• Indigenous leaders in Ecuador say that a lack of progress toward addressing key issues stands in the way of their fundamental territorial rights.
• Concerns include resource extraction projects initiated without proper prior consent and consultation, as well as the activation of several mining and oil concessions in Ecuador.
• The outcry comes at a time when indigenous peoples are increasingly being recognized as key partners in ensuring the protection of the world’s tropical forests.

SOMSAK SAE-LAO, an assistant village chief in the small Nan community of Pang Kob, still has no idea whether his villagers could be subject to any benefits for helping protect surrounding forest under a global scheme known as REDD+, if implemented here.

The village has unresolved overlapping claims with Khun Nan National Park on a high mountain, thus becoming uncertain about their land rights.

The world is vastly underestimating the benefits of acting on climate change. Recent research from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate finds that bold climate action could deliver at least $26 trillion in economic benefits through 2030. This ground-breaking research, produced by the Global Commission and more than 200 experts, highlights proof points of the global shift to a low-carbon economy, and identifies ways to accelerate action in five sectors: energy, cities, food and land use, water and industry.

Illegal gold mining in the Amazon has reached "epidemic" proportions in recent years, causing damage to pristine forest and waterways, a conservation group said Monday as it released an unprecedented new map of the activities.

City representatives said they had moved beyond national climate battles and were now taking action

KATOWICE, Poland - Compact pedestrian neighborhoods, urban forests and even carbon-sucking technologies must make the to-do list of more city mayors if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change, scientists said at U.N. talks on Monday.

When the water reached some of Kisiwa Panza's graveyards, people found themselves scrambling to protect the remains of their friends and families

KISIWA PANZA, Tanzania - First, the encroaching sea started eating away at homes and killing crops on the small island of Kisiwa Panza. Then the rising tides began bringing up the dead.

For over 25 years, rising seas linked to climate change have caused repeated flooding on this remote islet in the Tanzanian archipelago, saturating the land with saltwater.

While climate negotiators meet behind closed doors to implement the Paris Agreement, climate activists have put out their own set of demands.

On Monday, as delegates entered the maze of the COP24 conference center in Katowice, Poland, they were greeted by the upbeat sound of a Polish marching band. On Tuesday it was a chorus: the voices of dozens of young climate activists from all over the world.

"We demand so much more from COP24," the group sang in unison. "We remember, we resist, we rise."

Illegal logging and the encroachment of agriculture on the jungle, are the main drivers of the deforestation

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The destruction of Brazil's Amazon rainforest reached its highest level in a decade this year, government data released on Friday showed, driven by illegal logging and the encroachment of agriculture on the jungle.

Bogota, 22 November 2018 – In an unprecedented and historic show of unity, leaders from every major faith tradition today joined indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombian communities, climate scientists, and NGOs in pledging to defend the Amazon and end deforestation.

At the Land Portal, we are in the business of building an information ecosystem for land governance that supports better informed decision and policy making at national and international levels. We realize that these concepts are often difficult to grasp, and that the linkages between open data and land rights are not exactly commonplace “dinner table” talk.

The findings, published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), also show that people in low- and middle-income countries are seven times more likely to die from natural disasters than those in developed nations.

“This puts a big emphasis on the need to…make sure that we curb greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ricardo Mena, UNISDR chief, in charge of implementing the Sendai Framework.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – A half mile from the din of the Global Climate Action Summit and its 4,000 attendees in San Francisco, indigenous peoples from around the world came together in a small space for a kind of summit of their own.

They spoke different languages. They wore unique clothing. But the tenor of their voices and the expressions on their faces conveyed a similar message: They are the “guardians of the forests,” not their national governments. As such, they have a vital role to play in the battle against climate change.