The Peruvian Tropical Pacific Sea (Mar Pacífico Tropical Peruano) is a paradise where cold and warm currents come together, making this a biodiversity hotspot along Peru's coast. The local ecosystem is…
The province of Morona Santiago is located in the middle of Ecuador's Amazon region, and is home to the Shuar and Achuar indigenous peoples. Its most famous landmark, Sangay National Park, was…
The new law that bans mining in Colombia's moorlands took years to materialize, and was the product of multiple activist campaigns, lawsuits, and pressure from civil society to preserve one of the world's most sensitive…
Two weeks ago, the activist Berta Cáceres was shot and killed while she slept in her home, in the city of La Esperanza, in western Honduras.The news of her assassination travelled around the world…
If you were to fly over Central America on a small plane, from north to south, starting in Guatemala and ending in Panama, you'd be able to see isolated yet…
In January of 2007, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights received a formal complaint filed as Case 12,639, about the Kaliña and Lokono indigenous peoples of Suriname. The case presented the dilemma faced…
More than one month has passed since approximately 3,000 barrels of crude oil ended up in various tributaries of Peru's Amazon River --two oil spills that were the responsibility of state…
Two back-to-back oil spills have left indigenous communities in Peru's northern Amazon, along the Chirico and Marañón rivers, in a really bad shape. The crude oil has traveled thousands of miles since…
Berta Cáceres' colleagues allegedly kept a eulogy for her for years, one they never hoped to use. "Her murder would not surprise [them]," read last year's Goldman Environmental Prize announcement, published when Cáceres…
The Colombian production has won most of the biggest international film awards, among them the Art Cinema Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and recently, it was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the…
The images being shared on social media and by the international press these days show to the average eye what the impacts of a broken oil pipeline can be: water dyed deep black,…
On January 30, 2015, Bolivian president Evo Morales gave the green light to oil exploration in Lliquimuni, north of the capital, La Paz. The Lliquimuni Block is located on a mountain…
The Pacoche Reserve in Ecuador's Manabí department, is located in one of the few areas with a standing native semi-arid tropical forest on the country's Pacific coast. Within its 13 hectares is the…
Agriculture in Argentina has expanded at an accelerated rate in the past twenty years due to technological advances, the use of genetically modified crops, and, in particular, to the cultivation of…
In an unexpected decision that received much applause, Colombia has closed its doors to mining and oil companies that are seeking to extract resources from the Andes. The decision by Colombia's highest court…
On January 6, two men happened to be near San José church in the Lima district of Jesús María, when they were stopped by various agents from the Office Against Illegal…
Much is known and has been studied about the rampant deforestation in Madre de Dios due to illegal mining and logging. The destruction of primary forest in Peru's Amazon region has left…
Rolando Navarro Gómez has been the executive president of Peru's forestry monitoring agency, known as OSINFOR, or Organismo de Supervisión de los Recursos Forestales y Fauna Silvestre, since 2012. A forestry…
The much-awaited Nicaragua Canal --linking the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea-- has been mired in controversy and on hold since November. Now, indigenous communities in its path say they're being…
The year is ending on a grim note in Peru: yet another environmental leader that vocally opposed a dam project has been murdered in his home in the town of Yagen, in…
A boat carries freshly-cut logs along the Tambopata River in Perú. Photo by George Powell. “We will keep working on these operations [such as 'Operación Amazonas']," said to Mongabay a Peruvian government…
At 4:00 am on November 24, the Specialized District Attorney's Office on Environmental Issues in Loreto, in Peru's Amazon region, seized the equivalent of 60 trucks full of cargo, filled to…
Since November 23, the southeastern region of Madre de Dios in Peru has been paralyzed by street protests, road blockades, and tire burnings. Hundreds of illegal gold miners concentrated in…
Last Wednesday, September 23, an estimated 200 indigenous residents from Sector Boca Manu, Comunidad Nativa Diamante, and Isla de los Valles located near Manu National Park decided to take their protests to the next…
Balancing the old world and the new, the Kuna people keep their heritage intact Jesús Smith is sitting at his old wooden desk facing the entrance to his house. He's…