“Our voice is a political voice,” says Samela Sateré Mawé, communicator of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry (ANMIGA) and Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — Fisherwomen on Indonesia’s Madura Island are at the forefront of a protest against a plan to convert a stretch of their coast into salt farming in their…
HARAR, Ethiopia — In the hilly terrain of Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, Fetiya Ousman, a female wildlife ranger, is leading her team on a patrol. Dressed in a jungle-green…
Niéde Guidon has long since stopped her walks through Serra da Capivara National Park. Living as a recluse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the archaeologist, who retired from…
How had we missed this until now? An undersea mountain as tall as three Eiffel Towers. DDT contamination spread across an area of the seabed as large as San Francisco.…
In June, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Monica P. Medina as its new President and CEO. Medina is the first woman to take the helm at WCS and brings…
The first encounter between the biologist and the primates was like a movie scene. The monkeys moved through the thick fog covering the montane forest (or cloud forest), where she…
At the end of April, about 60 Munduruku Indigenous people from several villages in Pará traveled more than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) to Brasília to participate in the 19th Acampamento…
A new study shows that both conservation and agricultural production can improve when women farmers more widely participate in group decisions about sustainable practices. The report, published in February in…
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
“One of the most important days of my life,” are the words that anthropologist Beatriz Matos uses to describe her February visit to the Javari Valley on her first project…
KATHMANDU — Tulshi Laxmi Suwal, a Nepali conservationist, has been named one of the seven winners of this year’s prestigious Whitley Awards, known as the “Green Oscars,” in recognition of…
For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…
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…
JAKARTA — “It was heaven,” says Indonesian fisheries scientist Alyssa “Elle” Wibisono, describing her first ever scuba diving experience in the Komodo Islands when she was a high school student.…
PUNTA CHUECA, Mexico — Legend has it that, many thousands of years ago, a messenger arrived in the Comcaac land on board a strange boat after sailing on the waters…
Our planet is in crisis. Human activity is driving accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss across the globe. The devastating impacts of both processes are disproportionately felt by women and…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly…
PARAÍBA VALLEY, Brazil — Under the frigid morning air of the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, honeybees begin leaving the hive. “When day breaks they are calmer,” says Mara Galvão,…
The European Union is considering a regulation on deforestation-free products that is one of the most promising environmental legislative initiatives of this decade. It would force traders in commodities that…
On July 12, oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright was sealed inside a submersible, traveling to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Wright and…
The increasing difficulty of accessing clean water is forcing young women in coastal areas of Bangladesh to try to halt their menstrual cycles by misusing contraceptive pills, putting their long-term…
KAVRE, Nepal – Srijana Karki still remembers her childhood when she visited her grandfather's farm. "The green fields were dotted with various fruit trees and we would get to eat…
CHELEM, Mexico — In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, a few words describe the most common occupations: fisher, merchant, mother. Over the past decade, the port town of Chelem has seen the…
Women-led philanthropy garnered renewed attention after MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced in March that she had given away $3.9 billion in grants to 465 organizations…
Traditional fishers scattered in isolated communities along Madagascar’s 4,800-kilometer (3,000-mile) coastline are grappling with falling fish stocks and competition from industrial trawlers, mostly owned by foreigners. As a young woman,…
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Women, children and the elderly are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change in rural Zimbabwe, taking up a large share of the agricultural labor force…
TANAKEKE ISLANDS, Indonesia — Wading through a mangrove swamp in the coastal waters of Indonesia’s Tanakeke Islands, Hayati wiped the sweat from her brow and tried her best to keep…
Josefina Tunki is a mother, even though she doesn’t have any biological children. In 2019, she became the first president of the Shuar Arutam People (Pueblo Shuar Arutam, PSHA, in…
As deforestation and subsequent human expansion into natural areas continue, separating people from wildlife is unrealistic. Even in “pristine” landscapes, like national parks, humans and wildlife are always sharing the…
