Articles by Genevieve Belmaker

LUCANAS PROVINCE, Peru — At an altitude of 13,450 feet, the icy wind pounds whatever lies in its path. After 23 years of living in the Pampa Galeras - Barbara…

Some people say that the best way to forget something is through distance, and that is one of the arguments being repeated by the experts consulted for this story. It…

There are various competing land uses of the Amazon rainforest. The region in southern Colombia that until less than two years ago was the stronghold of the FARC guerrilla group…

Carmelo Márquez always has a reason to fight. Every day, he fights tirelessly to defend his rights and the rights of his territory: Montes de María, a subregion comprised of…

Life is not easy for seeds. Avoiding ending up as food for animals and finding the right time and spot to germinate are two common problems. Until recently, scientists studying…

A massive fire ravaged Brazil’s National Museum (Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro on the night of Sept. 2. The losses to the country’s oldest scientific institution and its approximately…

RAMALLAH — Anton Khalilieh is the premier Palestinian birdwatcher in the West Bank. The 37-year-old from Bethlehem has all the traits of a great birder: an encyclopedic knowledge of bird…

ELDORADO — The first time that somebody mentioned collecting seeds to Seu João Motta, he thought it was the stupidest idea he’d ever heard. Living in the middle of Atlantic Forest,…

Falsified numbers are contributing to widespread forest degradation from illegal logging and the over-exploitation of Amazonian timber species, according to experts. In a study published in Science Advances, researchers in…

Myanmar’s Timber Merchants Association is crying foul over what they say are the devastating impacts from a one-year logging ban and new, restrictive government policies. Soe Win, secretary of the…

APG and Robeco are two of the most recent companies to sign on to the Cerrado Manifesto, which calls for an end to deforestation in Brazil's Cerrado biome.

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador has issued a long-awaited ruling in favor of those affected by the transnational oil company Chevron, which operated through its subsidiary Texaco in Ecuador between…

HO CHI MINH CITY - Two new Camellia species, a type of tea plant common to East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, have been discovered in a protected…

MANU NATIONAL PARK, Peru — There was movement in the understory deep in the dense rainforest off Trail 6. We saw a shadow scurry left to right, followed by more…

As Myanmar works to restructure its national timber authority and adopt a new fiscal calendar, the Southeast Asian country continues to struggle to control illegal logging. The country’s forestry management…

If the locations of illegal activities were marked on a map, the magnitude of the illegal mining and drug-trafficking problems in Peru’s Bahuaja-Sonene National Park would be obvious. The natural…

RIO DE JANEIRO — The botanical garden here sits just below Corcovado hill, at the feet of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. Boasting 54 hectares (133 acres) and more…

PHONG NHA, Vietnam - Since 2014, one of the world’s largest cave systems has been under threat from developers planning to construct a cable car that would carry thousands of…

ALTO INAMBARI, Peru — There are some places that we always remember better than others. That is what David Araníbar says when he thinks about the district of Alto Inambari,…

KOTSIMBA, Peru — In Peru’s Madre de Dios region, illegal mining is everywhere. From the Interoceanic Highway, which lies just 100 miles from Puerto Maldonado, the region’s capital, one can…