Land Conflict

Floodplains are extraordinarily productive because they are the interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are remarkably diverse because they integrate a mosaic of lakes, marshes, palm swamps and inundated forests, which create the complex food webs that support fish populations. Floodplain habitats are socially and economically vital because tens of thousands of families depend […]

PALMAR SUR, Costa Rica — “Once, we were digging to build a fence for the animals and we discovered by luck some archaeological artifacts,” says Ana Isabel Vargas Ortiz, a 55-year-old farmer. She lives in Finca 9, a village close to the Diquís Delta archaeological site in the Puntarenas region of southeast Costa Rica. “It […]

JAKARTA — Activists have called on the developers of a major tourism project on the Indonesian island of Lombok to immediately remedy the rights violations alleged by local Indigenous communities who have had to be moved from the land. The resettlement phase of the $3 billion project in the coastal Mandalika region was supposed to […]

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 of the vast North American plains: the American buffalo (Bison bison). In a poignant discussion with Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough, Burns delves deep into his upcoming […]

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 […]

The 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 […]

JAKARTA — In 2020, residents of Suka Mukti village in southern Sumatra paid 10 million rupiah each, about $700, to a government agency to obtain titles to their land — a process that is officially supposed to be free. This year, the same agency declared the certificates illegal because, it says, the land falls inside […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, but the industry’s rapid expansion has fueled deforestation and allegations of land grabbing throughout the archipelago nation. The study, produced […]

JAKARTA — Electric vehicles, solar power plants, biofuel, blue carbon, green bonds and the carbon market: all got a mention from Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo in his speech at the World Leaders Summit at the COP26 U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. Conspicuously absent from his speech, however, was any commitment to protect the rights […]

SORONG, West Papua — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s West Papua province are fighting for the rights to their ancestral forests, now that the local government has rescinded licenses for oil palm concessions on their lands. For years, the residents of Segun village in West Papua’s Sorong district feared that their forests would be razed to […]