Netherlands News

In 2019 and 2022, Europe was captivated by images of farmers in the Netherlands protesting in the streets, blocking traffic with their tractors and angrily warning of impending food shortages.…

Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands…

This is the third story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: The Dutch, and European, green agenda crashes into the continent’s…

This is the second story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How EU conservation rules shook up Dutch politics. Read Part…

This is the first story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How the Dutch food revolution became an ecological time bomb.…

Farah Obaidullah’s life has pivoted around the ocean. Growing up in Gabon and the Netherlands, she spent as much time as possible in or near the water, snorkeling, rescuing marine…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and…

Last year, farmer protests erupted throughout the Netherlands, riding a wave of rural anger at government plans to drastically halve nitrogen emissions by downsizing and closing farms. This quickly swept…

A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.

Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…

Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature (FFN) Award, given annually to…

Some 1,800 lawsuits attempting to hold nations and corporations responsible for their climate change pledges — assumed to be non-legally binding — are wending their way through the legal system.… And some are being won.

The Netherlands has voted to stop issuing new subsidies for the burning of forests to generate heat. Though a small win for critics who say biomass is not carbon neutral, the vote could influence a June EU biomass review.

The forest biomass industry is booming, with forests in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Eastern Europe cut to provide wood pellets for burning at former coal power plants in the UK, EU and Asia.

Dutch authorities carried out raids in six locations in the Netherlands seizing teak, widely used in luxury yachts, this month. The wood, originating from Myanmar, arrived in the Czech Republic…

AMSTERDAM — Hemsi has been in jail three times since 2006 and filed pleas with 13 government institutions in Indonesia during that period — all in an effort to fight…

In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.

Dutch banks ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank are failing to inform their customers that investment funds they offer include shares in palm oil companies damaging the environment in Indonesia, according…

Leaders from 17 countries, including China and India, have joined a new initiative aimed at helping vulnerable nations deal with the fallout from climate change. The Global Commission on Adaptation,…

A photographer and I have been walking for an hour through Zuid-Kennemerland National Park, which is sandwiched between the North Sea and the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. You’re…

An investigation has revealed a major Dutch timber company placed illegally sourced teak from Myanmar on the European market, prompting the Dutch Food and Safety Authority to rule the company…

Vietnam made headlines this week for burning tons of ivory and rhino horn in the run-up to a high-profile anti-trafficking conference in Hanoi. Meanwhile, on the other side of the…

Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by…

In recent years the evidence has piled up that neonicotinoids—a hugely popular group of pesticide—may be at least partly responsible for ongoing bee and pollinator collapse. But new research in…

Many problems surround growing animals for meat. Most of the deforestation of the Amazon is done to create pasture for cattle; the meat industry is also responsible for significant greenhouse…

Dutch police arrested 31 Greenpeace activists today, who were attempting to block the Russian oil tanker, Mikhail Ulyanov, from delivering the first shipment of offshore Arctic oil to the European…

In a move that represents a significant development for efforts to reduce the environmental impact of palm oil, consumer products giant Unilever today announced it will be able to trace…

Deforestation for palm oil production in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Palm oil imports into Europe for use as car fuel increased by more than three-fold since 2006, raising…

Yesterday, the EU joined the U.S. and Australia in banning all timber that was illegally harvested abroad. The new regulation could have a major impact on where the EU sources…

Logging truck carrying timber out of the Malaysian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. An independent panel in the Netherlands has found that the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) falls…