Peter Speetjens

About

Peter Speetjens is a Dutch journalist. Following his law studies in Rotterdam, he spent some 20 years in the Middle East and India, before moving to Brazil in 2016. Based in São Paolo he mainly writes about politics and the environment. His work has appeared in numerous Dutch and English language publications, including MO Magazine, Middle East Eye, Trouw, NRC and De Groene Amsterdammer. He has a soft spot for history, loves photography and in 2004 coauthored the documentary 2000 Terrorists.

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21 stories

A boy kicks a soccer ball near signage for the COP30 U.N. Climate Conference in Belem, Brazil, March 23, 2025. Image by AP Photo/Jorge Saenz.

Belém faces its social and natural demons as host to COP30

Peter Speetjens 28 Oct 2025

A young Rostain takes a break along a river in French Guiana, where he started his archaeological career in the late 1980s.

Indigenous myths reveal Amazon’s past truths: Interview with Stéphen Rostain

Peter Speetjens 1 Oct 2025

Seen through Santarém’s fish auction: ocean-faring vessel being loaded at the Cargill soy terminal.

An ancient Indigenous civilization endures beneath an Amazon urban soy hub

Peter Speetjens 16 Sep 2025

Park guide Luana Wanessa Assunção points at the remarkable Painel do Pilão, which could be the first-ever solar calendar of the Americas. Image by Peter Speetjens.

Soy crops squeeze Amazon park with 11,000-year-old rock paintings in Brazil

Peter Speetjens 4 Aug 2025

he Upano River, in the Morona Santiago Province in Ecuador. Image courtesy of Galo Zapata-Ríos/WCS (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Meet Pedro Porras, the priest who first rediscovered Amazon ancient cities

Peter Speetjens 26 May 2025

On a São Paulo eco-farm, Brazil’s landless movement makes its case for occupation

Peter Speetjens 30 Jan 2025

An aerial image shows rainforest fragmented by cattle ranching.

Study shows degradation changes a forest’s tree profile and its carbon storage

Peter Speetjens 22 Jan 2025

Hopes and fears for the Amazon: Interview with botanist Hans ter Steege

Peter Speetjens 19 Nov 2024

Clusters of ancient drawings known as geoglyphs have been seen in the state of Acre. Image courtesy of Diego Gurgel/Secom.

New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches

Peter Speetjens 4 Oct 2024

Protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline on Oct. 25, 2016.

Environmental protests under attack: Interview with UN special rapporteur Michel Forst

Peter Speetjens 24 Jun 2024

city view

In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands

Peter Speetjens 6 May 2024

A short walk through Amazon time: Interview with archaeologist Anna Roosevelt

Peter Speetjens 10 Apr 2024

Kuikuro men playing flutes.

The Amazon’s archaeology of hope: Q&A with anthropologist Michael Heckenberger

Peter Speetjens 18 Oct 2023

‘Many features of the Amazon are man-made’: Q&A with archaeologist Eduardo Neves

Peter Speetjens 3 May 2023

On 22 June 2022 the farmers protest started in the Netherlands. Tractors from all over the country drove to Stroe. This picture was taken along the A27 near Houten, just in front of the Lunetten interchange. Image by Frank Magdelyns from Pixabay.

For Dutch farming crisis, agroforestry offers solutions: Q&A with Lennart Fuchs & Marc Buiter

Peter Speetjens 21 Mar 2023

U.N. report calls for the ban of mercury trade and its use in gold mining

Peter Speetjens 24 Nov 2022

Christina Haverkamp (center), founder of the German NGO Hilfe Yanomami, with Indigenous children. The activist has been going to Brazil since the 1990s and says wildcat miners are disrupting the life of the Yanomami people. Image courtesy of Hilfe Yanomami.

At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury

Peter Speetjens 9 Jun 2022

Banner image of the Marauiá mountain range in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, in the state of Amazonas. Image by Sebastião Salgado

‘Amazônia must live on’: Photographer Sebastião Salgado returns home with his new book

Peter Speetjens 20 May 2021

Long entrenched Brazilian military mindset is key to Amazon policy: Expert

Peter Speetjens 26 Oct 2020

Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’

Peter Speetjens 13 Jul 2020

Kafka in the Amazon: Volunteer forest fire fighter charged with arson still in limbo

Peter Speetjens 20 May 2020

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Soldiers from the PROLANSATE Foundation on patrol

Algal bloom in the Baltic Sea on July 20, 2019.

The last photo taken between Rhett Butler and Jane Goodall--who shared a friendship for nearly 15 years--at the Forbes Sustainability Leadership Summit. Photo by Sofia Negron.

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