Indigenous leaders, farmers, and environmental activists worldwide face harassment, violence, and legal threats while defending land, water, and ecosystems, highlighting the urgent need for stronger protections and international accountability.

Land and environmental defenders—Indigenous leaders, farmers, conservationists, and community activists—risk their lives opposing the destructive exploitation of natural resources. Global Witness defines them as people who “take a stand… against the unjust, discriminatory, corrupt or damaging exploitation of natural resources or the environment.” Often described as the planet’s last line of defense, they protest, document, and litigate against illegal logging, mining, and pollution—frequently at grave personal risk.

The Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia illustrates this work. Heiltsuk leaders emphasize that their ancestral land is part of one of the largest intact temperate rainforests in the world, home to iconic species and a crucial carbon sink. Protecting such forests preserves biodiversity and climate stability, highlighting the global importance of local action. Yet defenders often pay a high price: coalition reports describe their work as increasingly perilous and frequently met with escalating violence.

Massachusetts officials are laying groundwork for a plan to offer coastal residents money for their homes as threats like flooding and erosion increase due to climate change. But it can be hard to convince people to leave or get enough money to buy expensive homes.

When private models sow confusion, it’s a flashing warning sign that Washington needs to fix federal flood maps,

What happened: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule that would end federal protections for many wetlands and streams in the U.S., imperiling critical habitats and the clean drinking water of millions of Americans.

Why it matters: The new rule could strip safeguards from more than 80% of all wetlands nationwide. It would also take away protections for ephemeral streams, which make up about 59% of all streams in the U.S.. Industrial polluters have lobbied for such changes for years.

All waterways are connected. Wetlands filter pollution from rivers, lakes, and streams, and many streams are drinking water sources. We can’t afford to destroy these water bodies or add more pollutants to the mix. Earthjustice has fought for decades to ensure access to clean water as a right for all, and we are prepared to go to court to defend this right for communities across the U.S.

BARNSTABLE  – The Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners has adopted the Cape Cod Commission’s 2025 Regional Policy Plan (RPP), as well as its related ordinances.  The bo…

President Donald Trump is no fan of renewable energy, deriding efforts to expand wind and solar power as a “joke.” “They don't work. They're too expensive. They're not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great,” he told the United Nations General Assembly in September.

And certainly his administration has worked hard all year to eliminate incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles in favor of boosting U.S. production and consumption of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the country’s investment in those areas is on track to set an annual record in 2025 – though the pace of expansion shows signs of slowing, according to data compiled by Rhodium Group and the MIT-CEEPR Clean Investment Monitor.

A coalition of conservation, farmworker, and public health groups petitioned the Trump administration to ban the use of crucial
drugs as pesticides.

In New England, the majority of sites are located in Massachusetts, followed by Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire. More than half of the sites at risk are industrial facilities.

From the Amazon to Washington, a week of institutional sabotage, global humiliation, and a kakistocracy determined to finish the job.

​"COP30 provides a stark reminder that the answers to the climate crisis do not lie inside the climate talks—they lie with the people and movements leading the way toward a just, equitable, fossil-free future," one campaigner said.

In remote Alaska, public radio station KYUK is crucial during natural disasters. Without federal funding, how will it survive?

When a typhoon hit Alaska, public radio station KYUK was on the air, broadcasting critical information about conditions, evacuations, and search and rescue operations. An estimated 1,600 people were displaced, and many were saved in the biggest airlift operation in state history.

“The work that we do in terms of public safety communication literally does save lives,” said Sage Smiley, KYUK’s news director. 

Millions of African children are born into overlapping crises, and true climate justice must begin with birth equity to uphold human rights, sovereignty, and reparative action.

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice held its first hearings on states’ climate responsibilities in decades. A lead judge described climate change as an “urgent and existential threat,” acknowledging that future generations are central to the crisis. Yet the hearings failed to explicitly center the most affected population—children born in economically poor nations, especially in Africa.

Every generation is shaped by the terms of its arrival. In Africa, millions of children are born not simply into poverty but into a geopolitical order designed to limit their chances at survival, dignity, and influence. This is not only a local governance failure; it is the outcome of global systems that reward extraction and devalue Black life. African births now occur within a compound crisis: ecological collapse, economic neocolonialism, and the persistent denial of reproductive justice.

If climate justice is to be more than rhetoric, it must begin at the site of birth. Without confronting the global structures that predetermine the lives of African children, reform remains performative, and structural violence persists. A just world must be built not on the backs of children, but around the recognition of their humanity and political personhood from the beginning.

Extreme weather and changes in seasonal patterns are fundamentally altering the landscape, in cities and in farming communities. You’re going to pay for it.

Fish swim free again: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program removes barriers to fish passage during the Octoraro Creek Dam removal in Cecil County, Maryland. 

After centuries of dam building, , a nationwide movement to dismantle these aging barriers is showing how free-flowing rivers can restore ecosystems, improve safety, and reconnect people with nature.

"We will not let this industry destroy the unique life in the deep sea, not in the Arctic, nor anywhere else," one campaigner said.

A coalition of more than 60 conservation and nature groups say a proposed ballot question for next year’s election could raise millions to help conserve natural areas and create more outdoor recreational spaces in Massachusetts, like trails and parks.

Pew Charitable Trusts finds plastic pollution will more than double globally by 2040 unless action taken

Gov. Ron DeSantis warned Friday that President Donald Trump's push to drill off the Florida coast could "weaken" environmental protections and obfuscate military training.

A 1,200 megawatt transmission line carrying carbon-free electricity from Quebec to New England is expected to go online soon

After the Trump administration doubled down on the alleged safety of atrazine, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer said that the pesticide probably causes cancer.

Texas is hardly the paragon of climate policy, but its energy prices are lower than the national average because it generates so much power from wind and solar, write Mindy Lubber and Natalie Treat. We can lower electricity costs in Massachusetts by investing more in renewable energy.

Electricity bills in Massachusetts have increased by 50% over the last decade, making it more expensive for households and businesses to operate. The average residential bill is now over $300 a month, according to EnergySage, putting Massachusetts 29% above the national average.

This challenge is hardly unique to the commonwealth. Electricity bills are spiking across the U.S., as aging infrastructure and slow deployment of affordable power — such as solar, wind, and battery storage as well as low-cost modernization upgrades to the electric grid — make it difficult to keep pace with demand.

SCOTUS freezes democracy in Texas, Cop30 freezes climate ambition in Brazil, MTG freezes herself out of Congress, and Trump briefly thaws for Zohran Mamdani.

Good morning! Marz has declared today a “low-stress, maximum-treats” operation and I’ve agreed to follow his example, meaning today’s roundup is a bit shorter as we catch up on projects and reclaim a sliver of peace. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the news cycle refuses to do the same.