South America’s French Guiana, a French overseas department, is slated for major new liquid biofuel power stations, fueled by soy plantations that will cause largescale Amazon deforestation, say environmentalists.
Major roadbuilding, including the “reconstruction” of the BR-319 highway, now threatens the Brazilian Amazon’s last, vast intact rainforest, vital to Brazilian ecosystem services.
The illegal wildlife trade is out of control in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, says the award-winning NGO known as RENCTAS, which tracked 3.5 million wildlife trafficking ads on social networks last year.
Their territory is suffering the ravages of COVID-19, invasion by 20,000 illegal miners, mercury pollution, severe deforestation, and “genocidal” government apathy, say the Yanomami people.
On November 5, 2015 an iron ore mine tailings dam owned by Samarco, a joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton, two of the world’s largest mining firms, collapsed in Mariana, Brazil. Life along Rio Doce has not been the same since.
The planned 650 MW dam on the Rio Branco in Brazil’s Roraima state is scheduled to become operational in 2028; it could do extraordinary socio-environmental harm.
This article is a one year follow up to the award-winning series, The Great Insect Dying published in June, 2019 on Mongabay. The original series documents insect losses in Europe, the U.S. and the tropics — here’s what we know today.
Brazilian armed forces accused of incompetence, funding misappropriations in 2020 Amazon deforestation prevention and fire suppression operations: Critics.
Some of the world’s biggest banks have invested US$153.2 billion in forest-risk companies in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2016.
The reconstruction of the BR-319 highway — a north-south cut through what remains of Brazil’s Amazon forest — is being fast tracked by Pres. Bolsonaro, but the project risks huge socio-environmental impacts.
An analysis of 12 Brazilian volunteer projects certified by the REDD+ carbon-offset program found that emission and deforestation reductions were overstated. Improvements in carbon accounting are recommended.
Upon reaching 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet won’t regrow until temperatures are at least 1 degree cooler than they were before the Industrial Revolution, say scientists.
The Arctic is setting records for low sea ice extent for this time of year, with the 2020 refreeze now 500,000+ square kilometers behind a record set in 2019 — a sign the region may be entering a new climate regime.
Jair Bolsonaro and 6,000 of his appointees come from Brazil’s military, which historically sees Amazon infrastructure and development as vital to national security and to averting foreign invasion: Analysis.
Brazil’s current 10-year Energy Expansion Plan calls for three more large dams in Amazonia by 2029, and the country’s 2050 National Energy Plan lists many more — putting the environment at risk.
Georeferencing, a digital process for registering land ownership, is now widespread in South America, but it is high-tech that can be used by landgrabbers and companies to obtain deeds to collective ancestral lands.
Maned wolves, pumas, giant anteaters, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals are threatened with local extinctions unless more conserved areas are established in Brazil’s savanna biome, say scientists.
2020’s record Brazilian fires, which devastated the Pantanal wetlands, also reached the Amolar Mountains in recent weeks, a refuge for jaguars and other wildlife, and home to traditional Indigenous villagers.
Last recorded in 1968, Megaelosia bocainensis, a frog known for its rounded snout and granular skin, was thought extinct until researchers tracked down its environmental DNA in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
337,427 square kilometers of Amazon forest were degraded between 1992 and 2014 ¬(mostly due to logging and understory fires), compared to 308,311 square kilometers completely cleared.
One recent study shows how hotter tropical forests may add significantly to climate change woes. But another suggests how active restoration of degraded tropical forests could help avoid climate disaster.
In 2009, traditional Brazilian Amazon communities and Catholic nuns brought the transnational mining company to the negotiating table and galvanized Amazonia’s land rights struggle.
Brazil is a leading producer of the world’s beef, but ranching is also the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Now the global pandemic has curbed meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
For three decades, INPE, Brazil’s civilian space agency has successfully and publicly monitored Amazon deforestation and fires. Now Jair Bolsonaro is intent on giving the job over to the secretive Brazilian military.
Too many industrial fishing trawlers — mostly Chinese — along with Republic of Congo’s large artisanal fishing fleet. are threatening 42 shark and ray species; all are on the IUCN red list: Report.
Just 6.5% of Earth’s best-quality and least-disturbed tropical forests are legally protected. Only 47% of remaining humid tropical forests globally have high ecological integrity.
2020 didn’t eclipse all-time record-holder 2012, but it came pretty close; also, the Arctic’s growing heat is likely intensifying Asia’s extreme weather, while waters just beneath the ice are getting increasingly warm.
A new automated near real time fire monitoring system could inform smarter strategies and solutions for curbing Amazon fires and reducing impacts; researchers call it a valuable tool for Amazon conservation.
In a failed state, environmental NGOs endure restrictive government policies; shortages of cash, personnel, water and other resources — surviving via creative monetary policies, volunteerism, and sheer grit.
674 major Amazon fires were detected between May 28 and September 2, with the Brazilian government failing to control most blazes. Remote Indigenous communities are especially threatened.
