateré Mawé, a leading voice among Brazil’s Indigenous youth, spoke to Mongabay about the importance of social media to Indigenous peoples as a means to carry out their activism.
- Samela also spoke about the videos she produces for an Indigenous audience, which seek to tackle and explain topics that are difficult to understand through conventional media: “Making didactic videos on the internet is about trying to simplify and democratize the news, so everyone can understand what is really happening.”
- Having recently attended COP27, the UN climate change conference, Samela shared her feelings on the event as well as her perspectives for 2023.

Video: Stolen Quilombola cemeteries in the Amazon, and the probe that revealed it all
- Palm oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in products ranging from chocolate to cookies to lipstick, but its production in a corner of the Brazilian Amazon may be linked to a land grab from traditional communities, including cemeteries, a year-long investigation by Mongabay’s Karla Mendes has revealed.
- Prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma, the country’s second-largest palm oil exporter.
- In November 2021, Mendes went to Pará’s Alto Acará region to investigate these land-grabbing claims, and shares her reporting journey in this behind-the-scenes video, including witnessing a historical Day of the Dead celebration at a cemetery that the Quilombolas say they were locked out of by Agropalma.
- Mendes also witnessed another cemetery hemmed in by Agropalma’s oil palms, where Quilombolas accuse the company of planting the trees over the graves of their loved ones, and investigated other palm oil-linked issues reported by local communities, including water pollution and the threat of displacement from the paving of a trucking road.

COP15 deal needs a ‘holistic approach to conservation’: Q&A with Joan Carling and Ramiro Batzin
- At the U.N. biodiversity talks, known as COP15, the target to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030 is seen by many negotiators as the cornerstone of a successful deal to protect nature, and a target that should include Indigenous lands rights.
- But Indigenous leaders at the conference say that several other issues in the deal also concern their communities and should be emphasized for a strong deal, namely direct financing, sustainable agriculture and eliminating subsidies to industries driving biodiversity loss.
- Mongabay speaks with two Indigenous negotiators at COP15, Ramiro Batzin and Joan Carling, to unpack all the issues affecting Indigenous communities in the biodiversity deal and to understand what’s stalling negotiators from agreeing to their proposals.

Major Brazil palm oil exporter accused of fraud, land-grabbing over Quilombola cemeteries
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), is accused of a wide range of land-grabbing allegations in Pará state.
- The claims allege that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma was derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau, which is at the center of a legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Quilombola communities say that part of the area occupied by Agropalma overlaps with their ancestral land, including two cemeteries visited by Mongabay. In one of them, residents claim that just one-quarter of the cemetery remains and that the company planted palm trees on top of the graves, which the company denies.
- There are also other financial interests in the land at stake, researchers say, pointing to the company’s moves into bauxite mining and the sale of carbon credits in the areas subject to litigation, further intensifying the disputes.

No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron
- A land dispute that has simmered for a decade pits an Indigenous community inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary against a politically well-connected rubber company.
- The company, Sambath Platinum, cut off the Indigenous Kuy residents of the village of Ngon from the forests from which they have gathered herbs and medicinal plants for generations.
- The community have followed all the procedures to obtain a communal land title, but continue to be stonewalled by various government ministries, but now face questionable criminal charges.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Indigenous 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.

Delayed Indigenous ‘Man of the Hole’ burial reveals dispute over his land
- A court ruling ordered Brazil’s Indigenous agency Funai to bury the remains of the Indigenous Tanaru man, known as the “Man of the Hole,” three months after his death, following 26 years of solitude as the last member of his tribe.
- Critics accuse Funai’s president, Marcelo Xavier, of working in favor of local agribusiness interests by deliberately stalling the funeral to help farmers claim the rights to the land.
- The delay of his burial was partly due to a debate over what will happen to the land where the Indigenous man lived, which is covered in Amazon rainforest and is currently protected by a restriction of use ordinance until 2025.
- The Federal Public Ministry and Amazon activists call for the land to be permanently preserved, while local farmers claim they are the owners and demand the restrictions of use be revoked to allow for agricultural expansion.

Tribe and partners light up a forest to restore landscape in California
- The Karuk Tribe partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and other stakeholders to reintroduce traditional burning to help restore forests in the Klamath Mountains.
- The four-year-old project aims to prevent wildfires and make overgrown forests in Northern California look more like they did thousands of years ago when the Tribe stewarded them.
- So far, the project’s successes have been encouraging, however, the Tribe and Forest Service have encountered hurdles in their relationship and have had difficulty agreeing on different fire techniques.
- The project hopes to make burning a seasonal and sustainable part of ecosystem management.

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.

First-ever regional court case involving rights of uncontacted peoples awaits verdict
- The Inter-American Court of Human rights, one of three regional human rights tribunals, is evaluating the first-ever case concerning the rights of Indigenous communities in voluntary isolation, also known as uncontacted tribes.
- At the base of Ecuador’s case are three massacres against the Tagaeri and Taromenane people, which occurred in 2003, 2006, and 2013. Some members of the Waorani nation have been accused of perpetrating at least two of these massacres.
- Logging and extraction in the forest put pressure on the rainforest and resources, increasing violent conflict between communities, say the lawyers representing the uncontacted peoples. The outcome of the case could set a major legal precedent for other communities in voluntary isolation across the Amazon.
- The state insists that it has done what it could to support human rights in the region and that the oil industry nor the state is a cause of violent attacks between communities.

Indonesian beauty queen founds Indigenous coffee brand in her native Lombok
- Beauty pageant contestant Mahniwati was born into a strong Indigenous community on Indonesia’s Lombok Island.
- During her pageant activities, Mahniwati saw that despite their wealth of natural resources, the people of her community were often cash poor.
- Seeing the potential of coffee to improve their livelihoods, she taught herself each step of the coffee value chain.
- She now shares her knowledge with farmers and promotes coffee produced by local women.

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, five inspirational conservation stories in the U.S.
- Today, people across the U.S. are observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day, juxtaposed against Columbus Day which is celebrated at the same time, to honor Indigenous peoples and their cultures.
- From conserving some of the last old-growth redwood forests in California to halting oil drilling in the Alaska’s arctic, Indigenous tribes see their participation and knowledge as key to bringing solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises.
- To mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Mongabay rounds up five of this year’s most inspiring solutions-based stories in the U.S.

A 13-year fight against gold mining in Colombian community marches on
- The Embera Karambá Indigenous community in Quinchía, Colombia, near Medellin, has been resisting large-scale gold mining activities in their region for 13 years.
- The Miraflores mining company began holding meetings with the Embera Karambá community as part of the prior consultation process in 2015; six years after it started exploration activities in the area.
- The governor of the community and a member of the Indigenous Guard have received anonymous death threats and unidentified people surveilling their homes. Since 2019, the Indigenous governor has been receiving protection from the National Protection Unit of the Colombian national government.
- According to the mining company’s communications director, the mining company is making every effort to reach an agreement with the community and guarantee their right to prior consultation. However, consultation should not be used as a tool for opposition, he says.

Encircled by plantations, a Sumatran Indigenous community abides changing times
- Residents of the village of Talang Durian Cacar on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island are struggling to earn decent incomes from unproductive oil palm trees.
- Jakarta-based NGO Kaoem Telapak described the community’s switch to growing oil palm trees as an “ecological, social and cultural consequence of their marginalization.”
- The community, part of the Talang Mamak Indigenous group, can access its customary forest through a corridor bisecting oil palm plantations.

In a hotter, drier climate, how serious is fire risk to island seabirds?
- A new study suggests that fires on remote islands in southwest Australia pose a rising threat to short-tailed shearwaters and other seabirds as climate change creates hotter and drier conditions.
- In 2021, a research team led by Jennifer Lavers surveyed an island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago a year after a fire event, and found little evidence that short-tailed shearwaters had successfully bred after the fire, ignited by a lightning strike, had swept over most of the island.
- Lavers and her research team suggest that Indigenous-led methods of controlled burning could help reduce the risk of catastrophic fires that would endanger seabirds.
- However, a seabird and island expert not connected with the study disagrees that fire currently poses a major threat, since seabirds have been known to rebound from fires, even after the loss of their fledglings and burrows.

Indigenous lands, knowledge are essential for saving primates from extinction, says new study
- A new study in Science Advances finds that primate species found on Indigenous people’s land face significantly less threats to their overall survival compared to species found on non-Indigenous lands. To guarantee the survival of primates, we must guarantee Indigenous people’s autonomy over their territory, says the paper.
- The population of non-human primates – like monkeys, apes, tarsiers or prosimians – are declining rapidly around the world. At least 68% are in danger of extinction, while 93% have declining populations globally.
- Traditional Indigenous beliefs, practices and knowledge systems reflect the need to exploit resources in the environment, but in sustainable ways that do not also deplete resources primates depend on.
- The largest threat to primates is their loss of habitat due to large-scale deforestation for the sake of large infrastructure projects, roads and rail lines as well as the expanding agriculture frontier that decreases forest cover.

‘Monument trees’ underpin Alaska Native cultural resilience: they must be protected (commentary)
- Access to ancient cedar trees for cultural purposes is key to Southeast Alaska Native peoples, both for their heritage and community resilience.
- Carving and weaving traditions require straight-grained, slow-growth red and yellow cedar trees 450 years and older with few branches or defects. These rare forest giants are referred to as ‘monument trees,’ and many are contained in the Tongass National Forest.
- Despite its significance, the Tongass continues to be threatened by forest management pressures, climate change, and political shifts: more than 1 million acres of forest have been clearcut since it was declared a national forest.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘Only a tribe can speak for a tribe’: Q&A with Native conservationists on Biden’s 30 by 30 project
- In the 1800s, several Native American tribes were forced to adapt to a new climate when the government removed them from their ancestral lands and forced them to migrate thousands of kilometers away, to the South Central U.S.
- Many tribes in the South Central U.S. are once again preparing to adapt to a changing climate with the support of tribal liaisons at the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.
- President Joe Biden announced that collaboration with tribal nations will play an important role in his commitment to the worldwide 30 by 30 initiative, which seeks to use nature conservation to address climate change and protect biodiversity.
- Two tribal liaisons and tribal citizens spoke to Mongabay about how federal agencies could collaborate with tribes on these conservation projects while respecting tribal sovereignty.

In Brazil, an Indigenous group turns a day of grief into a celebration of life
- Carved of wood and painted with tar, Saint Bilibeu is said to bestow fertility on the land, animals and women, and is worshipped every year in the territory belonging to the Akroá Gamella people in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- The ritual, which includes Catholic elements, lasts for four days and sees a procession of people dressed as hunting dogs gather food and drink to offer to Saint Bilibeu.
- Once celebrated during Carnaval, today the ritual is held on April 30 in recognition of an attack by ranchers on the Akroá Gamella community during a land dispute in 2017.

Young Māori divers hunt invasive crown-of-thorns starfish to save coral reefs
- The island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands is experiencing an outbreak of crown-of-thorns-starfish (taramea, Acanthaster planci), which could jeopardize the survival of its surrounding coral reef.
- Local environmental organization Kōrero O Te `Ōrau has been tackling the outbreak since 2020 by training young Māori people in scuba diving and running regular expeditions to remove taramea from the reef and bury them inland.
- The work has contained the outbreak on two sides of the island by collecting over 3,700 crown-of-thorns starfish, ultimately mitigating its impact on reef health. However, ongoing efforts are required.
- The project is also upskilling young Cook Islanders in marine management theory and practice.

As Nepal’s tigers thrive, Indigenous knowledge may be key in preventing attacks
- As Nepal looks to be on track to double its tiger population this year from a 2010 baseline, its conservation success has had a high cost on forest-dependent communities.
- Incidents of human-tiger conflict have increased in line with the growing populations of both the big cats and people, as more people venture into national parks and their buffer zones in search of firewood and food.
- Some conservationists make the case that grassland management and other techniques long practiced Indigenous communities to avoid tiger attacks have been lost with the establishment of these parks where human activity is banned.
- They suggest current conservation management makes attacks more likely, and call for conservation officials to share information on tiger movements with local communities to minimize the likelihood of encounters.

Nickel, Tesla and two decades of environmental activism: Q&A with leader Raphaël Mapou
- Nickel mining in New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the south Pacific, is receiving international attention after the electrical vehicle giant Tesla recently invested in its largest mine, Goro.
- The mine has been plagued by environmental and social issues for the last decade. It is related to five chemical spills and Indigenous Kanak struggles for sovereignty over its resources.
- Raphaël Mapou is a Kanak leader who established the environmental organization Rhéébù Nùù in 2002 as a means to address concerns about the effects of mining at Goro.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Mapou talks about the legacy of Rhéébù Nùù and if a change of ownership at Goro, combined with Tesla’s investment, can deliver positive outcomes for surrounding communities.

‘The return of land to Indigenous people is key’: Q&A with Shinnecock Kelp Farm’s Tela Troge
- A group of women of the Shinnecock Nation manage the first Indigenous-owned kelp farm on the United States’ East Coast, and are ready to harvest this year’s first batch.
- The people of the Shinnecock Nation have lived on Shinnecock Bay, on the east end of Long Island, New York, since the end of the last Ice Age. But overdevelopment on unceded tribal land is leading to nitrogen pollution, which is killing marine life.
- The Shinnecock Kelp Farm is farming sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) in hopes that it will absorb some of the water’s excess nitrogen.
- Tela Troge, one of the six women running the Shinnecock Kelp Farm, met with Mongabay to talk about the future of this effort, and how farming kelp could help Shinnecock Nation regain sovereignty over waters they have tended for generations.

Indigenous knowledge settles question of a Bornean tree species: Study
- Awareness that much of the world’s biodiversity exists in lands and seas stewarded by Indigenous people and local communities has led scientists to reconsider the value of the knowledge systems that have achieved such successful results.
- But when it comes to species taxonomy, scientists often overlook the deep understanding of species relationships held within Indigenous knowledge systems.
- A new study from Malaysian Borneo found that two trees long recognized as distinct types by Indigenous Iban and Dusun communities, but classified as one species by Western taxonomists, are in fact genetically distinct species.
- The researchers recommend that scientists engage more often with IPLCs, especially in tropical biodiversity hotspots, and that Indigenous and local knowledge be recognized as complementary to modern science.

‘Lost’ Amazonian cities hint at how to build urban landscapes without harming nature
- Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a Pre-Columbian urban settlement that spans more than 4,500 square kilometers (1,737 square miles) in Bolivia’s Llanos de Mojos region, in the Amazon rainforest.
- This is the latest proof that large, complex urban societies existed in the Amazon before the arrival of the Spanish, challenging the idea that the rainforest was always a pristine, untouched wilderness.
- Some experts say we could learn from these Indigenous urban planning strategies, which, with a sophisticated land and water management system, show us how cities and the rainforest once co-existed without degrading the environment.

Indigenous oyster fisheries were ‘fundamentally different’: Q&A with researcher Marco Hatch
- About 85% of oyster reefs across the world have been lost since the 19th century due to overharvesting, pollution, introduction of invasive species and habitat loss.
- According to a new study, Indigenous communities in North America and Australia sustainably managed oyster fisheries for more than 5,000 years before Europeans and commercial fisheries arrived.
- The knowledge of these traditional practices can guide sustainable fisheries management today, say the authors of the study.
- Mongabay interviewed Dr. Marco Hatch, one of the authors of the study, about traditional oyster and clam farming practices, existing threats to oysters, and Indigenous-led restoration efforts.

Amazon frog highlights appropriation of Indigenous knowledge for commercial gain
- Biological resources from plants and animals have long been used by Indigenous communities for medicinal and therapeutic purposes.
- Western science is quickly catching on, but in the process of developing drugs and other products from these resources, companies are locking that Indigenous-derived knowledge behind patent applications.
- A new study from Brazil makes the case that this system is inherently unfair to Indigenous communities, because it disregards their knowledge system as inferior to Western science, but then allows the appropriation of that very knowledge.
- Brazil, home to the biological resources on which many modern medicines are based, only last year set up a system to regulate access to this knowledge and ensure traditional communities benefit from sales of the products developed from it.

‘What’s lacking is respect for Mayan culture’: Q&A with Pedro Uc Be on Mexico’s Tren Maya
- The Múuch´ Xíinbal Assembly in Mexico has long led legal battles against attempts to impose a whole range of activities and projects on the Yucatán Peninsula, from genetically modified soybeans and pig farms, to wind farms and solar power plants.
- The start of their legal fight against the railway project known as the Tren Maya, in 2019, opened a new front in their legal proceedings. The Tren Maya is a multibillion-dollar tourist train line that will run 1,525 kilometers (948 miles) across the Yucatán Peninsula.
- As a result of the legal case they have brought against the project, a federal court ruled that a section of the project must be halted while deliberations are made. However, since March, that decision has since been reversed.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Pedro Uc Be, a member of the Múuch´ Xíinbal Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory, explains how the community collective came together to fight against the Tren Maya railway project.

Seed banks catalog Brazil’s food past to safeguard its future
- Brazilian agricultural research agency Embrapa has collected some 120,000 seeds from nearly 700 crop species over the course of 49 years, part of an effort to safeguard the country’s rich food diversity.
- While many of the samples are stored in the network of 164 seed banks throughout Brazil, some have been sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Norwegian Arctic, including rice, beans, peppers and pumpkins, with native varieties of corn, passion fruit and cashew to follow.
- A movement to recover traditional seeds, started by the Krahô Indigenous people together with Embrapa in the 1990s, has helped initiate exchanges of both seeds and knowledge all over the country.
- Embrapa researchers say their partnership with Indigenous and traditional communities is essential to their efforts, since many seeds can’t be stored in vaults, and must be continuously cultivated in the fields.

Indigenous group and locals sign agreement to protect sustainable livelihoods and culture
- Most of Colombia’s remaining 600 Indigenous Nukak people live in camps around Guaviare’s capital and see returning to their territory, a one million-hectare Amazonian reserve, as the only way to survive and live dignified lives.
- A coexistence agreement signed between the Nukak and local campesinos is bringing the Indigenous community closer to returning to their territory and is meant to act as a stop-gap to their cultural eradication.
- Nukak people living in camps suffer from high levels of malnutrition, skin infections, diarrhea, and deeply rooted social malaises, including high levels of drug use, sexual violence, and depression.
- Promoting peace through the coexistence agreement and preventing deforestation are interconnected, says Patricia Tobón Yagarí of Colombia’s Truth Commission.

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.

To conserve the vibrant diversity of Central Africa’s forests, include Indigenous people (commentary)
- Aspects of traditional BaAka culture and knowledge are intimately tied to their dependence on and respect for the forest. This relationship with the forest has allowed the BaAka to thrive in the Congo Basin for millennia.
- Colonialism and the creation of protected areas in Central Africa have led to the forced removal of BaAka Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in the region, in addition to reported human right abuses.
- To address these injustices effectively and equitably, conservation practitioners working in Central Africa should adopt a human rights-based conservation approach which acknowledges and supports the critical ways in which the BaAka lead local conservation efforts and incorporates their forest tenure rights as a measure of overall conservation success.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay or any institutions the author is affiliated with.

Indigenous village harvests seeds to slow deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado
- Mato Grosso’s Cerrado forest in Brazil is supposed to be protected with set asides when logged for new croplands and pastures. However, farms often get away with protecting less than they’re supposed to.
- In the village of Ripá, Indigenous Xavante people make expeditions for harvesting fruit with seeds for replanting forests, helping to repair some of the damage and supplement their income.
- Ripá and another two dozen Indigenous communities in Mato Grosso sell their harvest to Rede de Sementes do Xingu (RSX), a wholesaler that, since 2007, has sold or given away enough seeds to replant 74 square kilometers (about 29 square miles) of degraded land.
- This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center.

In Brazilian Amazon, Indigenous lands stop deforestation and boost recovery
- A new study has confirmed that the best-preserved, and recovering, parts of the Brazilian Amazon are those managed by traditional communities or inside conservation units.
- Between 2005 and 2012, deforestation rates were 17 times lower in Indigenous territories than in unprotected areas of the Amazon; in conservation units and lands managed by Quilombolas, the descendants of runaway Afro-Brazilian slaves, deforestation rates were about six times lower than in unprotected areas.
- The study also shows that officially recognized Indigenous and Quilombola territories saw forest regrowth at rates two and three times higher, respectively, than in unprotected areas.
- But the process of officially recognizing Indigenous lands has stalled under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, which is instead pushing legislation that would open up Indigenous territories to mining and other exploitative activities.

‘Bring back burning culture’ to save seabirds: Q&A with Wudjari ranger Jennell Reynolds
- Jennell Reynolds, a Wudjari woman of the Nyungar nation and senior member of the Tjaltjraak Ranger program based in Esperance, Western Australia, says cultural burning can help protect seabird breeding sites on the islands of the Recherche Archipelago.
- The region has been experiencing particularly hot and arid weather, heightening the fire risk on the 105 islands that make up the Archipelago.
- Shearwaters return to the same place each year to breed, but it’s difficult for the species to create burrows when fire has burnt away the vegetation that holds the ground together.
- While cultural burning has yet to be reinstated on the islands, Reynolds says it can stabilize key areas of vegetation and seabird breeding and nesting grounds.

“Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga
- Increase in legal and illegal mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon, along with the emergence of carbon credit system that bypass Indigenous people, are posing a challenge to Amazonian communities.
- Patricia Gualinga is a Kichwa leader in Ecuador and member of Amazonian Women (Mujeres Amazónicas), a coalition of women environmental and land defenders.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Patricia Gualinga talks about Indigenous resistance in the face of extractive threats and the popularity of carbon credits in the Amazon rainforest.

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

Indigenous knowledge and science team up to triple a caribou herd
- A wildlife recovery effort in British Columbia, Canada, has successfully increased a caribou herd from 38 individuals to 113 in less than a decade, according to a new study.
- Two First Nations communities partnered with Canadian scientists, the government and private companies to reduce predators and care for new calves in the short term, while restoring habitat in the long term by securing more than 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of land for caribou.
- Human interventions, including logging and energy infrastructure, are blamed for fragmenting caribou habitat and increasing predator numbers.
- The project involves killing wolves, a main predator of the caribou, drawing ire from some conservationists.

Colombian Indigenous community waits in poverty as courts weigh ownership of ancestral land
- In 2009 the Guahibo Indigenous community of El Trompillo was forced to move from what members say is their ancestral land.
- The official owners of the land are reportedly connected to former senator Alfonso Mattos, and plantation companies affiliated with Mattos have been developed in the territory; sources say they are polluting the land, water and air.
- El Trompillo community members hope the higher courts rule in their favor and return them to their land – but in the meantime they live in cramped, impoverished conditions.
- This story is a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto in Colombia.

Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
- Pastaza province, located in Ecuador’s Amazon, has implemented a $52 million sustainable development plan working with Indigenous nations that includes their ancestral practices, knowledge, and life plans.
- The plan relies on curtailing dependence on oil and mining projects for economic development and implementing chakras, an ancestral agroforestry system, and conservation projects to boost food security and value chains.
- So far, the Pastaza government has received $1.35 million in funding to implement its strategies and hopes other Amazonian provinces will follow suit to conserve 5 million hectares (12 million acres) of land and water.
- However, Indigenous communities do not manage any of the REDD+ funds and are wary of agreements that offer inclusive development in exchange for oil and mining concessions, says Indigenous organization CONFENIAE.

Traditional knowledge guides protection of planetary health in Finland
- Undisturbed peatlands act as carbon sinks and support biodiversity. Finland has drained 60% — more than 60,000 km2 (23,000 mi2) — of its peatlands, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and destroying entire ecosystems.
- But scientists and Finnish traditional and Indigenous knowledge holders are collaborating to rewild and protect peatlands and associated forests and rivers, turning them into carbon sinks again, while bringing back wildlife and supporting fishing, hunting, and even tourism, offering economic benefits to local communities.
- These Finnish collaborations are already serving as both inspiration and guide to those seeking to use rewilding to curb climate change, enhance biodiversity, create sustainable land use systems, and restore forest, freshwater and wetland ecosystems, while supporting traditional communities.
- “Rewilding is very much about giving more freedom to nature to shape our landscapes, and looking at nature as an ally in solving socioeconomic problems,” says Wouter Helmer former rewilding director of Rewilding Europe. “It’s a holistic way of putting nature back on center stage in our modern society.”

Millennia of Indigenous history faces erasure as mining grips Brazil’s Tapajós
- Archaeological studies in the Tapajós region of Brazil’s Pará state have unearthed rich historical knowledge about the human occupation of the Amazon, recording some of the most ancient relics found in the Americas.
- But the region has become the target of industrialized illegal mining, which is leaving massive destruction in its wake and threatening to erase tens of thousands of years of historical discoveries.
- Hydroelectric plants, ports, waterways, railways and dams are also planned in the region, which would also directly impact Indigenous and local communities.
- At the same time, the Brazilian government under President Jair Bolsonaro has slashed funding for research and issued executive orders allowing caves to be demolished and prospecting to be made easier.

Crucial to conservation, Indigenous communities’ environmental leadership endures
- On this Earth Month episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we highlight the growing recognition of the role Indigenous peoples play as the world's top conservationists.
- We speak with author Michelle Nijhuis, whose latest book, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, is a history of the modern conservation movement. She tells us about the book and what it has to say about how Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge have finally come to be acknowledged as vital to the cause of conservation.
- We also speak with Dr. Julie Thorstenson, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. She tells us that the 574 tribes in the United States manage more than 140 million acres of land, and that many of them are working to conserve and reintroduce endangered or declining wildlife, from bison and condors to salmon and ferrets.

‘We have a full pharmacopoeia of plants’: Q&A with Māori researcher Nicola Macdonald
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s green-lipped mussel industry provides a relatively sustainable source of animal protein, but the plastic ropes used to catch mussel larvae are a source of marine plastic pollution.
- Researchers are using mātauranga (Māori traditional knowledge) and Western science to work out whether natural fiber ropes, made from native species traditionally used by Māori, could provide a suitable and biodegradable alternative.
- Mongabay spoke with Indigenous researcher Nicola Macdonald about the research process, the findings so far, and the team’s hopes for helping create a more sustainable aquaculture industry.

NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.

Gold used in Italian wedding rings linked to Amazon deforestation
- An investigation in Brazil has identified Italian company Chimet, which refines precious metals for the jewelry industry, as a buyer of gold mined illegally from an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The allegations follow a police operation that cracked down on the web of illegal miners, middlemen and exporters who “launder” the gold to conceal its origin.
- Chimet has denied the allegations, saying it only buys from suppliers whose paperwork is in order; Italian police say that if the export documents were forged in Brazil, it’s a matter for the Brazilian police.
- Mining in Indigenous territories is prohibited under Brazil’s Constitution, but a lack of enforcement has allowed the practice to flourish.

Indigenous knowledge ‘gives us a much richer picture’: Q&A with Māori researcher Ocean Mercier
- The Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, have extensive knowledge about oceans and marine environments, which has not always been valued or recognized.
- In recent decades, Māori researchers and knowledge holders have elevated the position of mātauranga (Māori traditional knowledge) about oceans in academic and community contexts.
- Ocean Mercier is an Indigenous researcher who works at the interface of mātauranga and Western science, on issues such as marine and freshwater conservation and management.
- She recently spoke with Mongabay about the benefits, challenges and “crunchy bits” of working across knowledge systems in this way.

Sabino Gualinga, Amazon shaman and defender of the ‘living forest,’ passes away
- Sabino Gualinga was a yachak, or shaman, from the Kichwa nation of Sarayaku in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest, best known for his testimony before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where he explained the idea of the “living forest” and helped win a ruling in favor of his community.
- Gualinga, who spent his entire life in the Amazon, passed away on Feb. 8 at the age of either 97 or 103, depending on whether one consults the state or church registries.
- Gualinga had long taught the Sarayaku community that the forest is alive, which includes the flora, fauna and protective beings that look over all elements of the forest and live among humans.
- The Sarayaku community has since developed this worldview into a political declaration known as Kawsak Sacha, or “living forest” in Kichwa, demanding this sacred connection to their territory be legally recognized.

At a disputed Native massacre site, tribes brace for a new, lithium-driven rush
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved an open-pit lithium ore mine in northern Nevada, despite protests by Native tribes to protect the disputed sacred site.
- Lithium is in high demand as the key component in batteries that fuel electric vehicles and cellphones, raising environmental concerns about its extraction.
- The U.S. government is ramping up production of lithium all along the domestic supply chain to meet its clean energy goals.

Indigenous communities uncertain over proposed change to Kenyan forest law
- Under an amendment proposed by Kenya’s parliament last November, members of the public would be able to directly petition parliament for changes to forest boundaries.
- The change would effectively cut out the intermediary role currently held by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).
- While some Indigenous leaders say this would make it easier for communities to contact parliament and overcome impediments the KFS may pose, others say the presence of the KFS is seen as better than nothing to halt petitioners seeking to open up forest lands for industrial or agricultural projects.
- A senior KFS official says the service doesn’t always favor forest-dwelling people living in forests, but insists that KFS’s interests and those of Indigenous communities are the same.

Indigenous Comcáac turtle group saves sea turtles in Mexico’s Gulf of California
- The Grupo Tortuguero Comcáac, the Sea Turtle Group of the Comcáac people, in El Desemboque de los Seris is fighting to increase the population of sea turtles, a sacred animal, in the Gulf of California.
- In the past five years they have managed to release more than 8,000 olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) hatchlings along 14 kilometers (9 miles) of the Mancha Blanca and El Faro beach.
- State funding for the project is limited, however the turtle rescue group does not see this as a stumbling block, at times working 12 hour shifts to guard turtles, monitor the area and manage logistics.

A conservation paradigm based on Indigenous values in DR Congo (commentary)
- Colonialism and the gazettement of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern DRC led to the evictions of Batwa Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands and a number of human rights abuses that continue today.
- To seek to address historical and contemporary injustices, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is emphasizing Indigenous values and entering a partnership with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) to take actions that ensure that the rights of the Batwa peoples are respected and protected.
- This commentary is written by the Executive Director of Rights + Communities at the WCS, and a Congolese Lawyer and former Chairperson of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Protecting New Guinea’s forests with birds-of-paradise and ecotourism
- The island of New Guinea is home to 44 species of unique birds-of-paradise that are found nowhere else on Earth.
- The EcoNusa Foundation in Indonesia and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have partnered on a campaign called “defending paradise,” using the birds as ambassadors for the island’s biodiversity and communities.
- Home to the third-largest tract of tropical rainforest in the world, of which 80% is still intact, New Guinea is in a unique position to conserve its forest cover as part of an economy that serves its local inhabitants, rather than extracting from and deforesting these communities.
- For this episode of Mongabay Explores, we interview Bustar Maitar, founder and CEO of the EcoNusa Foundation, and Edwin Scholes, head of the Birds-of-Paradise Project at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Kelp, condors and Indigenous conservation
- On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a deep dive into two ambitious Indigenous-led conservation initiatives on the U.S. West Coast.
- We speak with Dune Lankard, founder and president of The Native Conservancy, who tells us about kelp farming pilot projects in Alaska's Prince William Sound and how the projects are intended to create a regenerative kelp economy based on conservation, restoration, and mitigation.
- We also speak with Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the Yurok Tribe’s Wildlife Department, who tells us about efforts to bring condors back to her tribe’s territory in Northern California, which is set to culminate in the first four birds being released into the wild this April.

Politicized Indigenous affairs agency puts Brazil’s uncontacted groups at risk
- In January 2021, Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, decided not to extend a Land Protection Order for the uncontacted Igarapé-Ipiaçava Indigenous group; following a public outcry and legal pressure, the land order was extended for six months.
- Confidential documents leaked to advocacy group Survival International, which Mongabay had access to, show top Funai officials attempting to debunk a technical report that gathered evidence of uncontacted Indigenous presence in November 2021.
- Leaked memos also show that Funai president Marcelo Xavier met with fellow Bolsonaro loyalist and senator Zequinha Marquinhos, who is openly against the Land Protection Order, to discuss the confidential report.
- Funai has reportedly ignored another report of a previously unidentified isolated Indigenous group, Isolados da Marmoré Grande, in the state of Amazonas for more than five months, according to an investigation by Brazilian news agency O Joio e O Trigo.

Ecuador’s top court rules for stronger land rights for Indigenous communities
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has ruled that an Indigenous community’s right to free, prior and informed consultation was violated by oil projects, and called for stronger protections to guarantee Indigenous communities’ rights to decide over extractive projects in their territories.
- As part of the ruling, the judges said Indigenous communities must not only be consulted about extractive projects on or near their territory, but they must also give their consent to such projects.
- The ruling will immediately affect oil and mining projects across the country, as they must now seek the consent of Indigenous communities who might be affected by their activities.
- President Guillermo Lasso has not yet commented on the ruling, as he is currently in China trying to renegotiate part of the country’s massive debt — a debt he has sought to address with increased oil and mining projects across the country.

Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.

Standing Rock withdraws from ongoing environmental assessment of Dakota Access Pipeline
- The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has withdrawn as a cooperating agency from the U.S Federal government’s ongoing environmental assessment of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) operations, citing lack of transparency by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers and the pipeline operators, Energy Transfer.
- Standing Rock tribal leaders have raised concerns about the oil spill emergency response plans made available to them and believe that Energy transfer has understated how big the potential of an oil spill might be.
- Janet Alkire, the newly elected Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairperson, has called on the Army Corps to address the issues they have highlighted in the emergency response plans or to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline immediately to safeguard the lives of tribal members.
- According to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, concerns raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will be considered as it issues the draft Environmental Impact Statement and the organization would have preferred if the tribe remained involved as a cooperating agency.

Tukupu: The women of the Kariña community, guardians of Venezuela’s forests
- Tukupu is Venezuela’s first Indigenous forest business, sustainably managing and reforesting 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of the Imataca Forest Reserve in the south-east of the country.
- The business is led mainly by women who have used their ancestral knowledge to restore over 312 hectares (770 acres) of forest, reforest another 113 (280 acres) and dedicate 189 (468 acres) to agroforestry.
- According to the FAO, the equivalent of more than 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions have been avoided, either directly or indirectly, through the project.
- One of the key points of the project has been to figure out how the resources from the forest can be commercialised in a sustainable way that also benefits members of the community.

Indigenous hunter-gatherers in Cameroon diversify food sources in the face of change
- In southeastern Cameroon, zoning and settlement policies have forced the Indigenous Baka people to slowly transition away from their hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the rainforest, to one that relies more on farming and fishing in order to guarantee their food security.
- The community relies heavily on diverse food sources in and outside the forest in order to comprise a diet of about 60 animal species, 83 wild edible species, six species of fish, 32 crops and 28 varieties of plantain.
- According to Yon Fernández de Larrinoa, chief of the FAO’s Indigenous Peoples Unit, the Baka’s sustainable way of life should be considered by the government when implementing policies that will challenge the resilience of the group’s food system.
- This article is one of an eight-part series showcasing Indigenous food systems covered in the most comprehensive FAO report on the topic to date.

‘Carbon cowboys’ and illegal logging
- Papua New Guinea has been the world’s largest tropical timber exporter since 2014. More than 70% of the timber produced in the country is considered illegal.
- Despite two government inquiries finding the majority of land leases on which logging occurs to be illegal, these land leases still remain in force today.
- While carbon trading has been touted as a solution, activists, journalists and even a provincial governor have expressed concerns over its economic benefits and the continued loss of customary land rights.
- For this episode of Mongabay Explores we interview Gary Juffa, governor of Oro province in Papua New Guinea, and investigative journalist, Rachel Donald.

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

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