At the COP28 climate summit set to be held in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates later this month, carbon markets are sure to be high on the agenda. And some…
Last week, communities and conservation stakeholders from across the African continent gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to attend the first Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Conservation Congress. “IPLCs themselves organized this…
SABAH, Malaysia — The 3-year-old sun bear sits teddy bear-like in a secluded grassy glade in its rainforest enclosure. Its soft, densely furred belly vibrates as it sucks on one…
GOBA, Ethiopia — Nestled in the heart of Bale Mountains National Park in Ethiopia's highlands is an isolated village surrounded by lush natural forest — one of the few left…
A new report reveals that deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022, dimming the prospects of ending forest loss by 2030. The spike indicates rates are trending “in the wrong…
In the conservation world, partnerships between the big international NGOs, or BINGOs, and local grassroots organizations are often marriages of unequals. And as with any union, the biggest pain points…
Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns tells stories that shed light on the complexities and nuances of the United States’ cultural tapestry. This time, Burns has turned his lens on a symbol…
In 2017, a camera installed on the fringes of Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India photographed an unsuspecting woman. The local forest staff had set up the device discreetly to…
ADDIS ABABA — Indigenous communities in the Lower Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia have taken ownership and management responsibilities of what is now Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area, the…
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The peoples of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia have never had an easy task in ensuring their own survival. Hot and dry, with…
Protected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest experienced just one-third the amount of primary forest loss as non-protected areas, according to a new report. The Monitoring of the…
MEDAN, Indonesia — An investigation into the violent death of an orangutan in northern Sumatra in January has shone a light on the persistent problem of human-wildlife conflict and illegal…
The controversial whistleblower who helped expose corruption in Thailand's parks department has gained a major promotion — and increased scrutiny of his own checkered history, which includes two murder charges,…
A flagship dam and large-scale sugarcane plantations in southwestern Ethiopia are causing starvation and disease among several Indigenous groups driven off their land by the projects, according to a report…
Protecting forests by investing in Indigenous peoples and local communities, or IPLCs, is increasingly seen as one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change and halt the global…
JAKARTA — “Remarkably lax” and “laissez-faire” law enforcement efforts by conservation authorities in Indonesia have allowed the killing, capture and trade of scores of orangutans to persist, according to a…
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caught Costa Rica’s Cabécar Indigenous communities at a precarious time. Amid the species-rich forests of the Talamanca Cabécar Indigenous territory, climate change had already begun…
Funders of a $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they disbursed around 19% of the money to bolster the land rights of Indigenous and local…
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Chotgun Prapatsit takes a handful of topsoil and deftly sprinkles it into a small cylindrical potting bag containing a tiny tree seedling. The spindly stem sports…
Bangladesh is set to implement a total ban on entry into the Sundarbans mangrove forest for three months starting June. This will apply not only to tourists but also the…
JAKARTA — An independent initiative in Indonesia has mapped Indigenous lands covering an area half the size of Germany since it began in 2010, nearly a third of it in…
CANELOS, Ecuador — An almost invisible trail snakes through thick buzzing forest leading to a chakra, an ancestral food garden in the Kichwa Cuya community located in Ecuador’s largest province,…
Brazil’s Amazon dam plans have been slowed down over the past decade due to realization by the country’s electrical authorities that obtaining environmental licenses would be difficult when Indigenous peoples…
With negotiations underway in Geneva for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Indigenous land rights have finally taken center stage. The human rights group Avaaz released a 30-page document calling for…
KINANDU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A small group of residents from Kinandu village, 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of Lubumbashi, head into the miombo wooded savanna, decimated by…
To support ongoing conservation efforts in the Amazon rainforest, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is putting an additional $300 million toward its Andes-Amazon Initiative, which is the largest private…
Conservation needs to adopt a human-rights based approach to deal effectively and equitably with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, according to a new report co-authored by…
The Sierra Madre Occidental in northwestern Mexico boasts vast forests that are home to Indigenous communities such as the Wixárika people (or Huichols). Across the largest forest reserves in Jalisco,…
NAIROBI — In November 2021, the Kenyan parliament proposed a bill that would effectively eliminate the Kenya Forest Service’s (KFS) role as an intermediary between petitioners and parliament in requests to…
The Batwa Indigenous peoples lived in the Kahuzi-Biega forests of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo for centuries before Belgian colonial rule imposed formal change in 1937 with the establishment of…