The need to fast-track the regularização of smallholder titles motivated the Terra Legal programme, which sent teams of surveyors to selected municipalities to accelerate the process for landholdings established prior…
The third pillar of the institutional mission of the Instituto Nacional de Colonização y Reforma Agraria (INCRA) encompasses both administrative and legal aspects of land tenure and, as such, is…
Ecuador’s new free trade agreement with China is getting backlash from critics worried about public health risks and potential damage to the environment. The agreement, which was signed last May…
Xalapa, Veracruz, MEXICO — In April 2023, Julia Martínez was washing her two children when she turned on the tap, but no drops came out. She did her best to…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — “I would like to announce to the public and the journalists that on November 2, the Ministry of Mines and Energy requested [Prime Minister Hun Manet]…
For more than 200 million years, the ancient Valdivian Temperate Forest in southwestern Chile has been a refuge for plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. This global…
An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
Forest and air quality advocates in the United States have long argued that manufacturing wood pellets from leveled forests and burning the compressed wood for energy is neither a green…
Rural real estate markets in the Pan Amazon are regulated by institutions that are a legacy of the agrarian reform movements that played a prominent role in domestic politics during…
Possible plans to develop large-scale agriculture in Suriname have sparked backlash from Indigenous communities, conservation groups and some members of parliament, who are concerned about deforestation of the Amazon and…
The adage ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is not legally true, but the concept reigns supreme on frontier landscapes in the Pan Amazon. Land grabbers and peasant pioneers share…
Humanity’s footprint in Ecuador now covers more than 30% of the country’s total area, at the expense of coastal ecosystems, the Andes, and forests across the country. But it’s the…
In December, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced that it was set to spend $6.2 billion on mining the rich, high-grade iron ore deposits of eastern Guinea’s Simandou Mountains, with…
New amendments to India’s existing green laws in the last couple of years have sparked a fierce backlash from activists, social groups and NGOs across the country. Many have argued…
From September to November 2023 Manaus, a city located in the relatively intact forest area in the central part of Brazilian Amazonia, was surprised to find itself under a dense…
One of the final stages in demarcating the Amazonian territory of the isolated Kawahiva tribe is set to take place this year, Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples has announced. It’s…
In 2015, independent journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown revealed that $700 million had appeared in the personal bank account of Malaysia’s then-prime minster, Najib Razak. The money had come from the…
New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions.…
JAKARTA — After years of declining deforestation, forest loss caused by Indonesia’s pulp sector is on the rise again, showing a fivefold increase in 2022 compared with 2017 levels, a…
After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According…
Mario Rene Xol used to enjoy life in Aldea Tierra Negra, an Indigenous village bordering the Lachuá-Ik'bolay Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) in northeastern Guatemala. Since the arrival of palm oil…
Last week, Mongabay published a recap of the major trends in the world’s tropical rainforests for 2023. Here’s a glimpse into some of the key issues to monitor in 2024.…
The Surucuá community in the Brazilian state of Pará is the first to receive an Amazonian Creative Laboratory, a compact mobile biofactory designed to help kick-start the Amazon’s bioeconomy.
Mina Setra remembers a time before oil palm plantations changed the landscape of her childhood home. Setra, an Indigenous Dayak Pompakng, grew up when forests surrounded her village in the…
The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines. This year, the list is more concise than in the past. Previous year-in-reviews: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |…
A special announcement interrupted the “Halting and Reversing Forest Loss by 2030” event during Nature, Land Use and Oceans Day at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai: COP28 president Sultan…
Brazil confiscates biggest catch of shark fins to date In June, IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental protection agency, announced it had seized 28.7 metric tons of shark fins, the largest confiscation…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…
A new species of stone oak tree has been described from deep in the forests of northern Sumatra and appears to be an important source of food for the Tapanuli…
Once roaming across Southeast Asia, the Javan rhino today persists on a single peninsula off the western-most coast of Java in Indonesian. There, in Ujung Kulon National Park, around 70…