SPANISH LOOKOUT, Belize — When the Mennonite community here purchased a property four years ago in the middle of the Maya Forest Corridor, a government-recognized stretch of land designed to connect forests in the region, conservation groups were concerned. Community members began clearing land before completing an environmental impact assessment, resulting in fires and pollution, according to one report. In addition, Mennonites beat a conservation coalition that had also wanted to purchase the land for the corridor. The battle for that piece of real estate is just one example of how Mennonites conduct business in Belize, and how those moves have led to extensive deforestation. The small Central American country, flanked by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, is about the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey, but its dense jungle is now much smaller than it once was. The nation lost around 20% of its forest cover between 2001 and 2025 — more than 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres), similar to the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Much of the deforestation in Belize has been tied to Mennonites, the conservative and largely insular Christian denomination that began migrating to Belize more than six decades ago, cutting down the rainforest to establish new colonies. While reports documenting Mennonites and deforestation are common, far less understood is the corporate machinery they’ve put in place for this expansion. Mongabay conducted extensive interviews and reviewed dozens of land records to better understand the way Mennonites became one of the most prolific land…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Dalila grew up in the Tunisian coastal city of Gabès and is accustomed to the heavy, acrid smell from the state-owned phosphate processing plant about a 10-minute walk from her home. On days when noxious fumes fill the air, Dalila rushes to tightly shut the windows and tells her children to hurry indoors. She washes them, believing it lessens harmful effects from chemicals. Emissions can last all day. Residents may get little or no advance warning. But one day in September 2025, children were at school when gases spread. Some students fell to the ground, complaining they had difficulty breathing. Others said they felt like they were suffocating. Dalila’s daughter said she felt like she was choking. Dalila rushed her to a government-run hospital. When she asked about test results or the type of substances that may have caused her difficulty breathing, Dalila said she did not get clear answers. The incident sickening the schoolchildren helped spark mass protests in the streets of Gabès, with people waving banners that read “Stop Pollution” and “Move The Plant.” It is not the first time that residents have protested water and air pollution from the factory. Dalila feels that she and others in Gabès are being ignored. They are far from alone. Fishermen report coastal waters were once abundant with fish, but, now, their nets come up empty. Scientific studies provide evidence that environmental damage poses a danger to the health of those living nearby. People take part in a demonstration against pollution…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The world’s mangrove forests, critical coastal ecosystems feared to be on the brink of collapse, are making an unexpected recovery overall, according to research published in June 2026 by scientists at Tulane University in New Orleans in the U.S. The study found that as deforestation and degradation have slowed down over the past decade around the globe, the woody plants have managed to bounce back in many areas. The study analyzed satellite data from the past four decades. It found that unexpected expansion and regrowth across the world began counterbalancing mangrove forest loss around 2010. The rate of gain has nearly outpaced losses, resulting in about a cumulative 1% global decline since the 1980s. The recovery is predominantly driven by expansion of mangroves into new areas rather than recovery of existing forests. Most previous studies on the issue have used radar, which struggles to distinguish mangroves from other ecosystems. This research created a 30-meter resolution annual data set from Landsat satellite images to more accurately identify mangroves around the world from 1984 to 2023. The study also found that mangroves are becoming less degraded. Within mangroves, a greater proportion are closed-canopy forests, which means they are denser, retain more carbon and help secure shorelines. These closed-canopy sections increased from about 50% of mangroves worldwide in the 1980s, to about 58% by 2023. “Our study shows some new ideas about [mangrove] recovery. We find that deforestation and degradation rates are slowing down,” said lead author of the study Zhen Zhang, a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last week that the government eliminated an office created to probe overseas human rights complaints about Canadian corporations, including mining conglomerates. This comes only months after the foreign affairs minister said the office was “important.” The announcement shocked environmental and human rights nonprofit organizations and those who said they have faced personal risk to alert Canadian authorities about actions by corporations based in the country. The Canadian government created the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) in 2019 to evaluate complaints about alleged human rights abuses by Canadian companies operating abroad in the garment, mining, and oil and gas sectors. At a June 11 press conference, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government had eliminated the CORE office months before because it considered the agency ineffective, only conducting one investigation in seven years. But his government made no public announcement about the decision, and three weeks earlier had addressed questions from Mongabay about the status of its investigations. While the office failed to complete any investigations for its first four years of operations, it reported on the outcome of five complaints in 2024, its last year with a permanent Ombudsperson. Since then, the office has been without a permanent leader. In April 2024, an interim Ombudsperson took over the post until May 20, 2025; the role has since sat vacant. “The Carney government’s reasons for disbanding the ombudsman are at best misinformed but much more likely a deliberate favor to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Leoncia Ramos has lived her 65 years in the lush Dominican Republic town of La Piñita, but now says she is fearful for her health and wants to leave. She’s among 450 families asking the government and the company behind the Pueblo Viejo gold mine to be relocated because of concerns of pollution from the nearby mine. They allege the site, controlled by Canadian giant Barrick Mining Corp., is harming their health and the environment, and fear that if a tailings dam about a kilometer away were to collapse, it would be disastrous. Ramos’s community has spent 15 years fighting to have its concerns addressed and now says Canada, where Barrick Mining is headquartered, could play a role. In 2019, the Canadian government created an office of an ombudsperson to handle complaints from communities like Ramos’s. But the government has left the role vacant for the past year, and its work has seemingly come to a standstill. Canada is home to about half of the world’s publicly traded mining and mineral exploration companies, with operations both in Canada and overseas, including some of the world’s largest miners, like Barrick Mining. The government created the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) in 2019 to address human rights complaints about Canadian companies’ operations overseas. But the office has now been without an ombudsperson since May 2025, and advocates say its work has stalled at a critical moment, as demand for transition minerals and a changing geopolitical climate are driving…This article was originally published on Mongabay