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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>Bolivia environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/bolivia/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Bolivia Indigenous communities, local gov’ts help protect nearly 1 million hectares</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/bolivia-indigenous-communities-local-govts-help-protect-nearly-1-million-hectares/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/bolivia-indigenous-communities-local-govts-help-protect-nearly-1-million-hectares/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Feb 2026 15:55:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313833</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Politics, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Protected Areas, and Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia has added nearly a million hectares to its protected areas over the last several months, an effort by local governments to link Indigenous territories with nearby national parks and strengthen ecological connectivity. The four new protected areas cover 907,244 hectares (2.2 million acres) of Amazon lowlands and Andean highlands, creating corridors intended to improve [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia has added nearly a million hectares to its protected areas over the last several months, an effort by local governments to link Indigenous territories with nearby national parks and strengthen ecological connectivity. The four new protected areas cover 907,244 hectares (2.2 million acres) of Amazon lowlands and Andean highlands, creating corridors intended to improve wildlife migration and maintain forest-based economies for local families. The effort was led by local officials and Indigenous communities, who planned and approved the protections. “In many cases, the municipalities have now protected more than half their territories, a remarkable commitment that shows how local leadership can deliver durable conservation that strengthens communities and outlasts political cycles,” Eduardo Forno, vice president of Conservation International-Bolivia, which supported the projects, said in a statement. The initiative was also backed by the Andes Amazon Fund, Rainforest Trust, Conservación Amazónica, and the Swedish Embassy and EU. In recent years, Bolivia has had some of the highest deforestation rates in the world, driven by agribusiness, cattle ranching and fires, among other factors. In 2025, it lost 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres), according to Global Forest Watch, a satellite monitoring initiative. The year before that, it lost around 490,000 hectares (1.2 million acres). In the early 2000s, Bolivia made a push to expand nationally protected areas. But since then, efforts have tapered off. In the last five years, only two nationally protected areas have been created or upgraded: El Choré National Park in Santa Cruz department and El Cardón Natural Park and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/bolivia-indigenous-communities-local-govts-help-protect-nearly-1-million-hectares/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Turning the Amazon’s toxic gold mine waste liability into economic opportunity (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/formalizing-amazon-gold-mining-can-transform-a-toxic-liability-into-an-economic-opportunity-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/formalizing-amazon-gold-mining-can-transform-a-toxic-liability-into-an-economic-opportunity-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jan 2026 19:13:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/02225429/25-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312918</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Destruction, Amazon Mining, Analysis, Business, Commentary, Community Development, Deforestation, Development, Drivers Of Deforestation, Gold Mining, Health, Illegal Mining, Mercury, Pollution, Public Health, Rainforest Mining, Sustainable Development, Threats To The Amazon, Tropical Deforestation, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The wildcat gold mining boom that swept across the Amazon beginning in the 1970s left behind an environmental catastrophe of staggering proportions. At least 350,000 hectares (almost 865,000 acres) of forest and wetland habitat have been destroyed by placer mining operations across the Pan Amazon, with the actual figure likely far higher given the limitations [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The wildcat gold mining boom that swept across the Amazon beginning in the 1970s left behind an environmental catastrophe of staggering proportions. At least 350,000 hectares (almost 865,000 acres) of forest and wetland habitat have been destroyed by placer mining operations across the Pan Amazon, with the actual figure likely far higher given the limitations of satellite monitoring for small-scale operations and river dredges. In the Tapajós River Basin in Brazil’s Pará state, particularly the municipality of Itaituba, five decades of alluvial mining have devastated tens of thousands of hectares of riparian forest while releasing an estimated 200-500 metric tons of mercury annually into watersheds. Mercury contamination has become endemic: 75% of the population of the municipality of Santarém shows elevated mercury levels, with some residents carrying four times the WHO limit. The legacy extends far beyond the mining sites themselves, as methylmercury bioaccumulates through aquatic food webs, threatening riverside communities across millions of hectares of downstream habitat. Yet hidden within this toxic legacy lies an economic opportunity that could finance comprehensive remediation while generating more than 200,000 formal-sector jobs. The garimpeiro (wildcat miner) reliance on mercury amalgamation technology is remarkably inefficient, because mercury captures only free gold particles through physical absorption, achieving recovery rates of 40-60% from alluvial placers. The remaining 40-60% of gold remains trapped in “tailings” as fine particles, bound in mineral matrices, or simply lost to processing inefficiency. Those tailings, an existing environmental catastrophe, contain an estimated 1,400-2,100 metric tons of recoverable gold worth $90 billion&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/formalizing-amazon-gold-mining-can-transform-a-toxic-liability-into-an-economic-opportunity-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 12:26:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charlie Espinosa]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agroecology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agroforestry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beef]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carbon Emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cattle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greenhouse gas emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pastoralism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ranching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trees]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/07120648/PHOTO-2025-12-06-10-21-49-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312670</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Beef, Carbon Emissions, Cattle, Cattle Pasture, Cattle Ranching, Emission Reduction, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Pasture, Ranching, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved his cattle’s diet and health, while also providing him with additional sources of food and income. “Learning has a cost, but in a few years you start to see a difference,” says Cardozo, who has been combining trees with rotational grazing, a practice that keeps the soil intact and allows grass to regrow. In less than a year, this practice allowed him to more than double the number of cows he grazes per hectare Livestock farming is responsible for roughly 80% of the deforestation in the Amazon Basin and 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Yet agricultural solutions receive just 7% of global climate funding and were absent from the recent COP30 climate summit agreement. According to some researchers, planting trees in pastures, an agroforestry technique known as silvopasture, represents one of the most effective yet neglected opportunities to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Under ideal conditions, silvopasture sequesters carbon in trees and soils while providing better forage and shade to heat-stressed cows, leading to healthier animals that emit less methane and occupy less land. It can also help small farmers adapt to climate-related disasters — responsible for $2.9 trillion in losses over the last&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Amazon in 2026: A challenging year ahead, now off the center stage</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Dec 2025 14:27:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/03/19151029/Parque_Estadual_Encontro_das_Aguas_Thomas-Fuhrmann_2023-_01_Jaguar_-_Panthera_onca_swimming-scaled-e1710871756906-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311879</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Amazon Agriculture, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Bioeconomy, Climate Change, Conflict, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Politics, Rainforest Deforestation, Threats To Rainforests, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As Belém's COP30 ended in compromise, political forces moved swiftly to accelerate destruction far from the global spotlight. 
]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon enters 2026 carrying the bitter taste of compromise. The world’s attention was fixed on Belém for the COP30 summit in November, transforming the Brazilian city into a brief, intense stage for climate diplomacy, where ambitious calls for a fossil fuel phaseout ultimately died on the negotiating floor. Yet, in 2025, the true battle for the rainforest was fought far from the Blue Zone. In the quiet shadows, powerful political forces moved to roll back environmental protections in Brazil (which holds 64% of the rainforest), successfully passing the anti-conservation bills and green-lighting critical infrastructure projects. This dual reality — grand promises versus accelerated development on the frontier — set the defining tension for the year, even as a more hopeful, grassroots movement gained momentum, finding new, valuable purpose for biodiversity in innovations, proving the rainforest is worth far more standing than cut. COP30 was wrapped in global expectations. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the summit by proposing a road map to enable humankind to overcome its dependence on fossil fuels in a fair and planned manner and to halt deforestation. However, the ambitious calls for a fossil fuel phaseout were excluded from the official COP outcomes. In response, Brazil, alongside the Colombian and Dutch delegations, agreed to develop road maps outside the formal U.N. process. This effort will culminate in the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, scheduled for April 2026, in Santa Marta, Colombia, to negotiate an equitable Fossil Fuel&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Across Latin America populist regimes challenge nature conservation goals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Dec 2025 12:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agribusiness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extractives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous territories]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Industrial Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oil Drilling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/05172501/reunion-ex-presidentes-achivo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310658</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Environmental Law, extractives, Forest Destruction, Governance, Government, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Land Rights, Oil Drilling, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The election of populist politicians seldom bodes well for the people of the Amazon or the conservation of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most are just stylistic versions of the generic politician: individuals motivated by self-interest who portray themselves as champions of the common man or woman. Occasionally, however, a charismatic individual appears who succeeds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The election of populist politicians seldom bodes well for the people of the Amazon or the conservation of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most are just stylistic versions of the generic politician: individuals motivated by self-interest who portray themselves as champions of the common man or woman. Occasionally, however, a charismatic individual appears who succeeds beyond the normal confines of the political arena to completely dominate electoral politics. Almost invariably, this person will have authoritarian tendencies and work to weaken institutional integrity, pervert electoral systems and persecute the opposition using a corrupt judicial system. They can arise from either the left or right, but they share a disdain for democratic principles and the rule of law. Populist demagogues are adept at appealing to the emotions of the so-called common man or woman; they employ simple language and use slogans that resonate with the public&#8217;s frustrations with the slow (or nonexistent) pace of economic and social reform. They use polarising rhetoric to exploit societal divisions projected as ‘us versus them’, which may be racial, geographic, class or a combination of all three. Exploiting anger at the status quo is common to their political playbook, an easy tactic because of the self-dealing of elites who have enriched themselves while underinvesting in the working poor. Invariably, they promise simplistic solutions to complex issues, ignoring both science and economic theory. The assault on elites is usually extended to foreign organizations, particularly those associated with multilateral organisations controlled by the advanced economies. This sets the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>Loma Santa marks first Indigenous protected area in the Bolivian Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/loma-santa-marks-first-indigenous-protected-area-in-the-bolivian-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/loma-santa-marks-first-indigenous-protected-area-in-the-bolivian-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Dec 2025 11:42:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/03113835/MONTEGRANDE-7415-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310492</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Governance, Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Peoples, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Loma Santa, a newly established Indigenous protected area spanning an area the size of the Hawaiian island of Maui, sits at the heart of the T’simane Forest, an expanse of the Amazon in Bolivia. For years, loggers plundered this forest for its prized mahogany. But Loma Santa was also a place of sanctuary — a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Loma Santa, a newly established Indigenous protected area spanning an area the size of the Hawaiian island of Maui, sits at the heart of the T’simane Forest, an expanse of the Amazon in Bolivia. For years, loggers plundered this forest for its prized mahogany. But Loma Santa was also a place of sanctuary — a refuge where, more than a century earlier, Indigenous people fled from enslavement by rubber barons and landowners. For their descendants today, this swath of the Bolivian Amazon is now a place of peace, natural abundance and culture importance. On Aug. 19 this year, the Bolivian government officially declared Loma Santa a new Indigenous protected area, spanning 198,778 hectares (491,191 acres). The official inauguration was held in the Indigenous community of Monte Grande del Apere, which forms part of the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory in the municipality of San Ignacio de Moxos. Bernardo Muiba, president of the Subcentral of Indigenous Councils of the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory, told Mongabay Latam that the Loma Santa Indigenous Conservation Area is a leading example of Indigenous territorial governance and participatory conservation. Muiba said this protected area embodies a harmonious integration of nature and culture, driven by the active participation of local Indigenous groups: the Mojeño-Trinitario, Mojeño-Ignaciano, T’simane, Yuracaré and Movima peoples. Such integration means adapting to the specific characteristics of the region to safeguard both the natural and cultural wealth of the Bolivian Amazon. A view of the Loma Santa Indigenous Conservation Area, showing the Apere River. Image courtesy of ORÉ.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/loma-santa-marks-first-indigenous-protected-area-in-the-bolivian-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Weather disasters are surging in the Amazon. Reporting isn’t.</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/weather-disasters-are-surging-in-the-amazon-reporting-isnt/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/weather-disasters-are-surging-in-the-amazon-reporting-isnt/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Nov 2025 10:23:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/08152733/GP0SU6PIFcrop1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=309987</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Drought, Climate Change And Extreme Weather, Disasters, Drought, Environment, Extreme Weather, Fires, Flooding, Forest Fires, Forests, Green, and Infrastructure]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon’s climate hazards are growing faster than governments can track.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon is often treated as a single forest, yet the risks its people face from extreme weather vary sharply across borders. A new analysis by researchers from Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and the United States suggests those risks are also widely undercounted. The team compiled more than 12,500 reports of storms, floods, landslides, droughts and wildfires between 2013 and 2023, covering five countries. Even with major gaps, the picture is grim. In a single year, more than 3 million people were affected and more than 100,000 pieces of public infrastructure damaged.  Landslide in the Peruvian Andes. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler The authors show that disasters cluster along two flanks of the basin: the Andean foothills, where steep terrain and intense rain drive landslides, and the Orinoco–Amazon transition zone, where fires linked to agriculture and land grabbing are increasingly common. Ecuador dominates the list of municipalities with the highest reported events. Brazilian cities, by contrast, appear less frequently—not because the country is spared, but because reporting systems differ. Four Amazonian countries offered no municipal data, despite clear evidence of impacts. Heatwaves and droughts show the starkest reporting failure. Almost all recorded incidents came from Brazil, even though both hazards occur throughout the region. The authors argue these events are “likely underreported across the Amazon,” a conclusion echoed by satellite evidence of warming and drying trends.  Remote-sensing data helped validate parts of the record. In Bolivia, peaks in satellite-detected “hot pixels” matched wildfire reports. Floods increased during years with more&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/weather-disasters-are-surging-in-the-amazon-reporting-isnt/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>The land deal threatening a vital piece of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/the-land-deal-threatening-a-vital-piece-of-bolivias-chiquitano-dry-forest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/the-land-deal-threatening-a-vital-piece-of-bolivias-chiquitano-dry-forest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Nov 2025 15:08:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[agribusiness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Groups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforest Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/20145802/Banner-Chrysocyon_brachyurus_205682420-1-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309784</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A large forest in eastern Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to an international agriculture company, raising concerns that it might be razed to make room for new cropland. The 30,019-hectare (74,179-acre) plot in Bolivia’s northeastern Chiquitano dry forest has been sustainably managed for years. But now the land is on the verge [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A large forest in eastern Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to an international agriculture company, raising concerns that it might be razed to make room for new cropland. The 30,019-hectare (74,179-acre) plot in Bolivia’s northeastern Chiquitano dry forest has been sustainably managed for years. But now the land is on the verge of being sold to a Brazilian agribusiness firm, undercutting attempts by an environmental group that wanted to buy the land first, according to documents obtained by Mongabay. “[The Chiquitano is] a critical link between very important biomes, and it’s one of the last solid blocks of forest in the whole area,” said James Johnson, a forestry consultant in Santa Cruz, the department where the property is located. Covering about 24 million hectares (59 million acres), the Chiquitano dry forest connects the Amazon Rainforest with the Gran Chaco and Cerrado savannas. It acts as a corridor for wildlife in the different biomes. Over the last decade, the area has suffered some of the worst deforestation on the continent, with agribusiness destroying millions of hectares. Clearing the 30,019-hectare plot, which is about three times the size of the city of Paris, would represent a significant ecological loss and accelerate the degradation and desertification of nearby Indigenous lands, several people told Mongabay. “What they want to do is change the land use [on the property],” said Juan Carlos Laura, of the Indigenous Peoples Support Foundation–Jenecheru, which works on legal matters with communities in the area. “By changing the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/the-land-deal-threatening-a-vital-piece-of-bolivias-chiquitano-dry-forest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin&#8217;s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/top-ethnobotanist-mark-plotkins-cop30-reflections-on-amazon-conservation-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/top-ethnobotanist-mark-plotkins-cop30-reflections-on-amazon-conservation-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Nov 2025 21:45:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mark J. Plotkin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/17210100/Suriname-2-e1763414931233-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309585</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Latin America, Peru, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest, Analysis, Biodiversity, Biodiversity And Medicine, Botany, Commentary, Conservation, Development, Environment, Ethnobotany, Forest Products, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Medicinal Plants, Medicine, Rainforest People, Rainforests, Research, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Medicine, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Having studied the healing plants and peoples of tropical South America for well over four decades, I am often asked, “What is the conservation status of the Amazon Rainforest? Is the glass half-full or half-empty?” My reply never changes. “By definition, any glass that is half-full is half-empty!” When I first traveled to the Amazon [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Having studied the healing plants and peoples of tropical South America for well over four decades, I am often asked, “What is the conservation status of the Amazon Rainforest? Is the glass half-full or half-empty?” My reply never changes. “By definition, any glass that is half-full is half-empty!” When I first traveled to the Amazon in the 1970s, the world was a different place. Most people thought of the rainforest, if they thought of it at all, as a green hell to be avoided at all costs. Soon thereafter, public perception of tropical rainforests shifted dramatically, driven by the emerging modern environmental movement. Tropical forest and river in Suriname. Image courtesy of Mark J. Plotkin. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and Earth Day in 1970 were milestones in generating global awareness and concern over deforestation, pesticides, pollution and species extinction, particularly in the industrialized world. However, Western scientists like Tom Lovejoy, Richard Schultes and E.O. Wilson — as well as Brazilian scientists like Marcio Ayres, Paulo Nogueiro-Neto and Paulo Vanzolini — presented a compelling case that the biological richness and fragility of tropical forests merited at least as much attention as ecosystems in the temperate regions. These scientists reframed the global image of Amazonia from “green hell” to “treasure trove of biodiversity.” The media also played a positive role. The vast scale of burning and clearing — turning a green wonderland into a red desert through major development projects like ill-planned dams or road building — shocked and horrified&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/top-ethnobotanist-mark-plotkins-cop30-reflections-on-amazon-conservation-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>How a ‘green gold rush’ in the Amazon led to dubious carbon deals on Indigenous lands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/how-a-green-gold-rush-in-the-amazon-led-to-dubious-carbon-deals-on-indigenous-lands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/how-a-green-gold-rush-in-the-amazon-led-to-dubious-carbon-deals-on-indigenous-lands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2025 19:06:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gloria Pallares]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carbon Emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Carbon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous territories]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nature-based climate solutions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/04/20210856/amazon_200744-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309280</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Carbon Credits, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Finance, carbon markets, Carbon Offsets, Carbon Trading, Deforestation, Ecosystem Finance, environmental justice, Finance, Forest Carbon, Forests, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Rights, Land Grabbing, Mongabay investigation, Nature-based climate solutions, Social Justice, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BARCELONA — In December 2022, one of Brazil’s largest Indigenous territories and one of the smallest would each sign a 118-page, 10-year contract they would soon come to regret —as would faraway investors looking to capitalize on the billion-dollar carbon and biodiversity markets. In Brazil’s lush westernmost states of Amazonas and Acre, which border Peru, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BARCELONA — In December 2022, one of Brazil’s largest Indigenous territories and one of the smallest would each sign a 118-page, 10-year contract they would soon come to regret —as would faraway investors looking to capitalize on the billion-dollar carbon and biodiversity markets. In Brazil’s lush westernmost states of Amazonas and Acre, which border Peru, entities promising to turn rainforests into green gold have persuaded Indigenous communities to grant them exclusive rights to trade the ecosystem services provided by their lands, a Mongabay investigation has found. The contracts covered the trade in nature-based solutions, an umbrella term covering a wide range of ecosystem services, from carbon sequestration to biodiversity. The projects, covering more than 8.5 million hectares (21 million acres), failed to materialize in Brazil, with communities pleading to end the contracts, and one carbon certification program issuing a cease-and-desist letter. But the initiator of the scheme continued marketing the deals online and signed at least two more contracts without adequate consent from communities in the lowlands of Bolivia. The three entities that approached Indigenous representatives in Brazil are Biota, a family-run cooperative from Argentina peddling herbal products and nature-based solutions; Biotapass, a related “climatech” startup registered in Spain and the subject of a criminal case; and their Brazilian fixer, Comtxae, which used to provide satellite internet and solar panels to Indigenous villages and nonprofits. As inquiries from Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Police are ongoing and Indigenous leaders worry about the validity of the contracts, some of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/how-a-green-gold-rush-in-the-amazon-led-to-dubious-carbon-deals-on-indigenous-lands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Across the Amazon, impunity among politicians remains chronic</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/across-the-amazon-impunity-among-politicians-remains-chronic/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/across-the-amazon-impunity-among-politicians-remains-chronic/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Nov 2025 09:56:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/03011742/OverviewPist058-059-065-082-084_SPOT2022-07-30-1-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308702</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Latin America, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corruption, Governance, Government, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazil and the Andean Republics all have constitutional provisions establishing special protocols for the prosecution of elected officials. These supposedly were conceived to ensure public servants are held accountable for misdeeds, while protecting them from frivolous or politically motivated prosecution. This special status, however, has created a two-tiered justice system that protects politicians from the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Brazil and the Andean Republics all have constitutional provisions establishing special protocols for the prosecution of elected officials. These supposedly were conceived to ensure public servants are held accountable for misdeeds, while protecting them from frivolous or politically motivated prosecution. This special status, however, has created a two-tiered justice system that protects politicians from the consequences of their malfeasance, because their trials are usually delayed until charges are dismissed on technicalities, because of the statute of limitations, or because they have been acquitted by magistrates corrupted by the political process. The most notorious is Brazil’s ‘Foro Privilegiado’, which stipulates that only the Tribunal Supremo Federal (TSF) has the authority to preside over a criminal trial for the president, vice president, members of Congress and other high-level appointed officials, while governors, judges and other elected officials enjoy similar, if less conspicuous, forms of legal shelter. These constitutional provisions apply to more than 22,000 authorities, a staggering number that separates their potential prosecution from the criminal justice system that applies to everybody else. The judicial authorities that played major roles in the Lava Jato bribery scandal. Top (left to right): Sergio Moro (Juiz de 13ª Vara Criminal Federal de Curitiba), who presided over the investigation and trials of leading businessmen; Deltan Dallagnol (Procurador da República), who led the Operação Lava Jato investigation and the team that prosecuted most of the private citizens; and Rodrigo Janot (Procurador-General da República), who initiated legal action targeting elected officials and cabinet ministers protected by Foro Privilegiado.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/across-the-amazon-impunity-among-politicians-remains-chronic/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Despite new land title, Bolivia’s Indigenous Tacana II still face invaders</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/despite-new-land-title-bolivias-indigenous-tacana-ii-still-face-invaders/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/despite-new-land-title-bolivias-indigenous-tacana-ii-still-face-invaders/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Nov 2025 16:03:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/03131203/Tacana-II-photo-5-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308729</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Mining, Monocultures, and Oil]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[After more than 20 years of legal battle, the Tacana II Indigenous people in Bolivia have finally obtained a legal title to their ancestral land, which is a transit zone for uncontacted Indigenous people. While this recognition grants them full legal ownership, Indigenous leaders and researchers told Mongabay security protections aren’t guaranteed due to state [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[After more than 20 years of legal battle, the Tacana II Indigenous people in Bolivia have finally obtained a legal title to their ancestral land, which is a transit zone for uncontacted Indigenous people. While this recognition grants them full legal ownership, Indigenous leaders and researchers told Mongabay security protections aren’t guaranteed due to state political insecurity, the lack of enforcement of environmental regulations and invasions by illegal actors. “In reality, the title is a legal security of collective ownership of those families that form part of this territory,” Roland Mejía, the president of the Tacana II Río Madre de Dios Indigenous Communities Center (CITRMD), told Mongabay over WhatsApp voice messages. “But the title alone will not defend [the territory]; it must be defended by the actions of the community leaders so that the collective right to this territory is respected.” The 272,379-hectare (673,000-acre) territory is located north of Madidi National Park and west of the Bajo Madidi Municipal Conservation and Management Area in Abel Iturralde province of the department of La Paz. The land serves as a biological corridor, connecting protected areas critical to the survival of more than 50 vulnerable plant and animal species, including the near-threatened jaguar (Panthera onca). It is also home to four Tacana II communities: Puerto Pérez, Las Mercedes, Toromonas and El Tigre. The Puerto Perez Tacana II community, located in the north of La Paz, Bolivia, in the municipality of Ixiamas and in the Madre de Dios River basin. Photo by Indyra Lafuente/Conservación&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/despite-new-land-title-bolivias-indigenous-tacana-ii-still-face-invaders/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>The rise of anti-corruption prosecutors in the Amazon region</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/the-rise-of-anti-corruption-prosecutors-in-the-amazon-region/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/the-rise-of-anti-corruption-prosecutors-in-the-amazon-region/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Oct 2025 11:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law Enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/23235157/WhatsApp-Image-2020-05-20-at-17.20.23-2-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308243</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest, Corruption, Crime, Environmental Crime, environmental justice, Environmental Law, Governance, Government, Organized Crime, Politics, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Prosecutors are lawyers employed by the state to investigate crimes and initiate judicial proceedings. Ensuring their integrity and competence is essential to judicial reform and the application of environmental law. In Brazil, allegations of political corruption by public servants are reviewed by the 5ª Câmara de Coordenação e Revisão (Combate à Corrupção) and, if warranted, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Prosecutors are lawyers employed by the state to investigate crimes and initiate judicial proceedings. Ensuring their integrity and competence is essential to judicial reform and the application of environmental law. In Brazil, allegations of political corruption by public servants are reviewed by the 5ª Câmara de Coordenação e Revisão (Combate à Corrupção) and, if warranted, referred to a regional office for prosecution. For example, the anti-corruption specialists in Curitiba (4th Region) were instrumental in uncovering the perfidy of the Lava Jato bribery and money laundering network. Although media attention focused on the presiding judge (Sergio Moro), the investigations were conducted by a dedicated team of prosecutors who relentlessly accumulated evidence against some of the most powerful individuals in Brazil. One of the shark seizures carried out by the Tumbes Prosecutor&#8217;s Office in Peru. Image courtesy of Oceana. The impact of Brazil’s anti-corruption campaign is reflected by the number of criminal cases reviewed by the 5ª Câmara, which rose from 2,500 per year in 2002 to more than 15,000 annually in 2019. Very few, however, are referred for a trial: approximately 90% of the criminal complaints reviewed in the twenty-plus years of existence of the 5ª Câmara have been dismissed for technical reasons, most commonly for lack of evidence. The lack of aggressive prosecution is also characteristic of their internal affairs unit (Corregedoria Nacional of the Conselho Nacional do Ministério Público), which recommended that 89% (940 out of 1,078) of the complaints filed against procuradores should be dismissed. The decision not&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/the-rise-of-anti-corruption-prosecutors-in-the-amazon-region/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>In the heart of Bolivia, the mountain that financed an empire risks collapsing</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-heart-of-bolivia-the-mountain-that-financed-an-empire-risks-collapsing/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-heart-of-bolivia-the-mountain-that-financed-an-empire-risks-collapsing/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Oct 2025 09:13:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Benjamin Swift]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Energy Transition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Impacts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infrastructure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Renewable Energy]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308012</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Critical Minerals, Energy, Environment, Governance, Health, Indigenous Communities, Mining, Mountains, Natural Resources, and Renewable Energy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At about 4,800 meters, or nearly 15,800 feet, above sea level, Cerro Rico towers over the city of Potosí, in Bolivia’s southern highlands. Famous for its vast silver reserves, Cerro Rico — whose name means “rich mountain” in Spanish — almost single-handedly financed the Spanish Empire. In 1656, author Antonio de León Pinelo claimed that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[At about 4,800 meters, or nearly 15,800 feet, above sea level, Cerro Rico towers over the city of Potosí, in Bolivia’s southern highlands. Famous for its vast silver reserves, Cerro Rico — whose name means “rich mountain” in Spanish — almost single-handedly financed the Spanish Empire. In 1656, author Antonio de León Pinelo claimed that enough silver had been extracted by Indigenous and African slaves to build a bridge from Bolivia to Madrid. At its peak in the early 17th century, Potosí was one of the world’s most populated cities, bigger even than London and Milan. UNESCO World Heritage Site, today the mountain is still exploited by miners associated with 54 cooperatives for zinc, lead, tin and silver, and continues to fuel the city’s economy. Now, riddled with tunnels after nearly 500 years of informal mining, the upper part of the mountain is on the brink of collapse, threatening the  approximately 180 families who live on the mountain and the roughly 10,000 miners working there, the majority of them Indigenous Quechua. “All the houses are cracked because everything is sinking,” Silvia Mamani Armijo, 34, who lives on the mountain with her three young children and works as a mine tunnel guard, told Mongabay. “During the rainy season this whole area can collapse,” she added, pointing to the cracks in the adobe walls of several houses near hers. “So many families could die.” Small cave-ins dot Cerro Rico in the area around Basilio Vargas&#8217; childhood home. Image by Benjamin Swift. Small&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-heart-of-bolivia-the-mountain-that-financed-an-empire-risks-collapsing/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>MPs across Latin America unite to stop fossil fuels in the Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mps-across-latin-america-unite-to-stop-fossil-fuels-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mps-across-latin-america-unite-to-stop-fossil-fuels-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Oct 2025 13:05:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mie Hoejris Dahl]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extractives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greenhouse gas emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law Enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oil Drilling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/14165711/amazon_241209121112x-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307268</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Latin America, and Peru]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation, Amazon Mining, Deforestation, Environmental Politics, Governance, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Natural Gas, Oil Drilling, Protected Areas, Saving The Amazon, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BOGOTÁ, Colombia and SÃO PAULO, Brazil — On Oct. 7 in Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília, lawmakers, Indigenous leaders and civil society representatives gathered to present a global parliamentary investigation into the effort to phase out fossil fuels in the Amazon. The investigation, led by Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future, a network of more than [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BOGOTÁ, Colombia and SÃO PAULO, Brazil — On Oct. 7 in Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília, lawmakers, Indigenous leaders and civil society representatives gathered to present a global parliamentary investigation into the effort to phase out fossil fuels in the Amazon. The investigation, led by Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future, a network of more than 900 lawmakers from 96 countries, resulted in a report, which documents the impacts of fossil fuel activities in the Amazon, including deforestation, pollution and social conflicts, and proposes how to move toward a fossil-free Amazon. Prior to presenting the report, parliamentarians from Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador put forward bills in their national legislatures to stop fossil fuel expansion in the Amazon regions of their countries. A parliamentarian in Bolivia presented a bill along the same lines on Oct. 7, following the release of the report. It is the first time parliamentarians have united in a call for a no-expansion zone for fossil fuels in the Amazon, presenting law proposals in five of the Amazon’s nine countries. The parliamentarians hope COP30 in Belém will put a special focus on the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, as a key piece in addressing global climate change. Yet, fossil fuel extraction remains central to many Amazon economies, with countries continuing to invest heavily in petroleum projects. Oil and gas fuel the Amazon’s crisis Oil and gas exploration covers about 1.3 million square kilometers (more than 500,000 square miles) in the Amazon — roughly double the size of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mps-across-latin-america-unite-to-stop-fossil-fuels-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Amazon Rainforest hits record carbon emissions from 2024 forest fires</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/10/amazon-rainforest-hits-record-carbon-emissions-from-2024-forest-fires/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/10/amazon-rainforest-hits-record-carbon-emissions-from-2024-forest-fires/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Oct 2025 15:29:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shanna Hanbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/08152733/GP0SU6PIFcrop1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=307241</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, and Brazil]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Fires, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Rainforests, Research, Threats To Rainforests, and wildfires]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2024, the Amazon Rainforest underwent its most devastating forest fire season in more than two decades. According to a new study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the fire-driven forest degradation released an estimated 791 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, a sevenfold increase compared with the previous two years. The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2024, the Amazon Rainforest underwent its most devastating forest fire season in more than two decades. According to a new study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the fire-driven forest degradation released an estimated 791 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, a sevenfold increase compared with the previous two years. The carbon emissions from fires in 2024 surpassed those from deforestation for the first time on record. Brazil was the largest contributor, accounting for 61% of these emissions, followed by Bolivia with 32%, the study found. “The escalating fire occurrence, driven by climate change and unsustainable land use, threatens to push the Amazon towards a catastrophic tipping point,” the authors write. “Urgent, coordinated efforts are crucial to mitigate these drivers and to prevent irreversible ecosystem damage.” The researchers estimated that the total emissions from deforestation and fire-driven degradation in the Amazon in 2024 was 1,416 million metric tons of CO2. This is higher than Japan’s CO2 emissions in 2022, which ranked fifth after China, the U.S., India and Russia. The 2023-24 Amazon drought was one of the most severe in recent history, fueled by the El Niño phenomenon, which causes lower rainfall in the region. Water levels in the Amazon’s main rivers, including the Solimões, Negro and Madeira, dropped to their lowest in more than 120 years. Human-driven climate change has in fact made the Amazon Rainforest nearly 30 times more prone to fire, the 2023-24 State of Wildfires report found. However, most blazes in 2024&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/10/amazon-rainforest-hits-record-carbon-emissions-from-2024-forest-fires/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>The fate of flying rivers could decide Amazon ‘tipping point,’ report says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-fate-of-flying-rivers-could-decide-amazon-tipping-point-report-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-fate-of-flying-rivers-could-decide-amazon-tipping-point-report-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Sep 2025 16:12:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforest Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Water]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/29160330/6dd22811-5a5d-4254-a6f9-7889f4a1d7cd-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306665</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon Drought, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Rainforest Conservation, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, Threats To Rainforests, Tipping points, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Experts often warn about the “tipping point” for the Amazon, a scenario in which the rainforest collapses into a drier, less biodiverse savanna ecosystem. But the term “tipping point” is sometimes misunderstood or generalized, some experts say, suggesting that there will be an instant change to the biome from one day to the next. In [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Experts often warn about the “tipping point” for the Amazon, a scenario in which the rainforest collapses into a drier, less biodiverse savanna ecosystem. But the term “tipping point” is sometimes misunderstood or generalized, some experts say, suggesting that there will be an instant change to the biome from one day to the next. In reality, the transition from rainforest to savanna won’t be a single incident, but rather a gradual process happening at different rates across the region, multiple studies show. Some conservationists say there’s still a fundamental confusion within the general public about what the “tipping point” would look like, and what can be done about it. “For the most part, if you’re reading about the tipping point, you’re left with the impression that it’s like a single event, and that when the Amazon reaches that tipping point, it’s going to go from rainforest to savanna,” Matt Finer, director and senior research specialist of Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Project (MAAP), told Mongabay. “Very rarely do you get the nuance that it’s much more complicated than that.” The MAAP team wanted to clarify the way the Amazon tipping point works, and to explain the science to a general readership who might not have access to the latest research. The team combined numerous studies to create a series of maps, revealing that not all parts of the Amazon have the same risk level. One of the main factors influencing the tipping point is how water moves within the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-fate-of-flying-rivers-could-decide-amazon-tipping-point-report-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>In the Andean Amazon, countries struggle to fight deforestation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/in-the-andean-amazon-countries-struggle-to-fight-deforestation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/in-the-andean-amazon-countries-struggle-to-fight-deforestation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Sep 2025 08:49:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Logging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Grabbing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306319</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Communities, Land Rights, Protected Areas, Reforestation, Threats To Rainforests, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have all signed the Glasgow Pact, a UNFCCC-linked agreement by which, among other commitments, countries agree to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. Bolivia, while not a signatory to that component of the climate treaty, pledged to reduce forest loss by eighty per cent when it submitted a draft version [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have all signed the Glasgow Pact, a UNFCCC-linked agreement by which, among other commitments, countries agree to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. Bolivia, while not a signatory to that component of the climate treaty, pledged to reduce forest loss by eighty per cent when it submitted a draft version of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UNFCCC in 2022. All four nations have long-established policies to create protected areas and recognize Indigenous lands, as well as land-use zoning mechanisms that, theoretically, restrict forest clearing on private lands. Similarly, all have launched multiple programmes over decades to promote sustainable development, forest management and social wellbeing. Despite these policies, however, none has laws comparable to Brazil’s Forest Code, or anything approaching an ‘all-of-government’ strategy comparable to the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm). The current governments of Colombia and Ecuador appear to be sincerely seeking a solution to deforestation; their counterparts in Peru and Bolivia, however, are openly ambivalent. Across the Andean Amazon, elected officials voice support for zero deforestation development while tolerating, or even promoting, policies that drive deforestation. Disturbingly, every country has seen its mean annual deforestation rate increase over the last decade. The Meneria Metalmark butterfly (Amarynthis meneria) in Manu National Park, Peru. Image by Rhett A. Butler. Colombia’s penal code has long included the concept of environmental crimes, including illegal logging and deforestation on public lands. The first iteration of the law, however,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/in-the-andean-amazon-countries-struggle-to-fight-deforestation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Protecting Indigenous Amazon lands may also protect public health, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/protecting-indigenous-amazon-lands-may-also-protect-public-health-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/protecting-indigenous-amazon-lands-may-also-protect-public-health-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Sep 2025 16:13:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306273</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Aerosol Pollution, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Diseases, Health, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Nature And Health, Planetary Health, Pollution, Public Health, Rainforest Deforestation, Threats To Rainforests, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a new paper analyzing the relationship between Indigenous territories and the occurrence of 21 diseases in the Amazon biome over 20 years suggests that healthy forests on protected Indigenous territories can help reduce disease incidence and risks to human health. “Indigenous forests act as a sort of shield for health,” said study lead author Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Published in Communications Earth &amp; Environment, the study is the first of its kind to look at all nine Amazonian countries. Its main contribution, according to Barreto, is to convey the importance of guaranteeing land rights for Indigenous peoples across the Amazon. Indigenous village of the Huni Kuin people in Jordão, Acre. Indigenous territories with secure land rights not only reduce deforestation inside their lands in the Brazilian Amazon, but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. Image by AgniBa via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Barreto and her colleagues looked at how Indigenous territories, depending on their legal status and landscape characteristics, could influence the incidence of fire-related illnesses, as well as vector-borne and zoonotic diseases — those transmitted by insect bites or&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/protecting-indigenous-amazon-lands-may-also-protect-public-health-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Where life has found its richest expression &#8211; Amazon Rainforest Day</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/09/where-life-has-found-its-richest-expression-amazon-rainforest-day/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/09/where-life-has-found-its-richest-expression-amazon-rainforest-day/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Sep 2025 14:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/05142033/12-ecuador_235299-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
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											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Ecological Beauty, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforest Ecological Services, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest Day, first celebrated in 2008, aims to raise awareness about the importance of Earth&#8217;s largest rainforest. There is a place where the Amazon meets the Andes, where forests climb the lower slopes of mountains before giving way to the mists of the cloud forests. To stand there is to feel the weight of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest Day, first celebrated in 2008, aims to raise awareness about the importance of Earth&#8217;s largest rainforest. There is a place where the Amazon meets the Andes, where forests climb the lower slopes of mountains before giving way to the mists of the cloud forests. To stand there is to feel the weight of two great worlds converging. The immensity of the Amazon basin stretches out below, while above, the Andes rise in sheer defiance. In this meeting ground—across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia—life has found its richest expression. The numbers alone are striking. Thousands of plant species, brilliantly patterned insects, frogs still unknown to science, and birds found nowhere else share this space. Walking a trail here, the experience is rarely showy but always layered: Pause by a tree trunk and you begin to notice camouflaged insects, tiny lizards, mosses, and fungi — life quietly going about its business. The air is thick with humidity and the earthy scent of wet soil and leaves. Every walk brings some small surprise, a reminder of the forest’s endless variety and its habit of revealing itself differently each time. Yet the wonder of these forests is matched by their vulnerability. Chainsaws bite into their edges, opening scars that spread like cracks in a mirror. Roads carve corridors into once-intact landscapes. Climate change shifts rainfall and temperature in ways that stress species finely tuned to their niches. Scientists warn that even small disruptions here can ripple widely, unraveling the delicate balance that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/09/where-life-has-found-its-richest-expression-amazon-rainforest-day/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>What’s at stake for the environment in Bolivia’s upcoming elections?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/whats-at-stake-for-the-environment-in-bolivias-upcoming-elections/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/whats-at-stake-for-the-environment-in-bolivias-upcoming-elections/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Aug 2025 17:13:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/18090130/5ea89944-8f35-493c-8e8d-dac97023a77d-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304371</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Mining, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Forests, Mining, Rainforest Deforestation, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Roads, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Bolivians will go to the polls on Aug. 17 to vote for a new president, vice president and 166 combined members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. When it comes to environmental policies, the country has many important decisions to make about climate change commitments, development of the lithium industry, illegal gold mining, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Bolivians will go to the polls on Aug. 17 to vote for a new president, vice president and 166 combined members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. When it comes to environmental policies, the country has many important decisions to make about climate change commitments, development of the lithium industry, illegal gold mining, and forest loss in the Amazon Rainforest and Chiquitania savanna. For the most part, the candidates have ambiguous policies on these topics, or haven’t addressed them at all, making for an uncertain future for Bolivia’s natural ecosystems. For the first time in more than a decade, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party doesn’t have a leading presidential candidate. President Luis Arce withdrew from the race in May after his mentor and former president Evo Morales, the founder of MAS, announced his plans to run with a new party. A court ruled Morales ineligible after already serving three terms, but his decision still split the left-leaning rural base and undermined Arce’s candidacy. Arce has fought for clean water and tried to protect local communities from exploitation by foreign lithium investors. But under his watch, illegal gold mining and fires — many of them caused by agriculture — have torn through the country’s forests, which cover more than half of its total surface area. Last year, there was 476,030 hectares (1.2 million acres) of deforestation in Bolivia, according to Global Forest Watch. Arce’s government also arguably led the country into an economic crisis, characterized by slow growth,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/whats-at-stake-for-the-environment-in-bolivias-upcoming-elections/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Mexico’s rising mercury trade fuels toxic gold mining in Latin America: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/mexicos-rising-mercury-trade-fuels-toxic-gold-mining-in-latin-america-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/mexicos-rising-mercury-trade-fuels-toxic-gold-mining-in-latin-america-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jul 2025 17:07:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gold Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Trade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law Enforcement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pollution]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/30170037/AP110519174590-1-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303440</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Latin America, Mexico, North America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Forests, Gold Mining, Governance, Illegal Mining, Mercury, Mining, Organized Crime, Pollution, Protected Areas, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — In 2017, as part of an international treaty, Mexico started phasing down mercury production and eliminating its use in gold mining, citing major environmental and public health hazards. The effort appeared to work: Between 2017 and 2018, the government reported that national mercury production had dropped from 442 metric tons to just [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — In 2017, as part of an international treaty, Mexico started phasing down mercury production and eliminating its use in gold mining, citing major environmental and public health hazards. The effort appeared to work: Between 2017 and 2018, the government reported that national mercury production had dropped from 442 metric tons to just half a metric ton. Over the following three years, it reportedly dropped to zero. But for some environmental groups, those numbers looked too good to be true. The government wasn’t reporting mercury smuggling during those years, they said, and had even left several key sections of its progress reports blank. Ultimately, the government would have to issue a correction to some official figures, clarifying that mercury was still being produced in the country. Today, mercury production persists in several states across Mexico, including in protected areas, and has turned the country into one of the main suppliers for the mercury used in gold mines across Latin America. “Mercury mining production is spinning out of control, with bursts of activity driven by mercury prices, increased violence and an alleged recent takeover of productive mines by a drug cartel,” the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said in a recent report. Peruvian jungle devastated by wild cat gold miners in Madre de Dios, Peru. (Guadalupe Pardo/Pool Photo via AP) Mercury is considered one of the top 10 chemicals of major public health concern by the World Health Organization. Once released into an ecosystem, it can pollute soils and streams&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/mexicos-rising-mercury-trade-fuels-toxic-gold-mining-in-latin-america-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>In the Andes, decentralization fails to address environmental harm</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-the-andes-decentralization-fails-to-address-environmental-harm/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-the-andes-decentralization-fails-to-address-environmental-harm/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2025 20:46:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[forest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Logging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infrastructure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/08/01104814/06_JHOUSTON_180305_00288-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302223</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Amazon Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Governance, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Logging, Protected Areas, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Andean nations are unitary republics by history and constitution. Consequently, the push to devolve power to lower jurisdictions is less obvious and its degree of implementation variable. Over the last several decades, Andean countries have, at different times and with different levels of determination, organized efforts to decentralize decision-making and the state’s administrative functions. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Andean nations are unitary republics by history and constitution. Consequently, the push to devolve power to lower jurisdictions is less obvious and its degree of implementation variable. Over the last several decades, Andean countries have, at different times and with different levels of determination, organized efforts to decentralize decision-making and the state’s administrative functions. These reforms have profoundly changed the nature of governance, because they have transferred responsibility for providing key public services to local institutions answerable to individuals elected by their neighbors. Peru started its decentralization process in 2002, when constitutional and legal reforms enacted after the collapse of the Fujimori government led to the first local elections in the nation’s history. The transfer of administrative responsibility was matched by revenues that were earmarked for social programmes, such as teacher salaries and healthcare centers. By 2016, about 8% of GDP and 50% of total government expenditures were executed by regional and local governments, an increase of more than 100% compared to 2002. Most revenues are now distributed according to population; consequently, benefits have accrued to urban areas on the coast and the mid-sized cities in the highlands, with one notable exception: revenues from the exploitation of natural resources. Peru’s economy is highly dependent on mining and hydrocarbons, and the political reforms of the early 2000s included a revenue-sharing mechanism that is among the most generous in the world. Known as the canon, it refers to a series of rules for collection of taxes, fees and royalties generated by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-the-andes-decentralization-fails-to-address-environmental-harm/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Endangered Andean cat is imperiled by climate change and its solutions</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jul 2025 14:58:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/10042617/Image_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302156</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Animals]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Andes, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Camera Trapping, Cats, Climate Change, Climate Change And Biodiversity, Conservation, DNA, Endangered Species, Environment, Extreme Weather, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Infectious Wildlife Disease, Lithium, Mammals, Mining, Monitoring, Mountains, Natural Resources, Research, Small Cats, Species, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late 1990s. And it took Juan Reppucci, leader of the Andean Cat Alliance’s In the Field 24/7 program, nine years to spot one of these elusive [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late 1990s. And it took Juan Reppucci, leader of the Andean Cat Alliance’s In the Field 24/7 program, nine years to spot one of these elusive cats in its natural habitat. The Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita) is one of South America’s most endangered small cat species, roaming the high Andes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. About the size of a domestic cat, it resembles a miniature snow leopard. Thick fur and an elongated tail make it well adapted to the harsh alpine environment it calls home and for chasing its favorite prey — vizcacha, a rabbit-resembling rodent — across rocky landscapes. Reppucci’s sighting happened on a very “weird” day, he recalls. While out looking for a radio collar that had fallen from a Pampas cat (L. colocolo) in Jujuy province, Argentina, the researcher’s dog Monty (an ever-present companion and guide on field trips) got spooked by a herd of llamas and went missing. Juan Reppucci and his dog Monty, who acts as both field trip companion and guide for AGA research teams. “If it&#8217;s dark, I follow the dog because he knows the way,” Reppucci says. Image courtesy of AGA. Reppucci walked for hours searching for both the collar and Monty. Eventually he reached a cliff edge and paused to catch his breath. “I was super tired, because I was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Wildfires push tropical forest loss in Latin America to record highs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/wildfires-push-tropical-forest-loss-in-latin-america-to-record-highs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/wildfires-push-tropical-forest-loss-in-latin-america-to-record-highs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jun 2025 13:41:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mie Hoejris Dahl]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Fires]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/08184720/fogo_pantanal_Gustavo-Figueiroa_SOS-Pantanal-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300871</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana, Latin America, Mexico, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Amazon Agriculture, Biodiversity, Deforestation, Forest Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforest Deforestation, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, Tropical Forests, and wildfires]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — In 2024, six Latin American countries were in the top 10 nations with the highest loss of tropical primary forest, according to recent data from the University of Maryland, U.S. Topping the list were Brazil and Bolivia, in a year that saw the record-breaking loss of 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY — In 2024, six Latin American countries were in the top 10 nations with the highest loss of tropical primary forest, according to recent data from the University of Maryland, U.S. Topping the list were Brazil and Bolivia, in a year that saw the record-breaking loss of 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of forest, 80% more than in 2023. In the Amazon, forest loss jumped by 110% compared to 2023, the biggest increase since 2016. Although tropical forest loss rose globally, some countries, like Indonesia and Malaysia, saw improvements. In Latin America, however, even countries that had previously curbed forest loss, such as Brazil and Colombia, experienced dramatic losses. Wildfires encroach on tropical forests In 2024, wildfires burned five times more tropical primary forest than the year before. Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico saw particularly high numbers of wildfires. “The rapid loss of forest is very sad news at a time when we need our forests more than ever,” says Marlene Quintanilla Palacios, director of research and knowledge management at Bolivian conservation NGO Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (Friends of Nature Foundation). Last year was also the hottest year on record, with Latin America experiencing intense droughts due to a strong El Niño, a recurring climate pattern marked by warmer Pacific waters. “Climate change is accelerating all of this,” Quintanilla Palacios says. Hotspots show areas in Latin America that were newly affected by fires in 2024. Source: Global Forest Watch. If wildfires become the main driver of tropical&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/wildfires-push-tropical-forest-loss-in-latin-america-to-record-highs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Mongabay investigation of sketchy forest finance schemes wins honorable mention</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/mongabay-investigation-of-sketchy-forest-finance-schemes-wins-honorable-mention/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/mongabay-investigation-of-sketchy-forest-finance-schemes-wins-honorable-mention/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2025 19:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shanna Hanbury]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/11185739/5.-Native-community_Mongabay_edit-1200x800-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=300629</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Panama, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Finance, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Ecosystem Finance, Environment, Finance, Forests, Greenwashing, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, and Rainforest Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès earned an honorable mention in the 2025 Trace Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced May 28, for her investigation into how Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were misled into handing over their rights to millions of hectares of forest. The January 2024 investigation, “False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès earned an honorable mention in the 2025 Trace Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced May 28, for her investigation into how Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were misled into handing over their rights to millions of hectares of forest. The January 2024 investigation, “False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous groups cede forest rights for sketchy finance,” uncovered a network of companies that used false claims of U.N. endorsement to help them win contracts, some lasting several decades, with various Indigenous communities. The economic rights to more than 9.5 million hectares (23.5 million acres) of forest were signed away via these schemes. The agreements were signed without full community consent and were based on unclear promises of jobs, local development projects and, in some cases, a financial return from carbon credits and green bonds, Pallarès found. The 2025 Trace Prize praised the story as “a singular contribution to our understanding of how financial innovations that put a capital value on natural resources can abet the exploitation of vulnerable populations.” One of the most egregious contracts that Pallarès’ uncovered involved 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of the Matsés community’s land in Peru, bordering the territories of several isolated tribes. The company that got the contract, Get Life, had a registered capital of less than $700, and its sole owner told Mongabay that he lacked experience in sustainable finance and carbon markets. Pallarès found that he had been partnering with Ysrael Urday, a former public official investigated&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/mongabay-investigation-of-sketchy-forest-finance-schemes-wins-honorable-mention/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Strategic planning for development in the Pan Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/strategic-planning-for-development-in-the-pan-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/strategic-planning-for-development-in-the-pan-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Jun 2025 15:49:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infrastructure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[roads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/06181922/BRAZIL-PORTADA-animals_199593-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300349</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Amazon Rainforest, Biodiversity, Deforestation, Energy, Environmental Law, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Protected Areas, Roads, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the late 1990s, academics developed a variant of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) methodology known as a strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Originally conceived as a super-EIA, the scope of the analysis was broadened to consider long-term, indirect and cumulative impacts, as well as alternative development scenarios. Key to the SEA methodology is the participation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the late 1990s, academics developed a variant of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) methodology known as a strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Originally conceived as a super-EIA, the scope of the analysis was broadened to consider long-term, indirect and cumulative impacts, as well as alternative development scenarios. Key to the SEA methodology is the participation of all stakeholders in open dialogue while multiple development options are still on the table. Over time, EIAs have become formalized as a narrow pathway for mitigating the environmental and social liabilities of a specific project. In contrast, SEAs have evolved in the other direction and now are promoted as a strategic planning process that seeks to maximize the positive outcomes from higher-level policies, plans and programmes. There was a flurry of interest in SEAs at the turn of the millennium, and the methodology was applied in several high-profile projects in the Pan Amazon. Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Bi-Oceanic Corridor, a highway linking Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and Corumbá, Brazil, which connected the transportation networks of the Central Andes with Southern Brazil, an early-stage IIRSA priority built between 2000 and 2012. The Plan for a Sustainable BR-163: a Brazilian government initiative to promote sustainable development on the landscapes surrounding the highway between Cuiabá (MT) and Santarém (PA). This highway was originally opened in the 1970s during Operação Amazônia and the segment traversing Pará was essentially abandoned until the early 2000s, when it became an export corridor for soy and corn. Improvements to the highway began&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/strategic-planning-for-development-in-the-pan-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Climate strikes the Amazon, undermining protection efforts</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/climate-strikes-the-amazon-undermining-protection-efforts/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/climate-strikes-the-amazon-undermining-protection-efforts/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Jun 2025 14:53:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/28140600/GP0SU1T9Q_24_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=300240</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, forest degradation, Forest Fires, Forests, Governance, Green, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Satellite Imagery, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and wildfires]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest in 2024, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, which is larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual average between 2014 and 2023, according to data released last month by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest in 2024, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, which is larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual average between 2014 and 2023, according to data released last month by World Resources Institute&#8217;s Global Forest Watch. It was the highest loss for the biome since annual records began in 2002. Sixty percent of that destruction was caused by fire—a record high. If all tree cover is counted, the toll climbs to nearly 6.2 million hectares. Brazil bore the brunt, losing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest. Bolivia saw a 586% increase over its 10-year average, as did Guyana. In Brazil, deforestation has plunged under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who moved swiftly to reassert environmental governance. But nature had other plans. Blistering temperatures and the worst drought in 70 years—fueled by climate change and compounded by El Niño—turned routine agricultural burns into runaway infernos. Lula’s reforms proved no match for an accelerating climate crisis or the long tail of past mismanagement. Annual deforestation (Aug 1-Jul 31), according to INPE. Deforestation is tracked separately from forest loss due to fire. Monthly deforestation alerts (excluding fire) from INPE and Imazon, an organization that independently tracks deforestation. In Bolivia, policy choices stoked the fires. The government removed export quotas on beef and soy, cut import taxes on agrochemicals, and offered debt relief to those affected by fire—effectively&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/climate-strikes-the-amazon-undermining-protection-efforts/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Tropical forest loss hit new heights in 2024; fire a major driver in Latin America</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/tropical-forest-loss-hit-new-heights-in-2024-fire-a-major-driver-in-latin-america/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/tropical-forest-loss-hit-new-heights-in-2024-fire-a-major-driver-in-latin-america/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 May 2025 22:02:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/21213531/IF_Quilpue_24_2-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299460</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Bolivia, Brazil, Congo, Congo Basin, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Global, Indonesia, Latin America, Republic of Congo, South America, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Deforestation, El Nino, Environment, Fires, Forest Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Global Warming, Green, Habitat Loss, Primary Forests, Rainforests, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tropical forest loss skyrocketed in 2024, with vast swaths of primary forest consumed by fire, according to new satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory, made available on World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform. The data indicate a record 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Tropical forest loss skyrocketed in 2024, with vast swaths of primary forest consumed by fire, according to new satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory, made available on World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform. The data indicate a record 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of primary tropical forest was destroyed in 2024 — an area almost the size of Panama. Nearly half of this forest loss was driven by fire, according to WRI’s analysis of the data. Five times more tropical forest burned in 2024 than in the previous year. That made fire, not agricultural expansion, the primary driver of tropical forest loss for the first time. Non-fire related tropical forest loss was also up, by 14% compared with 2023. “The 2024 numbers must be a wake-up call to every country, every bank, every international business,” Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of GFW said during a press conference. “Continuing down this path will devastate economies, people’s jobs and any chance of staving off climate change’s worst effects.&#8221; In 2024, the Amazon experienced the worst drought — and fire season — in decades. Fires are normally rare in humid tropical ecosystems. But in hot dry conditions, agricultural fires, many lit to clear land, can quickly spread, driving forest loss in the Amazon and other parts of Latin America. The data revealed that in the Congo Basin, shifting cultivation remained the primary driver of tropical forest loss, with rates of forest loss in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/tropical-forest-loss-hit-new-heights-in-2024-fire-a-major-driver-in-latin-america/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Bolivia expels members of fake nation Kailasa over Indigenous land lease scandal</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/bolivia-expels-members-of-fake-nation-kailasa-over-indigenous-land-lease-scandal/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/bolivia-expels-members-of-fake-nation-kailasa-over-indigenous-land-lease-scandal/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 May 2025 17:11:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/16164414/FOTO-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299218</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Market, Carbon Offsets, Conflict, Corruption, Environment, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, and Land Rights]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The United States of Kailasa maintains that it is a real nation. With this title, over the last three years, they have traveled to different countries in South America to look for productive lands where they can settle. They did so in Paraguay and Ecuador, and they recently arrived in Bolivia. There, 20 emissaries from [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The United States of Kailasa maintains that it is a real nation. With this title, over the last three years, they have traveled to different countries in South America to look for productive lands where they can settle. They did so in Paraguay and Ecuador, and they recently arrived in Bolivia. There, 20 emissaries from Kailasa have been accused of trying to scam Indigenous leaders with whom they agreed on a “perpetual lease” of their lands. Their intention was to become the owners of big territories in three Indigenous communities of the Bolivian Amazon: The Baure, the Cayubaba and the Esse Ejja. Their plans also included a protected area, according to the mayor of San Rafael, a town in eastern Bolivia. By the time this article was first published in March, the migration officials had already expelled the Kailasa representatives from the Bolivian territory. This story starts in September 2024, when some members of the self-proclaimed nation of the United States of Kailasa arrived in Bolivia. The three emissaries who entered the country as tourists, holding Irish citizenship, as confirmed by the Bolivian migration office, had the objective of getting in touch with Indigenous leaders. They settled in the town of Exaltación, in the department of Beni, and from there they began contacting leaders from the Amazon to propose a “bilateral cooperation.” The representatives of the Baure, Cayubaba and Esse Ejja peoples said that they were convinced by lies. Then, 17 more people arrived. This time, most of them were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/bolivia-expels-members-of-fake-nation-kailasa-over-indigenous-land-lease-scandal/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Study unveils mystery of monkey yodeling — and why humans can&#8217;t compete</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-unveils-mystery-of-monkey-yodeling-and-why-humans-cant-compete/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-unveils-mystery-of-monkey-yodeling-and-why-humans-cant-compete/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 May 2025 14:11:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Lizkimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[animal behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[animal rescue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bolivia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Charismatic Animals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[forest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Happy-upbeat Environmental]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mammals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Monkeys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wildlife]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/16135413/Screenshot-2025-05-16-at-8.50.57-AM-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299192</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Rainforest, Animals, Biodiversity, Environment, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Monkeys, Rainforests, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Deep in the rainforest, the monkeys are yodeling. Their wild calls echo across the foliage, sending signals of sex and survival. For decades, scientists have studied why they make these sounds, but are just beginning to understand how. A new study asks how monkeys make calls with abrupt frequency jumps, which sound like human yodeling. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Deep in the rainforest, the monkeys are yodeling. Their wild calls echo across the foliage, sending signals of sex and survival. For decades, scientists have studied why they make these sounds, but are just beginning to understand how. A new study asks how monkeys make calls with abrupt frequency jumps, which sound like human yodeling. Scientists were curious about the role of vocal membranes, thin ribbons of tissue that sit above monkeys’ vocal folds. Humans have vocal folds (vocal cords), but monkeys have both folds and membranes. &#8220;We knew about these vocal membranes,” Jacob Dunn, an evolutionary biologist at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K., who co-authored the study, told Mongabay. “We knew that they were in all the primates that we studied, but nobody had really studied their actual function.&#8221; To answer this question, researchers used a combination of acoustic recordings, electroglottographs (EGGs) — which measure contact area between vocal folds during use — and modeling. They confirmed that voice production in monkeys from the Americas is made possible by two sets of vocal structures, allowing the monkeys to jump back and forth between frequencies. Vocal folds produce low-frequency sounds, and vocal membranes create higher tones. Switching between the two produces an effect similar to yodeling. However, monkeys have a much wider range and can oscillate between notes much more rapidly than human yodelers, who rely solely on vocal cords. A tufted capuchin (Sapajus apella), found in the Neotropics, is among the yodeling monkey species. Image courtesy of Joan&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-unveils-mystery-of-monkey-yodeling-and-why-humans-cant-compete/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/16133221/A-tufted-capuchin-call-in-real-time-and-slowed-down-with-Dr-Christian-Herbst-explaining-the-frequency-jumps-made-during-the-call.wav" length="1891768" type="audio/wav" />
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					<title>Bolivian communities push back against foreign-backed lithium projects</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/bolivian-communities-push-back-against-foreign-backed-lithium-projects/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/bolivian-communities-push-back-against-foreign-backed-lithium-projects/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Apr 2025 12:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carla Ruas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freshwater]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lithium]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Local communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Water]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/18171259/indranil-roy-F6PtEfUxYY4-unsplash-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297718</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Batteries, Corporate Responsibility, Drinking Water, Electric Cars, Environment, Environmental Law, Freshwater, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Lithium, Mining, Water Crisis, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dionicio Colque, 42, has fond memories of growing up on the edge of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. It’s the world’s largest salt flat, spanning about 10,500 square kilometers (4,050 square miles). His family farmed potatoes on the outskirts of Colcha K, a community of around 1,000 residents in Nor Lípez province. But in around [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Dionicio Colque, 42, has fond memories of growing up on the edge of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. It’s the world’s largest salt flat, spanning about 10,500 square kilometers (4,050 square miles). His family farmed potatoes on the outskirts of Colcha K, a community of around 1,000 residents in Nor Lípez province. But in around 2005, the freshwater spring that sustained their ranch ran dry, a loss Colque attributes to the effects of climate change and nearby mining operations. With no water, the family was forced to abandon its ranch and move into the city. “It was heartbreaking to watch our land dry up,” Colque told Mongabay. “Without water, there is no life.” Colque, now a teacher at Colcha K’s main elementary school, is among the residents alarmed by an influx of lithium mining plants that threaten the community’s remaining groundwater. In September 2024, Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB), signed a $970 million contract with Russia’s state-owned Uranium One Group to develop a new lithium plant within Colcha K municipality. Just two months later, YLB secured another deal, this time worth $1.03 billion with China’s CBC, a subsidiary of CATL, the world’s biggest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, to establish two additional plants nearby.  At full capacity, these facilities are expected to produce almost 90,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate annually for production of lithium-ion batteries — enough to power 3 million electric vehicles. An aerial image of lithium mining in Salar de Uyuni. Image by Oton&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/bolivian-communities-push-back-against-foreign-backed-lithium-projects/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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