Peru’s placing of its independent OSINFOR forest inspection agency in the Ministry of Environment – likely a U.S. trade agreement violation – is a serious setback in Amazon illegal logging fight.
A mid-January land grabber invasion of a Rondônia state indigenous reserve prompted urgent indigenous calls for Bolsonaro administration law enforcement assistance.
Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.
A catastrophic 2019 Vale tailings dam collapse in Brumadinho – with 100s feared dead – shows Brazil has learned little since the similar 2015 Bento Rodrigues disaster.
A wave of announcements by the Bolsonaro administration threatens indigenous reserves, could worsen deforestation and bring major environmental harm: experts.
Bolsonaro has backed off from Paris withdrawal “for now,” but his actions imply emissions exceeding Brazil’s carbon cut pledge.
A Brazilian official last week announced plans to build an Amazon River bridge, Trombetas River dam, and highway thru what he called “desert-like” rainforest.
Presidents in Peru and Brazil, and construction firm Odebrecht, schemed to build 22 Marañón River dams; the people and the law defeated them; today the river flows free.
Researchers find that the biome, under assault by soy agribusiness, may need 300 to 3,000 years of focused conservation to recover and maintain its genetic diversity.
Agribusiness, well backed by government, is hailed an “economic miracle.” But family farms, with nominal help, provide 70% of the food Brazilians eat.
The Cerrado biome, covering 20 percent of Brazil, has seen rapid deforestation in the 21st century; a recent report says that much of this is driven by soy grown to feed livestock, which feeds Brazilians.
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
A 40-year conservation effort on the remote Juruá River in Brazil’s Amazonas state cut turtle poaching to 2 percent, while also conserving bird, river dolphin and other species too: study.
FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.
On his first day in office, Brazil’s new president shifted the demarcation responsibility for indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, potentially putting the Amazon at risk, critics say.
In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.
The Fund was one of the first UN REDD+ initiatives, and has seen successes, but critics say it must ratchet up to conserve more forest, even as Brazil’s government shirks its role.
As Grainrail, the BR-163 and BR-319 highways, and other transport projects improve Amazon access, they attract land thieves ready to kill.
A three-decade study of Amazon forests finds rain-loving trees are being replaced by drought-tolerant species – an adaptation not close to keeping pace with climate change.
The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.
