When researchers arrived in Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province to document one of the most threatened animals on the planet, the brown-headed spider monkey, their initial plan was to simply carry out…
In January 2020, Luis Carlos Galeano was traveling with his family through the Claro River Basin in Colombia’s mountainous Antioquia department when his wife, Viviana Aguirre, pointed out a tree…
It was a tourist who first found the nest. It was March 2020, and the visitor was walking through the Lacandon Jungle in southern Mexico. When he reached the highest…
The Mexico-U.S. border wall has interrupted the ecological connectivity of a nature reserve that’s a World Heritage Site, and should be addressed to remedy the situation, according to UNESCO. Without…
In September of last year, 154 river dolphins perished in Lake Tefé in the Brazilian Amazon, reminding conservationists of the urgency required to protect threatened freshwater cetaceans. The deaths occurred…
Experts on wildlife crime in Suriname monitored and documented two of the most powerful jaguar trafficking networks in South America. The networks, called “SA1” and “SA18,” operate in Suriname and…
Gabriel Trujillo was unstoppable when it came to studying nature. Botany, his passion, led him to explore lots of places while cataloging plants and their behaviors. In June 2023, that…
The first encounter between the biologist and the primates was like a movie scene. The monkeys moved through the thick fog covering the montane forest (or cloud forest), where she…
For the Indigenous peoples of Colombia’s lower Caquetá River, the lakes of Puerto Caimán form a huge maloca, a cultural and spiritual hub. This watery habitat is home to the…
A recent study by the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute Sinchi in Colombia built several possible scenarios for the future of the Colombian Amazon by 2040. Experts who collected information during…
BAHÍA DE KINO, Mexico — For several years, Cosme Becerra was tasked with sacrificing a sea turtle to be eaten at a festival. In the mid-1990s, the fisherman received a…
For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…
The nature of her father’s work, as an aerial fumigation pilot, meant that Daniela Araya lived in many areas of Costa Rica when she was a child. She usually traveled…
PUNTA CHUECA, Mexico — Legend has it that, many thousands of years ago, a messenger arrived in the Comcaac land on board a strange boat after sailing on the waters…
Je’chu, a god, first created bees so that their wax would cure the world. So goes the spiritual testament of the Yucuna Indigenous peoples of Colombia. “He is our god…
Once covering an expanse of more than 2,140 square kilometers (826 square miles) of the Colombian Amazon Rainforest, Tinigua National Natural Park has lost 29% of its forests over the…
The Atabapo River, its waters black and flanked by rainforest and mountains, used to be part of an Indigenous territory some 200 years ago, says José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal. Today,…
For years, Ruth Alipaz has been fighting against the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project. The project involves the construction of two reservoirs that together would flood at least 66,200 hectares (163,500…
Patricia Gualinga takes a deep breath and pictures herself inside the rainforest in Sarayaku, Ecuador. “It’s hard to describe the smell of such pure air when you’re in the rainforest”,…
Mayra Estrella’s father always spoke to her about sea turtles. Growing up, she remembers hearing stories linking a pair of turtles to the very existence of the Comcáac people, the…
Cecilia Rivas remembers Tukupu as a place to live freely. The dwellings of the Indigenous Kariña community, spread out under the shade of the trees in the Imataca Forest Reserve,…