On the wide-open plains of the Sugadaira and Minenohara highlands, red-budded great burnets dot the landscape amid lavender hues of Japanese lady bell flowers, relics of the last Ice Age…
After drugs and arms trafficking, illegal fishing is the third most lucrative illegal activity in the world. It is estimated that around 26 million tons of fish and other marine…
Scattered in the countryside around the municipalities of Itaituba and Jacareacanga in Brazil’s Pará state, gold mining operations run by the family of a notorious convicted enslaver have have subjected…
“How to pass the custom?” “You need to bribe someone. We do not bribe the custom, but the police officer, with higher level…” “By container?” “Yes. Possible.” “Have you tried?”…
Science has established the urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. If humans do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2010 levels in the next nine…
In mid-June 2012, a few months after she started monitoring the jaguars inside Brownsberg Nature Park in Suriname, biologist Vanessa Kadosoe saw Amalia for the first time. Through the pictures…
“We consider the witches’ broom not a plague, but rather a ‘holy’ broom,” says Rubens de Jesus. “Thanks to it, we are on the land today.” That’s not a sentiment…
Monitoring the ongoing deforestation of the Cerrado, the vast savanna scrubland that abuts the Amazon in Brazil, has become increasingly essential in recent decades. This biome, the most biodiverse savanna…
How do you let your crush know you’re interested in taking things to the next level? If you’re a male spider, you may give the female in question a gift…
An analysis of social and economic parameters in gold and diamond mining regions in the Brazilian Amazon shows that these activities have done little to boost development for locals. The…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — To the detriment of the forests surrounding his village, Safidiharinjaka Emmanuel Tolojanahary knew only traditional farming methods. Like most residents of his village, located in eastern Madagascar,…
Twice a year, thousands of members of South Africa’s Nazareth Baptist Church clothe themselves in spots and walk to their holy grounds in KwaZulu-Natal province to take up a dance.…
A lone figure kneels at the high-tide line of Tregantle Beach. A 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) sweep of golden sands that hugs the coast of Cornwall in southwest England, Tregantle is bound…
A two-and-a-half hour flight separates the Chilean capital of Santiago and the Archipiélago de Juan Fernández National Park. The archipelago is rich in marine and terrestrial biodiversity and comprises three…
After nearly giving up on their coffee plantations, farmers in Apuí, in Brazil’s Amazonas state, have turned to a different farming model. Through agroforestry, they have found they can both…
At the beginning of the 1990s, while observing the large trees of the Amazon ceding ground to the scrub-like vegetation of the Cerrado, in a process driven by human activity,…
In 1992, global leaders gathered at a United Nations summit in Rio de Janeiro to sign the landmark Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to promote sustainable development. Eighteen years later,…
Though other stories might have dominated the headlines, 2020 was a year of tremendous change in land use and land cover. Massive fires burned across Australia, the Amazon, and the…
Deep inside the Brazilian Amazon, in areas still inaccessible to the outside world, the wildlife follows its natural cycle. Their remoteness guarantees a certain degree of isolation from human civilization,…
When Yuri Hooker was young, he lived on the coast of Huanchaco in northern Peru. He grew up fascinated by the creatures and objects he found by the sea, and…
The Karipuna Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, home to a tribe that was nearly wiped out, became a sanctuary for the survivors when it was ratified in 1998. Today,…
The Biosphere 2 project, run by the University of Arizona, maintains a replica of a humid tropical forest inside a glass dome in the middle of the desert outside Tucson.…
“The invasions do not stop, the deforestation does not stop, and the threats do not stop,” Iván Flores Rodríguez said by phone from the Indigenous Santa Clara de Uchunya community.…
In his homeland, Norwegian social geographer Torkjell Leira is known as a leading expert on Brazil. After coming to the country as an exchange student some 30 years ago, he…
It’s been more than a year since the Sinop hydroelectric dam started operations in the northern part of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. But residents say the business consortium…
Experts at two of Brazil’s leading wildlife conservation bodies are on high alert following a spate of seizures of hyacinth macaws and golden lion tamarins from alleged traffickers in recent…
A group of nomadic hunters who once lived deep in the Amazon is today on the brink of physical and cultural extinction. Though their tribal lands are designated as an…
Reversing biodiversity loss, halting climate change and even preventing the emergence of new pandemics may seem like isolated objectives, but they are not. A group of scientists set out to…
A mammal native to South America’s savannas, the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) now lives in the Amazon Rainforest. That’s the finding of a recent study by researchers in the Brazilian…
*This article is a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and GK, Ecuador. At the beginning of June 2020, Ecuador’s National Assembly overwhelmingly passed the Oil Palm Law, officially called the…
