Surge in deforestation as Brazil pushes to pave a forgotten Amazon road
A plan being pushed by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to pave a long-abandoned road in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon has spurred a rash of land grabs…
Articles by Naira Hofmeister
Naira Hofmeister é jornalista graduada pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, fez especialização em Madri (Espanha), e é mestra em História da Literatura, também pela Ufrgs. Atua como freelancer desde 2006, sempre baseada em Porto Alegre. Ao longo de sua trajetória profissional cobriu o cotidiano político e econômico e escreveu reportagens de fôlego em quase 30 veículos diferentes. No último ano, colaborou com El País, The Intercept Brasil, Agência Pública, Yahoo, Superinteressante e piauí, entre outros meios de comunicação. Já desenvolveu três projetos de financiamento coletivo para o jornalismo independente no Rio Grande do Sul. Em 2018, como cofundadora do Filtro Fact-Checking, foi agraciada com o troféu Antônio Gonzalez de Contribuição à Imprensa, categoria especial do 60º Prêmio ARI de Jornalismo. Também integrou a equipe vencedora do Prêmio Direitos Humanos de Jornalismo, categoria “on-line”, com o projeto Amazônia Resiste, da Agência Pública.
Global demand for manganese puts Kayapó Indigenous land under pressure
Demand for manganese in China is having a huge impact on the other side of the world: for the Indigenous Kayapó people in the Brazilian Amazon. The metal is essential…
Demand for soy puts pressure on Pantanal, Brazil’s largest wild wetland
Soybean farming accounts for most of the agrochemicals used in Brazil, and the farming activity concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso is now seeing those chemicals washing downstream to the Pantanal wetlands.
Deforestation-free beef stymied by Brazil’s unequal supply chain
In Brazil’s beef industry, meatpackers or slaughterhouses that are monitored and audited to comply with zero-deforestation purchasing criteria compete against facilities that flout the rules. Ranches with the space and…
Investigation: Dutch, Japanese pension funds pay for Amazon deforestation
For citizens of the Netherlands and Japan, the dream of a comfortable retirement is fueling an environmental nightmare in the Amazon. Three of the biggest pension funds in thse countries,…
Stock indices let Brazil meatpackers shed ties to deforestation, draw investors
The prominent placement of Brazil’s three biggest meatpackers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — on the country’s stock exchange has seen them net $121 million in investments.
BlackRock’s $400m stake in Amazon meatpackers defies sustainability cred
Wall Street fund manager BlackRock administers 2.2 billion reais ($408 million) in shares in the three largest Brazilian meatpackers operating in the Amazon today. The cattle purchase and slaughter operations…
Amazon meatpacking plants, a COVID-19 hotspot, may be ground zero for next pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines. But they are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
All talk, no walk: ‘Green’ financiers still support Amazon beef industry
Despite a growing realization worldwide of the need for environmentally responsible investing, financial institutions and fund managers who have otherwise committed to going green are still funding the sector most responsible for deforestation.
Paper maze and lack of transparency cloak investment in companies involved in Amazon deforestation
While individual investors have no idea where their money is applied, large finance firms camouflage participation in companies that foment tree-cutting in the Amazon.
Brazilian meatpacker expands with World Bank funding but fails to reduce impacts in the Amazon
The International Finance Corporation injected $85 million into Minerva, even though it was aware that the company’s activities involved deforestation, child labor and land conflict risks. In recent years, Minerva has become Latin America’s largest meat exporter. But doubts remain over whether it has strictly complied with envi-ronmental and social compensation guidelines specified in its contract.
World’s top tapir expert prepares for unprecedented Amazon mission
In her first study in the region, Brazilian conservationist and Whitley Gold Award winner Patrícia Medici wants to understand how South America’s largest land mammal responds to changes in the forest caused by human economic activity.
Brazilian taxpayers subsidizing Amazon-clearing cattle ranches, study shows
A new study shows taxpayer money is helping to prop up the beef industry in Brazil, one of the primary drivers of deforestation in the country. For every dollar of tax revenue collected from the industry, only 20 cents effectively goes to society — the rest goes back to producers in the form of incentives, easy credit, and even debt forgiveness.
As bioethanol demand rises, biodiversity will fall in Cerrado, study says
An area half the size of Switzerland in Brazil’s Cerrado biome could see its biodiversity plummet as sugarcane farms expand to meet global demand for bioethanol, a new study says. Researchers calculated that some parts of the Cerrado could see up to 100% loss of mammalian species richness; endangered animals like the maned wolf and the giant anteater will be the most affected.
$3 million and an official apology: Brazil’s Ashaninka get unprecedented compensation for deforestation on their land
An unprecedented court settlement guaranteed reparations to the Ashaninka people of the state of Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon, whose lands were deforested in the 1980s to supply the European furniture industry. The indigenous people only agreed with the negotiation because it included an official apology and a recognition of their "enormous importance as guardians" of the Amazon.
Conflict in the Chico Mendes Reserve threatens this pioneering Amazonian project
Farmers and irregular occupants in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre are enjoying newfound political power and pressuring for the reduction of the first protected area of its kind in Brazil as it approaches its 30th anniversary in March.
In surprise move, Brazil has removed restrictions on Amazon sugarcane production
In a surprise move even to the sugarcane industry, the president has removed restrictions on Amazon sugarcane production; land speculators could benefit.
Brazilian state complicit in violence against forest defenders, report says
Violence and impunity are the fuel that feeds the fires in the Amazon: not just the ones broadcast across the world this August, when it was revealed that fires in…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Deforestation on the rise as poverty soars in Nigeria
- Refuge of endangered ‘African unicorn’ threatened by mining, poaching, deforestation
- Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber
Oceans
- Indonesia cancels fisheries infrastructure projects in Maluku region amid lack of funds
- Murky provenance of a Chinese fleet clouds Madagascar shrimp fishery
- What’s popping? Humpbacks off South Africa, new acoustic study finds
- Fisher groups are the marine militia in Indonesia’s war on illegal fishing
Amazon Conservation
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
- ‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- Pharmaceutical water pollution detected deep in the Brazilian Amazon
Land rights and extractives
- Open-pit mining ban lifted in Philippine province, clearing way for copper project
- Ousted anti-mining mayor heads back to Philippine city hall after landslide win
- Thai gold mine blamed for sickening local villagers is set to reopen
- “Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga
Endangered Environmentalists
- Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- “We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Death threats and friction with military force Guatemalan rangers to flee
- Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
Conservation Effectiveness
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
