Can a country have too many tigers? Nepal is about to find out

KATHMANDU — As the world prepares to mark International Tiger Day on July 29, officials in Nepal are putting the finishing touches on a report that’s expected to show a much-anticipated doubling in the population of the big cats in the Himalayan country since 2010. Nepal is one of 13 tiger range countries, and the […]

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Report clears Kenyan conservancy of community abuse, but advocates cry foul

A report accusing Kenya-based conservation group the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of involvement in extrajudicial killings of pastoralists was rejected on June 9 in an independent review commissioned by the trust’s donors, which include The Nature Conservancy, USAID and the European Union. The review’s author, Kanyinke Sena, director of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating […]

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Globally acclaimed community forest groups in Nepal say new rules threaten their autonomy

KATHMANDU — Nepalis whose livelihoods rely on access to the country’s community forests have suspended planned protests against a new law they say will threaten their autonomy and force their groups to work under various bureaucratic mechanisms. The move by the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN), which has been protesting the proposed changes […]

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Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021

Fire line moves through a degraded forest area in an undesignated public forest area in Porto Velho, Rondônia on July 29, 2021. Photo © Christian Braga / GreenpeaceThe world’s greatest tropical rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever. But the rainforest as a […]

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Mexican firm profits from reforestation, empowers Indigenous people

Local stories in Michoacán tell how, when the Spanish invaded what would later be known as Mexico in the 1500s, they found Indigenous communities tapping pine trees and using the resin in sizzling-bright torches and lamps that lit the Aztec Empire capital of Tenochtitlan, today’s Mexico City. The Spanish appropriated the resin to use as […]

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