Gates Foundation among investors backing troubled DRC palm plantation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation along with a number of prominent U.S. university endowments are among the top investors in a troubled set of oil palm plantations in the…
Articles by Ashoka Mukpo
Ashoka Mukpo is a staff writer for Mongabay and freelance journalist with expertise in international development policy, human rights, and environmental issues. His work has been featured in Al-Jazeera, Vice News, and The Guardian, among others. Follow him on Twitter via @unkyoka.
Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
“The white gold of jihad.” “Case proven: ivory trafficking funds terrorism.” “How killing elephants finances terror in Africa.” Just a few years ago, headlines like this were commonplace, as conservation…
At a plantation in Central Africa, Big Oil tries to go net-zero
After a disappointing track record over the past two decades, carbon credit markets are back in style. Also known as “offsets,” carbon credits are having a renewed moment, as corporations…
Mongabay’s coverage of palm oil in 2021
If 2021 was the year when global supply chains began to creak and groan under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, palm oil proved to be no exception. Partially due…
European supermarkets say Brazilian beef is off the menu
A group of supermarket chains that includes Sainsbury’s in the U.K. and Lidl in the Netherlands said this week that they will either reduce or outright halt sales of Brazilian…
Off West Africa’s coast, a sea of oil spills goes unreported
When BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig flooded the Gulf of Mexico with 4 million barrels of oil in 2010, the catastrophe was headline news across the world for months.…
At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…
Behind grand declarations at COP26, a long track record of failure
World leaders with furrowed brows gathering under the glare of TV lights. Dire warnings that time is running out to solve the climate and biodiversity crises. Proclamations that bold action…
What makes a ‘refugee’? It could be a life-or-death question in the climate crisis
In late 2020, a succession of violent storms slammed into Central America during the worst Atlantic hurricane season on record. The effects were devastating. Flooding and mudslides caused billions of…
Plantation giant Socfin accused of dodging taxes in Africa
By the OECD’s estimates, every year countries in Africa are cheated out of more than $50 billion in taxes, mainly by multinational corporations that run mines, oil wells, and plantations…
In Guinea, an illegal $6b gold ‘bonanza’ threatens endangered chimpanzees
On July 19, Australian mining firm Predictive Discovery posted a breathless press release on its website. “Bonanza”-grade gold had been discovered at its Bankan exploration site in a remote part…
Advocates call for a new human rights-based approach to conservation
This week delegates to the long-delayed global biodiversity summit began the opening round of negotiations over a new international framework meant to address the world’s biodiversity crisis. Originally intended to…
Children born in 2020 will see spike in climate disasters, study says
In a world wracked by wildfires, deadly storms, and the now too-familiar drumbeat of dire climate warnings, statistical descriptions of the future humanity faces can seem at once too sterile…
Nitrogen: The environmental crisis you haven’t heard of yet
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
Lockdowns didn’t stop 2020 being deadliest year yet for earth defenders
Despite COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, 2020 set a new record for the deadliest year for land and environmental defenders, Global Witness said Sept. 13. It’s the second year in a…
As tourists flood a Tanzanian park, the Maasai say they’re being pushed out
Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in northern Tanzania. Widely considered to be one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet,…
‘Global Indigenous Agenda’ for land rights, conservation launched at IUCN congress
MARSEILLE, France — Indigenous delegates to this year’s global conservation congress have launched a “Global Indigenous Agenda” for conservation, calling for approaches to the biodiversity crisis that center land rights…
As COP15 approaches, ’30 by 30’ becomes a conservation battleground
The statistics paint a grim picture: Accelerating species losses, 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of forest destroyed every year, apocalyptic declines in the abundance of some wildlife. The planet…
Advocates raise alarm over proposal to reopen DRC forests to loggers
Since 2002, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has had a moratorium on the issuance of new logging concessions in its vast portion of the Congo Basin rainforest. If the…
Bank risk policies failing to protect Amazon from oil-related threats: Report
U.S. and European banks are invested in oil extraction that threatens the Amazon biome, and their environmental and social risk (ESR) policies aren’t strong enough to prevent its worst impacts,…
The Brooklyn Bridge needs a makeover. Is rainforest lumber still in style?
PETÉN, Guatemala — Once or twice a year, a jaguar visits Uaxactun at night. It slinks under the great stone pyramids built by the ancient Mayans and past the moonlit…
As U.K. eyes new environmental rules, some firms want to pump the brakes
After months of delays, the U.K. is on the cusp of passing a long-awaited post-Brexit environmental bill. But according to documents obtained by U.K.-based advocacy group Earthsight, some of the…
Book Review: ‘Planet Palm’ reveals a world map stained by red oil
In the pantheon of global commodities that play starring roles in our narratives of history, palm oil tends to occupy a seat far in the back. We know the search…
In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs
Beginning along Honduras’s northeastern coastline and stretching south into its dense interior rainforests lies the Río Plátano Biosphere. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, the Río Plátano is…
Gas fields and jihad: Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado becomes a resource-rich war zone
On Monday, French energy giant Total declared force majeure on its multibillion-dollar light natural gas (LNG) project in northern Mozambique, formally withdrawing all of its employees from the region and…
81 Indigenous leaders, environmental defenders slam BlackRock in open letter
A group of 81 Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders from across the world have signed an open letter to BlackRock, saying the fund manager’s investments “continue to threaten our health,…
JBS, other Brazil meatpackers linked to devastating Pantanal fires, Greenpeace says
In a new report, Greenpeace has linked major Brazilian meat processors JBS, Marfrig and Minerva to cattle ranchers that satellite data indicate were responsible for setting fires in Brazil’s Pantanal…
Review finds palm oil firm Golden Veroleum cleared carbon-rich Liberian forests
In another blow to the Liberia-based palm oil company Golden Veroleum, an investigation by an independent grievance panel has found that it bulldozed rainforests and ignored community rights as it…
As nature declines, so does human quality of life, study finds
The past 50 years have seen a catastrophic decline in the planet’s ecosystems and natural environments. Every day at least 32,300 hectares (80,000 acres) of forest vanishes, and the size…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Cut down once again: Uncontrolled logging puts new Sahel reforestation projects at risk
- VIDEO: The truth about Cambodia’s Prey Lang sanctuary | Chasing Deforestation
- New concession in Botum Sakor National Park handed to Cambodia’s Royal Group
- Elephants invade as habitat loss soars in Nigerian forest reserve
Oceans
- Indonesian village forms coast guard to protect octopus in Mentawai Islands
- From rat-ridden to reserve, Redonda is an island restoration role model
- Seventy-plus nations sign historic high seas treaty, paving way for ratification
- First Nation and scientists partner to revive climate-saving eelgrass
Amazon Conservation
- Cacao and cupuaçu emerge as Amazon’s bioeconomy showcases
- Amazon drought cuts river traffic, leaves communities without water and supplies
- New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Brazil Supreme Court quashes time frame proposal in win for Indigenous rights
Land rights and extractives
- Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- South Africa community members decry traditional leaders’ power amid mine plans
- Can upcoming referendum in Ecuador stop oil drilling in Yasuní National Park?
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- Indigenous activists demand justice after 5 shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Forest restoration can fare better with human helping hand, study shows
- From rat-ridden to reserve, Redonda is an island restoration role model
- Video: Rice as a peace offering in India’s human-elephant conflict capital
- Group certification helps Malaysia’s Sabah aim for palm oil sustainability
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
