Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian rainforest. According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon microbasins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
Before Jair Bolsonaro took office as Brazil’s president in 2019, Canadian investment bank Forbes & Manhattan was facing problems with its business activities in the Brazilian Amazon. The situation began…
The Atlantic Rainforest of the Northeast Project plans to reforest 70 hectares (173 acres) in the states of Pernambuco and Alagoas by 2023. Monitoring in Pernambuco’s Serra do Urubu region has shown an increase in bird diversity, from 105 species recorded in 2005, to 287 in 2021. Despite the progress being made, the situation remains fragile, with seven bird species having gone extinct in the Atlantic Forest in recent decades, and a strong tradition of keeping birds in cages still persisting.
Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca National Park has become a laboratory for the reintroduction of locally extinct species. A study shows that, of the 33 species of large and medium-sized mammals that used to occur in the park area, only 11 remain today.
Three young women from the Munduruku Indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon run an audiovisual collective that uses social media to raise awareness about illegal invasions of their territory. “Many people no longer believe what we say, they only believe what they see,” says Aldira Akai, who, at 30, is the oldest member of the collective.
Since 2013, the Ka'apor expelled the Federal Brazilian Indigenous Agency from their territory in the state of Maranhão, creating a new government council, adopting their own education system and establishing permanent settlements along their borders to contain the illegal advance of loggers, land grabbers and miners.
A Brazilian Federal Police operation dismantled a criminal organization that operates in illegal mining inside Kayapó Indigenous Land, in southern Pará state. The gold is sold abroad to Chimet, an Italian business group specializing in refining gold to make jewellery.
Restoration initiatives are slowly making a mark on the Atlantic Forest, a Brazilian biome that has been reduced to about a quarter of its original area. Brazil has made global commitments to restore tens of millions of hectares of forest by 2030, but the much smaller programs underway in the Atlantic Forest show country is still unable to monitor restoration efforts effectively.
Farmers with land interdicted by environmental authorities were granted loans with public money through a bank that belongs to the world’s largest agricultural machinery manufacturer.
ExxonMobil wants to drill 11 wells in a marine area near the estuary of the São Francisco River, in Northeastern Brazil. In the event of an accident, at least 52 conservation units would be affected, including a barrier reef that’s a priority for conservation.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 46 cotton-farming families in Brazil’s Minas Gerais began practicing agroecology, a sustainable farming approach that works with nature.
Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state. They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
A long drought followed by a strong freeze in 2020 damaged the coffee harvest in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the crop. To take on the challenges brought on by the changing climate, coffee farmers in the Cerrado have joined a climate-smart agriculture program.
The abundance of aquatic and semi-aquatic animals in the Taiamã Ecological Station in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands has enabled jaguars here to thrive in surprising ways, a new study shows.
At least 12,500 tonnes of wood came from rainforest species considered threatened by the Brazilian Forestry Service (SFB).
Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
On May 10, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on child malnutrition in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, located in the country’s northern Amazonian region. It featured the image of…
A fading, yellow, Mexican-style gateway separates Cidade dos Meninos from the rest of the world. Built in the 1940s, the arched structure marks the boundary between the state of Rio…
Gana Gold generated R$ 1.1 billion (US$ 200 million) in revenue using illegally-obtained environmental licenses in Brazil, equivalent to 3 tons of gold extracted.
Workers at Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, had up to 30% of their wages deducted to pay for the use of portable harvesting machines that pull coffee tree branches to take the beans.
New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
“I believe that those who used to buy soursop juice will stop buying it,” says José Marcondes Puyanawa. “They will stop buying it because they have it in their own…
A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language.
In the KMÃNÃÑ HÊSUKA (“Making Books”) workshop, Central Brazil’s Xakriabá people learned the stages of the publishing process in order to make their own publications; imbuing the books with Indigenous voice was the project’s goal.
A project in Southern Brazil aims to restore 335 hectares (827 acres) of Araucaria moist forests and plant 250,000 seedlings of native species inside Conservation Units and Permanent Preservation Areas on small farms.
A study analyzed 56 extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon to assess how climate change will affect 18 of the main plant species collected from the rainforest.
Recent scientific studies confirm what Brazilian farmers already feel in practice: the uncontrolled production of agricultural commodities is destroying the productivity and profits of agribusiness itself, a cycle researchers are calling “agro-suicide.”
Up to 50 kilos of fish caught in Brazil are thrown away for every kilo that arrives on land; more than 400,000 tons of marine life were discarded between 2000 and 2018 in just four states.
The country’s lack of statistics and technical information made way for greater deregulation and private sector influence in Jair Bolsonaro's extremist government
In Brazil's different biomes, each environment offers a distinct experience. An unspoiled natural landscape is not only a precious reservoir of biodiversity, it can also be a feast for the…
