Brazilian loggers have faked forest inventories and issued phony timber credits to harvest Ipê trees exported to U.S. and Europe. Importers often turn a blind eye: report.
In early March, an Anglo American Brasil pipeline rupture spilled 318 tons of iron ore into a local river. Now a second spill of 647 tons has occurred polluting the Santo Antônio do Grama River .
The Temer administration ignored UN letters warning of threats to land defenders and environmentalists, and condemning Brazil’s record number of activist murders.
The bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is pushing for total deregulation of pesticides, with potentially harmful health and environmental impacts.
As the world recommitted to Paris carbon cuts last month, Britain and Brazil have moved to tap 176 billion barrels of undersea oil, risking further climate destabilization.
In Paris, Brazil promised to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by 2025. But the country’s emissions grew by 8.9 percent in 2016, largely due to deforestation.
Federal police arrest a gang of timber thieves who cut rare ipê trees on an Amazon indigenous reserve and used falsified records for export to U.S., Europe and Asia.
Public protest and congressional action have forced Brazil’s politically embattled president to reverse his decree allowing mining in vast RENCA Reserve.
The MST, in a protest against corruption, has occupied six farms of Brazil's elite.
The life’s journey of controversial businessman and politician Blairo Borges Maggi has led him from a small family farm, to ruling over a vast international agribusiness empire. It saw Maggi…
Last week saw a busy, but contradictory, stream of actions likely to impact Amazonian forests. Brazilian president Michel Temer — supposedly at the urging of supermodel and environmentalist Gisele Bündchen…
In the midst of a delicate political moment, Brazilian president Michel Temer signed a decree last Monday, on World Environment Day, expanding three federally protected parks, and creating a new…
JBS, the world's largest meat processing company was at the center of two globally reported scandals in March, the first, involving federal bribes that allowed the export of rotten meat, and the…
With the issuance of a federal decree in mid-January, Brazil’s government announced major changes to the procedure by which it formally demarcates indigenous lands — a move applauded by the…
Federal authorities have released their findings regarding the Fundão tailings dam collapse in a massive and damning report that comes on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the event.…
ith the European Union’s parliamentary approval this week, and ratification by 74 nations responsible for more than 55 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, the landmark Paris Agreement on climate…
hen Rio de Janeiro won the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games — set to begin on August 5th — the Brazilian government committed itself to cleaning up…
"The evolution of science [occurs] by means of questions that are made — not by the answers." So said Pedro Vasconcelos in an interview with Mongabay. He is director of…
razil's civil police in Minas Gerais have ordered the provisional detention of Samarco CEO Ricardo Vescovi (on leave of absence) and five other mining company executives for dam safety and security…
Tomorrow, Brazil's Senate could be voting on a new measure which would speed up the process required to obtain environmental licenses for infrastructure projects. Dubbed as PLS 654/2015, the bill is…
For decades, the Canaticu River on Marajó Island —the world's largest fluvial island, located in the Amazon river delta— provided the main source of livelihood for its local population. Over…
Yesterday, Brazil’s federal police in Minas Gerais charged Samarco CEO, Ricardo Vescovi De Aragao, for environmental crimes caused by the disruption of the Fundão tailings dam — Brazil’s largest environmental disaster.…
The tragedy that struck Minas Gerais in early November caused by the rupture of two dams controlled by the Samarco mining company brings us to an uncomfortable fact: Vale S.A., one of…