Articles by Alexandrapopescu

MEXICO CITY — It was considered a major environmental victory, back in 2017, when El Salvador’s government announced it would be the first country in the world to issue a…

A transnational, large-scale restoration strategy for the Amazon basin would allow the countries that share it to create an alternative future for the world’s largest tropical forest, by making it…

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO — Purchasing illegal jaguar parts — from teeth to skins to claws — doesn’t always involve seeking out the dark, nefarious corners of the black market. Often,…

On Dec. 5, a flight over the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s northern Amazon showed the Greenpeace and Brazilian NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) members on board an illegal road, already…

“They bought new land and they are cutting wood where our ancestors were,” says a source in Meta, Colombia. “Us Mbya live from the forest, but here there’s barely anything…

BECERRIL, Colombia — “This makes me very happy, this is why we came down from the Sierra, to see the people celebrating the guáimaro tree,” says Orfelina Perez Restrepo, an…

More than a decade ago, Bolivia pioneered an innovative conservation project. For the very first time, inhabitants of the same watershed, both those living in rural areas and in cities,…

Long before climate change had been deemed a global crisis, the Kogi Indigenous people, who have long lived in seclusion in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, were already warning that industrial…

The conservation community is mourning after an environmentalist in Belize was killed in his home while celebrating New Year’s Eve. Jon Ramnarace, who worked on protected area patrol and marine…

INTAG VALLEY, ECUADOR — Hundreds of moths land on a white sheet, lit like a false moon in the still, dark forest. Elegant silver ones, fist-sized moths with spots on…

When Nelly Flores looks out over the Urao Lagoon, she smiles and asks me: “Do you know what those dots moving in the water are?” Mosquitoes, I guess. Nelly shakes…

The fight to save the Amazon has continued in 2022, as tragedy and political hope are shaping the region. Violence against environmental defenders ran rampant Indigenous people have continued to…

Current zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) may have the unintended consequence of pushing agriculture to other biodiversity-rich biomes, a new study led by the University of York shows. Published in Nature Ecology…

On an iron grill, six catfish are almost ready to eat. Hilda Rodríguez crouches to move the firewood and stoke the fire. She flips over the inguiris — green bananas…

Earlier this month, faced with a third impeachment attempt, former Peru President Pedro Castillo announced that he would be suspending congress, writing a new constitution and ruling by decree. But…

With its towering natural walls, Sumidero Canyon National Park is one of the main tourist attractions in Chiapas state in southern Mexico. Protecting mostly dry tropical forest — one of…

Flying this November into a remote region of the Orinoquía savanna in Vichada, Colombia, environmental biologist Jacobo Arango could spot the Hacienda San José cattle ranch that his team was…

From microbes to meerkats, the wealth of species on Earth is the glue that holds the cycles of life together: producing food, regulating climate, building soil, maintaining ecosystems and more.…

Two hours by boat from Belém, the state capital of Pará in Brazil, in the small village of Acará-Açu, wood houses rise on thin piles on the banks of the…

“My son was covered in burns, poor boy – he just died,” says María Grefa, a Kichwa from Sinchiurco, a community in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The tragedy took place…

“As a boy, my father killed pumas,” says Vincente Navarra, whose family has been raising sheep against the backdrop of Argentina’s Patagonian wilderness for generations. Navarra, a 71-year-old rancher who…

Scientists say they have solved the mystery behind the periodic disappearance and reappearance of the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) across huge areas of central and South America. A new study…

Josefa Mería has lived in the Peruvian city of Moyobamba, where the Andes meet the Amazon rainforest, for more than 30 years. Even in this humid tropical climate, she remembers…

Opening up protected areas to mining in the Brazilian Amazon could have an even bigger impact than previously thought, according to a study published in Nature Sustainability earlier this year.…

This year’s Amazon fire season was milder than the previous two years, but there were still nearly 1,000 major fires, many of them in recently cleared areas in the Brazilian…

The world’s three forest giants — Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — have signed a joint statement calling for the negotiation of new payment mechanisms to…

Palm oil production is leaving a deep mark on the rivers and forests of Latin America. Between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 palm oil…

The development of an international airport in El Salvador is facing backlash from local communities after negotiations with the government broke down and environmental studies revealed the project could harm…

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala – A controversial bill that would merge Guatemala’s protected areas council and lake watershed management agencies into the country’s environmental ministry has sparked sustained pushback from environmental…

Deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest dangerously close to its tipping point, and the effects could soon be felt across the globe. A new report from the World Wildlife Fund…