Rechargeable battery industry needs better mining regulations, report says

Rechargeable batteries have an important role to play in the fight against climate change, especially when it comes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions through the transition to electric vehicles. It’s one reason the rechargeable battery market is expected to grow to over $180 billion by 2030. But the transition minerals that go into those batteries […]

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As Indonesia retakes land from developers, conservation is an afterthought

Rainforest in Sumatra. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler / MongabayJAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of forest. The affected concessions include Ministry of Environment and Forestry permits for 192 logging, plantation, mining and ecotourism operations, totaling 3.13 million hectares (7.73 million […]

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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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In southern Colombia, Indigenous groups fish and farm with the floods

At the very southern tip of Colombia, Indigenous communities practice a sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and rotating crop structures within cycles of flooding periods. This has allowed them to live sustainably in an extremely biodiverse part of the Amazon that has remained largely untouched by commercial agriculture. The Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua […]

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Papua clan takes first step toward official recognition of land rights

SORONG, Indonesia — An Indigenous clan in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has had its rights to its ancestral lands and forests recognized by the local government, a key step toward acknowledgment at the national level. On Oct. 15, Sorong district head Johny Kamuru issued a decree recognizing the rights of the Gelek Malak Kalawilis […]

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New restoration “Playbook” calls for political, economic, and social change

Toco toucan (Ramphastos toco). Photo credit: Rhett A. ButlerInternational forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology Playbook, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, recognizes that issues such as climate change and forest loss are not just biophysical and environmental problems, […]

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