Papua New Guinea creates two massive new Marine Protected Areas
Together they cover more than 6,200 square miles, tripling the country’s marine area under protection, and are the country’s first to be co-managed by Indigenous communities.
Mongabay
Panama copper mine to close after Supreme Court rules concession unconstitutional
Minera Panamá will have to close the Cobre Panamá mine after the country’s highest court unanimously ruled that the terms of its contract were unconstitutional. The decision comes amid nationwide protests that blocked roads and shipping routes as Panamanians fought back against expansion of the mining sector due to its damaging environmental impacts.
Namibia hosts Africa’s first community-led conservation congress
Hundreds of Indigenous and local community groups, conservation organizations, governments and policymakers gathered to strategize how communities can play a bigger role in African conservation efforts, which are typically dominated by big international NGOs.
New Caledonia expands strictly protected coverage of its swath of the Pacific
A decade ago, New Caledonia established its entire 502,000-square-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as a marine protected area. However, only 2.4% of the park prohibited fishing, drilling and mining. Now, the New Caledonian government has designated an additional 7.6% of its EEZ to be highly protected.
Indonesian government recognizes ancestral forests in Aceh for first time
The Indonesian federal government has recognized 55,700 acres of ancestral forests on the northern tip of Sumatra for the first time. Indigenous communities in the region have welcomed the recognition, saying it will give them legal protection to manage their forests in a sustainable manner.
Paraguay adopts new law to improve carbon credit market
The legislation creates a registry for carbon credit projects within the National Directorate of Climate Change to serve as the official record of every carbon credit program active in Paraguay and ensure that land isn’t being registered more than once — a common problem in the global carbon credit market.
Nepal’s constitutional bench halts ‘triple taxation’ on community forests
Nepal’s Constitutional Court has issued a stay on the laws that require community forest user groups to pay taxes to the local, provincial, and federal governments.
Community forest user groups manage about 34% of Nepal’s forested area under a participatory conservation model that has been praised for increasing forest cover and empowering local communities.
Indigenous seed collectors grow a network of restoration across Brazil
The seed collector networks are the base of the ecological restoration chain and will play an essential role in enabling Brazil to reach its goal of restoring 12.5 million hectares (30.9 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030 — vital in the fight to avoid climate breakdown.
Brazil strikes intruders of Amazon’s most deforested Indigenous land
The Brazilian government has launched a long-awaited operation to remove thousands of non-Indigenous invaders illegally occupying two ancestral territories in the Amazon Rainforest, in what human rights defenders hail as a victory for protecting Native communities.
New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
Mobi draws information from public databases, government statistics, and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats facing uncontacted Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon. Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that can promote stronger public policies.