It happened eight years ago: Elicarlos Ferreira da Silva and his family were returning home one afternoon from the town of Caetité in Brazil’s Bahia state when they were stopped…
When Peru declared the creation of the Nazca Ridge National Reserve in the country’s southern waters this past June, it also increased — in one fell swoop — the proportion…
“Wild rats are as different to laboratory rats, as probably a wolf is to a Chihuahua. That’s not an embellished analogy … The biggest misconception, I think, is that we…
Since it launched in December 2019, the RenovaBio program from Brazil’s energy ministry has been betting on increased use of biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to establishing…
David McGuire lived through the summer of Jaws in 1975 and saw the impact. As a surfer in Southern California, the upside was fewer people in the water. But McGuire,…
In mid-July this year, camera traps from the Onças do Iguaçu Project in Brazil’s Paraná state captured images of two jaguar cubs (Panthera onca). In July 2020, the network of…
The first signal of the day is the sun stretching steadily upward amid a gigantic sea of mountains. The mass of rock, forest and water is so huge that the…
Brazilian authorities point to Russian biologist Kyrill Kravchenko as an international wildlife trafficker. They had been monitoring him since 2017, after he was arrested in the Netherlands with rare wildlife…
Over the past 27 years, mining for copper by Minera Escondida, a company co-owned by Anglo-Australian mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto, has resulted in a dramatic reduction of water…
“They may kill one, two, three of us, but others will come to defend the forest, they will not exterminate us,” says Marisol García Apagüeño, an Indigenous Kichwa leader from…
In September 2015, officials from the agriculture agency of Peru’s Ucayali department arrived in the district of Masisea with one goal: to create a rural land registry in a forested…
This article is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay’s Latin America (Latam) team and Colombian digital news website Rutas del Conflicto. Ana Villa has traveled dozens of times on the highways…
About 14% of the Brazilian Amazon, an area the size of Spain and Portugal combined, falls under the category of non-designated public forests, or NDPFs. These are state or federally…
Since the beginning of time, Indigenous peoples have used signals from nature to guide their way of life. Their calendar is structured by the rhythm of plant growth or rains,…
While watching underwater video of a male turtleheaded sea snake attempting to court a female, Jenna Crowe-Riddell noticed something shocking but not uncommon: the male got lost. After pursuing the…
This report is a partnership between Mongabay Latam, Rutas del Conflicto and La Liga Contra el Silencio. In Colombia’s Meta department, a stretch of several miles of reddish, arable land…
Technology isn’t always a practical solution for Indigenous communities fighting for their land rights. Some technology requires internet access, which often isn’t available in remote areas. And some technology can…
June 8, 2021 was a tense day for environmental organizations and citizens’ groups working to protect the Amazon and Indigenous Brazilians. Groups like Greenpeace and APIB (Brazilian Indigenous People’s Association)…
With extreme heat, African wild dogs are dying at a higher rate, according to scientists. New research, published in Ecology and Evolution in June, found that humans are responsible for…
"My husband would go to the neighbor's barn two or three times a week to get pig manure. He'd throw it in the biodigester and we were able to cook…
Drifting down the Dubo River through Sapo National Park in Liberia, Shadrach Kerwillain, a project manager for Fauna & Flora International (FFI), takes a sample of fresh river water. It’s…
“The body is here. We’re going to die!” That’s what Watatakalu Yawalapiti heard over the phone from her relatives after the death of an uncle from COVID-19 in June 2020.…
In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) share their forest home with rural communities – which could help save their shrinking populations and…
Scientists describing a new species of ant, Strumigenys ayersthey, have broken with conventional naming traditions and used the pronoun “they” instead of the traditional male or female form to promote…
The pace of deforestation has surged in the region around Brazil’s BR-319 highway since the federal government announced its interest in restarting road works, a new study has found. The…
Conservationists in Brazil have raised alarms about the impact of a wind farm being built in a region that’s the last stronghold of the endangered Lear’s macaw. French renewable energy…
In Brazil, as in many other biodiverse countries around the world, the commercial trade of some species of wildlife is allowed — as long as the animal was bred in…
The Javan pied starling (Gracupica jalla) is a captive in its own home. Thousands of these endemic songbirds once congregated in the safety of tall trees to roost after spending…
EL PALMAR, Bolivia — It was worth the journey. After sweating across the scrubby Bolivian mountainsides, stepping into the forest was like entering a different world. Twisted pino de monte…
The Caatinga is the most densely populated semiarid region in the world and the only exclusively Brazilian biome. The region needs assistance to prevent it from becoming an immense desert.…
