Mongabay News

8 May 2024. Rights groups call for greater public input in ASEAN environmental rights framework – Civil society groups in Southeast Asia are calling for greater public participation and transparency in the drafting process of a regional declaration on environmental rights, as well as stronger levels of commitment from states within the final agreement. First tabled in 2021 by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the bloc’s declaration on […]

8 May 2024. Is the extractive sector really favorable for the Pan Amazon’s economy? – The Pan Amazon is a significant source of several key industrial commodities. Global markets are not overly dependent on the region; nonetheless, production from Amazonian mines is not insignificant. Development of mineral resources is a decades-long process and, if the extractive sector were to abandon the region, as proposed by some environmental advocates, the global […]

8 May 2024. Scientists explore nature’s promise in combating plastic waste – Biological solutions offer hope for tackling human-caused pollution — but only if government and industry significantly support getting those solutions out of the lab and into the real world.

8 May 2024. Secrets from the rainforest’s past uncovered in Amazonian backyards – Small fragments of ancestral Amazonian culture are emerging from the ground in the backyards of homes in the rural and urban parts of Parintins, Amazonas: pieces of broken pots, chips with clear drawings, elaborately sculpted figures of human and nonhuman beings, decorative objects and burial urns — all made of pottery. Among these particles of […]

8 May 2024. In a Himalayan Eden, a road project promises opportunity, but also loss – TSUM VALLEY, Nepal — “In the future, when war, strife and difficult times come,” said Thrisong Deutsen, an eighth-century Tibetan king, “will there be a safe place where people can go to practice Buddhism?” His guest, Padmasambhava, otherwise known as Guru Rinpoche, quickly calmed the king’s worries with his response: “Yes, there will be valleys […]

8 May 2024. As plastic talks wrap up in Canada, fishers in Indonesia count the costs – PULAU SERIBU, Indonesia — Mustaghfirin unmoors his boat every day in the Thousand Islands archipelago, two hours’ sailing from the Jakarta coast, and sets off into a sea filled with garbage. “This plastic waste is extremely annoying,” Mustaghfirin told Mongabay Indonesia in April. “The motor we use to propel the boat is small, so it […]

7 May 2024. The Narwhal makes waves in Canada for environmental journalism – The Narwhal is an award-winning, non-profit, environmental news outlet based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It was co-founded in 2018 by podcast guest Emma Gilchrist, who joins the show to discuss the array of environmental issues they cover and how they feature Indigenous views and topics via a “story telling vs. story taking” point of […]

7 May 2024. Indigenous leader’s killer is convicted in Brazil, but tensions over land remain – Bar owner João Carlos da Silva was on April 15 sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of Indigenous land defender and teacher Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau four years earlier.

7 May 2024. At its fourth summit, 170 nations strive toward a global plastics treaty by 2025 – Representatives of 170 nations met in Ottawa, Canada, last week pushing a final U.N. plastic pollution treaty agreement closer to completion. But much remains to be done, with debate over plastic production limits and other barriers still unsettled.

7 May 2024. Indonesian palm oil, Brazilian beef top contributors to U.S. deforestation exposure – If you’re in the United States, your meal might come with a side of deforestation.  The US imported palm oil, cattle products, soybeans, cocoa, rubber, coffee and corn linked to an estimated 122,800 hectares (303,445 acres) of tropical deforestation between October 2021 and November 2023 — an area the size of the city of Los […]

7 May 2024. Pro-business parties accused of holding back Indonesia’s Indigenous rights bill – JAKARTA — Fear among Indonesia’s ruling class of losing control of natural resources to Indigenous people is why the country’s parliament continues to delay passing a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights, according to activists. The bill was proposed in 2012 and has been placed on parliament’s list of national priority legislation every year since 2014, […]

7 May 2024. Plastic pollution talks end & Arctic peoples return home to a ‘sink’ of plastic – Global plastic pollution talks in Ottawa came to a close April 30, and with them a group of Indigenous leaders from the Arctic are on their way home. But the mood remains bittersweet for the delegation that must return to a region that has become a “sink” collecting plastic pollution that arrives from around the […]

7 May 2024. Indonesia resumes lobster larvae exports despite sustainability, trade concerns – JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is resuming a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae — the latest chapter in an eight-year saga that began over concerns for wild lobster stocks and led to a fisheries minister being jailed for corruption. The country’s current fisheries minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, said recently that the decision to reinstate […]

6 May 2024. ‘Our rights are on trial in Brazil’: Interview with Indigenous movement pioneer Brasílio Priprá – The “People of the Sun,” as the Xokleng Indigenous people of Brazil call themselves, are no strangers to conflict and violence. In the early 20th century, as the southern region of the country was colonized by newly arrived Germans and Italians, bugreiro militias hired by the imperial government decimated an estimated two-thirds of their population. […]

6 May 2024. CITES halts Ecuador’s shark trade; trafficking persists amid lack of transparency – Illegal trafficking of shark fins and bodies from Ecuador to Peru has gone on for years. On Feb. 6, Ecuador announced measures to restrict fishing of these animals. The announcement came in response to an ultimatum given in November 2023 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) […]

6 May 2024. New ban threatens traditional fishers in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state – Legislation in effect since Jan. 1 has banned fishing in Mato Grosso state rivers for five years, with heavy opposition from environmental defenders and traditional fishers.

6 May 2024. UK’s Drax targets California forests for two major wood pellet plants – The biomass energy industry centered in the U.S. Southeast is now seeking expansion to California, with U.K. wood pellet maker Drax joining a state-funded nonprofit to increase pellet exports to Asia — a plan forest advocates oppose.

6 May 2024. Rocky rollout for Bangladesh’s ambitious solar-powered irrigation plans – Bangladesh plans to phase out diesel-powered irrigation pumps for solar ones to cut carbon emissions, but the country’s farmers have expressed concern about the availability of power during bad weather and the uncertainty of costs. The initiative is touted as ensuring the South Asian country will generate an additional 480 gigawatt-hours of clean energy annually, […]

6 May 2024. In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands – Streets lie deserted. Gardens have overgrown homes. Doors and windows are bricked up. The Bebedouro neighborhood in Maceió, in Brazil’s northeastern coastal state of Alagoas, is a shadow of its former self. And soon not even that. Every building there is numbered. As soon as a property has been fenced off by iron sheets, the […]

6 May 2024. Forestry company under fire for illegal timber harvest in DR Congo – Some $5 million worth of timber exported from the Democratic Republic of Congo to China in the second half of 2022 was felled illegally, according to a watchdog report. The timber was exported by Congo King Baisheng Forestry Development, known variously as Cokibafode or CKBFD in short, which in April 2022 was found by DRC […]