Ashoka Mukpo
Mongabay
New York, NY, United States
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Past articles by Ashoka:
Palm oil plantation linked to Wilmar faces accusations in Liberia
A new report released by the Liberian and Dutch affiliates of Friends of the Earth accuses a palm oil producer operating in a remote part of Liberia of mistreating workers and rural villagers inside its concession area. It also says French and Dutch development banks have continued to provide the company with substantial financing despite […] → Read More
Liberian courts rubber-stamp export shipment of illegal logs
Last week, a timber company won a controversial lawsuit against Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority when a court ordered the agency to allow a shipment of illegal logs to be exported overseas. Liberian environmental groups say the ruling is emblematic of a breakdown of the laws regulating the country’s logging sector under the current president, George […] → Read More
In Sierra Leone’s fishing villages, a reality check for climate aid
BONTHE, Sierra Leone — As the sun rises over Bonthe, a small city on the coastline of Sierra Leone’s remote Sherbro Island, echoes of a not-so-distant colonial past bathe in the red glow of early morning. A crumbling stone warehouse, its façade scarred by years of salt and humidity, stands in front of a vast, […] → Read More
Locals in the dark about oil auctions in DRC: report
One of the first on-the-ground investigations into the Democratic Republic of Congo’s proposed oil exploration blocks suggests that in some of the regions marked for auction, most people are unclear on the government’s plans and wary of what they might mean for local livelihoods. In a report released by Greenpeace Africa along with a group […] → Read More
Africa wants its climate money. Will rich countries pay?
In just over a month, the world will gather in Egypt for the United Nations’ annual climate summit. This will be the 27th Conference of Parties, or COP, which has met every year since 1995 to negotiate international climate action. Once attended mostly by meteorologists and other scientists, as the impacts of climate change have […] → Read More
Even without human-driven deforestation, climate change threatens some forests
When it comes to climate solutions, trees are in vogue right now. From the Trillion Tree Campaign to the stream of vigorous — if somewhat vague — promises made at last year’s COP26 climate conference to halt global deforestation, harnessing the carbon-sequestering power of forests has become a goal of governments, cities, and policymakers across […] → Read More
As Europe eyes Africa’s gas reserves, environmentalists sound the alarm
It was a victory for African climate campaigners and their allies in Europe and the United States: a group of powerful countries and institutions including the U.S., Canada and the European Investment Bank announced at last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that they would end decades of support for oil and gas projects […] → Read More
Inside Sierra Leone’s Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (video)
In the 1970s, there were around 20,000 critically endangered western chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. But by 2008, when the most recent census was carried out, there were only around 5,500 western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) left. Like those of its neighbors in West and Central Africa, Sierra Leone’s chimpanzee habitats are shrinking — and so […] → Read More
More than half of activists killed in 2021 were land, environment defenders
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, according to an analysis by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the international consortium Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Of the total, nearly 60% were land, environment or Indigenous rights defenders, and more than a quarter were themselves Indigenous. Researchers who worked to compile the data said […] → Read More
New law would tie U.S. conservation funding to human rights protection
Lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that, if passed, would require human rights safeguards to be embedded in Department of Interior grants given to conservation organizations working overseas. Co-sponsored by Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, the bill […] → Read More
In West and Central Africa, palm oil investors buckle under community pressure
When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on Africa, where governments in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire assured them that they had land to spare. In just a few […] → Read More
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 Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a report from the Oakland Institute. Researchers with the group told Mongabay that in the past year, incidents of […] → Read More
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 campaigners looking to draw attention to the slaughter of elephants and other wildlife touted the involvement of terrorist organizations like al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko […] → Read More
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 beef in the coming months. The move comes in the wake of an investigation published by the environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth and Repórter Brasil […] → Read More
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. A new study of satellite images taken between 2002 and 2012 suggests that it may have been dwarfed by the amount of oil spilled into […] → Read More
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 is finally right around the corner, backed up by glossy declarations unveiled in extravagant press conferences (nonbinding, of course). If this sounds like a familiar […] → Read More
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 dollars’ worth of damage, killed hundreds of people, and displaced more than half a million more. The storms were part of an ominous trend across […] → Read More
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 on the continent. That figure is higher than the total amount of development aid given to countries in sub-Saharan Africa — and some studies suggest […] → Read More
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 of eastern Guinea. Drilling samples were indicating that the deposits at the site were massive — 3.65 million ounces, the company later estimated, worth more […] → Read More
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 and too overwhelming to process. What experiences lie in the as-yet-unrealized space between a world that is warming by 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) and one […] → Read More