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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>Guyana environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/guyana/</link>
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				<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>
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					<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>
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						<item>
					<title>In Guyana and Suriname, offshore oil and environmental interests clash</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-guyana-and-suriname-offshore-oil-and-environmental-interests-clash/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-guyana-and-suriname-offshore-oil-and-environmental-interests-clash/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Dec 2025 11:00:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fossil Fuels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greenhouse gas emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[offshore extraction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oil Drilling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/28184116/PORTADA-Suriname-Rhett-A-Butler-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310334</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, Latin America, South America, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Corruption, Energy Politics, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Government, Offshore Drilling, Oil Drilling, Politics, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Note: this piece was written prior to 2025, but was only published in December 2025. Jennifer Geerlings-Simons is currently president of Suriname and spoke to Mongabay in November 2025. Both Guyana and Suriname have hybrid republican/parliamentary electoral systems that reflect their colonial heritage. In Guyana, the president is elected by a first-past-the-post outcome that sums [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Note: this piece was written prior to 2025, but was only published in December 2025. Jennifer Geerlings-Simons is currently president of Suriname and spoke to Mongabay in November 2025. Both Guyana and Suriname have hybrid republican/parliamentary electoral systems that reflect their colonial heritage. In Guyana, the president is elected by a first-past-the-post outcome that sums the votes for candidates of his/her party standing for election to the National Assembly (i.e., plurality of votes). In Suriname, the president is elected either by a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly or by a simple majority in the People’s Assembly, which is composed of all members of the National Assembly, as well as the elected members of district and local legislatures. In both countries, the president, once elected, has an exceptionally strong constitutional mandate as head of state and head of government. In Guyana, major parties all trace their foundation to historical figures who ruled as authoritarian leaders, including Forbes Burnham, the founder of the People&#8217;s National Congress Reform (PNCR), and Cheddi Jagan, who led what would eventually be the People&#8217;s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). The founders are long dead, but their parties have stayed relevant because they have created institutional organisations that span all levels of the state. Guyanese politics are effectively divided along ethnic lines, with the PNCR primarily representing Afro-Guyanese, who make up around thirty per cent of the country’s population, while the PPP/C mostly represents Indo-Guyanese, who account for around forty per cent. The PPP/C governed Guyana for 23 years&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-guyana-and-suriname-offshore-oil-and-environmental-interests-clash/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Chief Kokoi, defender of the Rupununi, died on October 12th</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/chief-kokoi-defender-of-the-rupununi-died-on-october-12th/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/chief-kokoi-defender-of-the-rupununi-died-on-october-12th/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Oct 2025 03:57:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/16230121/Tony-James-bowl-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307854</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Green, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[He was born where the forest gives way to the savanna, in the South Rupununi of Guyana, among horses, rivers, and the songs of the Wapichan people. From that landscape, Tony Rodney James—known to many as Chief Kokoi—drew the convictions that would guide his life: that land is not a commodity, that language carries memory, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[He was born where the forest gives way to the savanna, in the South Rupununi of Guyana, among horses, rivers, and the songs of the Wapichan people. From that landscape, Tony Rodney James—known to many as Chief Kokoi—drew the convictions that would guide his life: that land is not a commodity, that language carries memory, and that leadership means service. When he died at his home in Aishalton Village on October 12th, his community lost a defender of Indigenous rights and a voice that, for half a century, spoke with clarity and defiance for Guyana’s first peoples. James’s childhood was steeped in both tradition and transition. His father was Wapichan, his mother Lokono (Arawak), and he moved between their worlds—one foot in the savannah, the other in the colonial classroom. He left school early, more interested in riding horses than reciting lessons, and tried the priesthood before realizing his true calling was closer to the ground. He joined politics briefly in the 1970s, working as a district coordinator under President Forbes Burnham, but soon quit, disillusioned. “Politicians are polished liars,” he said in a 2021 Stabroek News profile. “I could not lie to the people all the time.” Instead, he turned to the slower, more demanding work of community leadership. In 1982 he was elected toshāo—village chief—of Aishalton, a position he would hold for six terms. He was, by all accounts, a listener first and a speaker second, a man who carried the authority of patience. Under his leadership, Aishalton became a model&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/chief-kokoi-defender-of-the-rupununi-died-on-october-12th/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>Mamai Lucille Williams, a quiet symbol of dignity amid destruction, has died, aged about 93</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mamai-lucille-williams-defended-her-land-and-lost-it/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mamai-lucille-williams-defended-her-land-and-lost-it/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Oct 2025 00:26:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/15215210/Mamai-Lucille-William-header-bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307754</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Mining, Forests, Gold Mining, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Mining, Obituary, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When the miners came, Mamai Lucille Williams was well into her eighties. Her house in Karisparu, a Patamona village high in Guyana’s North Pakaraimas, stood on the same patch of ground where she had lived since childhood. Around it grew cassava, bananas, and fruit trees she had planted herself, each one a small act of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When the miners came, Mamai Lucille Williams was well into her eighties. Her house in Karisparu, a Patamona village high in Guyana’s North Pakaraimas, stood on the same patch of ground where she had lived since childhood. Around it grew cassava, bananas, and fruit trees she had planted herself, each one a small act of rootedness in a landscape that had changed little over her lifetime. Then, one day in 2018, men with axes arrived—miners, backed by policemen and an officer from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission. Acting on instructions from distant claim holders, they chopped down her house posts, scattered her belongings, and leveled her farm. Her neighbors watched in disbelief as she was told to leave the land she had lived on for more than seventy years. Such episodes have become grimly familiar across the Amazon, where gold glitters more brightly than the rights of those who have long lived above it. Yet this one struck a deeper chord. “Her fruit trees were cut down, her cassava destroyed,” wrote village leaders in a protest letter. The North Pakaraimas District Council called her eviction “a grave violation of human rights” and demanded that the miner’s permit be revoked. The government promised compensation and a new home. None of that could restore what had been uprooted. In time, “Mamai”—a term of affection and respect—came to personify the ordeal of many Indigenous elders. She became a quiet rallying point in the struggle for land and dignity. Local councils invoked her&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/mamai-lucille-williams-defended-her-land-and-lost-it/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>In the Guyana Shield, the fight against deforestation is not ambitious enough</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-guyana-shield-the-fight-against-deforestation-is-not-ambitious-enough/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-guyana-shield-the-fight-against-deforestation-is-not-ambitious-enough/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Oct 2025 16:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Logging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Grabbing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law Enforcement]]></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/20/2022/09/14122852/mining-deforestation-suriname-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306925</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Climate Change, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Rainforest Deforestation, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The three Guiana Shield countries do not suffer from high deforestation levels, which should render their commitments to eradicate deforestation more credible. Nonetheless, some government officials continue to promote conventional development polices. Guyana’s most recent NDC commits the government to implementing regulations and incentive programmes to avoid deforestation and forest degradation, along with a comprehensive [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The three Guiana Shield countries do not suffer from high deforestation levels, which should render their commitments to eradicate deforestation more credible. Nonetheless, some government officials continue to promote conventional development polices. Guyana’s most recent NDC commits the government to implementing regulations and incentive programmes to avoid deforestation and forest degradation, along with a comprehensive land use plan that purposes to rationally exploit the nation’s resources. Presumably, these commitments will be financed by the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), a jurisdictional REDD+ programme established in 2010 following an agreement between Guyana and Norway to maintain (and further reduce) Guyana’s historically low deforestation rates. As of January 2024, the fund had received US$ 150 million in payments, of which about US$ 70 million have been disbursed to support a variety of projects, from developing a national green development plan to formalising titles of Indigenous territories. Guyana has also joined the ART system for future trade in REDD+ credits. Suriname has made a similar commitment in its NDC by emphasizing its status as a high cover – low deforestation country (HFLD) and its expectations that the international community will provide financial support to help maintain (and improve) the status quo. The country recently filed to claim REDD+ credits using a UN-approved mechanism similar to the jurisdictional approach used by Guyana; it is also essentially demanding compensation for its historically low levels of GHG emissions from deforestation. Mennonites burn the trees first, then cut the trunks and lastly prepare the land for crops.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/in-the-guyana-shield-the-fight-against-deforestation-is-not-ambitious-enough/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<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>Centralized governance in the Guianas and economic legacy</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/centralized-governance-in-the-guianas-and-economic-legacy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/centralized-governance-in-the-guianas-and-economic-legacy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Aug 2025 22:21:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hydropower]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mining]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/31190904/animals_03234-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303560</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest, Biodiversity, Environmental Politics, Governance, Government, Hydropower, Infrastructure, and Mining]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Venezuela has a long history of federal government, and twelve of its 22 constitutions have included the word ‘Federal’ in the title, including the first, in 1811. Most of these federal regimes were established in the nineteenth century, however, and an extended period of military rule between 1900 and 1958 established a centralized governing philosophy [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Venezuela has a long history of federal government, and twelve of its 22 constitutions have included the word ‘Federal’ in the title, including the first, in 1811. Most of these federal regimes were established in the nineteenth century, however, and an extended period of military rule between 1900 and 1958 established a centralized governing philosophy that continues to dominate political affairs in the country. Venezuela has all the trappings of a federal state, including regional assemblies and the direct election of regional authorities, but the reality is the predominance of a central government that is authoritarian in nature. There was a brief period when federalist principles left a mark on the Amazonian states, when the country established the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) in 1960. This was followed by two decades of investment in hydropower, mining and industrial development. The legacy of these investments persists today in the county’s dependence on the Guri hydropower facility. The mining industry has been in decline for more than a decade and the metal refineries are barely functioning. In 2024, Venezuela is essentially a failed state, and the collapse of its formal institutions has led the national government to declare military rule in Bolívar and Amazonas states. Crack in Diablo Mountain, Venezuela. Image by Rhett A. Butler. Guyana and Suriname are small, centralized republics where the national government is responsible for policy development and the delivery of basic services, although it may administer them via local jurisdictions, which are called Regional Democratic Councils in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/centralized-governance-in-the-guianas-and-economic-legacy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<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>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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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>Amazon illegal gold mines drive sex trafficking in the Brazil-Guyana border</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/amazon-illegal-gold-mines-drive-sex-trafficking-in-the-brazil-guyana-border/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/amazon-illegal-gold-mines-drive-sex-trafficking-in-the-brazil-guyana-border/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 May 2025 07:00:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Oliveira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/23174416/OPERAO1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299597</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Guyana, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Destruction, Amazon Mining, Amazon People, Climate Change, Conflict, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Crime, Environmental Law, Governance, human trafficking, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Organized Crime, Politics, Rainforest Deforestation, Threats To Rainforests, and Threats To The Amazon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Poverty and poor border controls have allowed young women to be trafficked into the sex trade catering to illegal gold miners in Brazil’s border areas with countries like Guyana and Venezuela.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BOA VISTA, Brazil — After crossing the Brazilian border into the town of Lethem in Guyana, a billboard declares that human trafficking is a crime. It’s a jarring message in this otherwise tranquil town with its streets full of stores selling products imported from China. Those are just some of the products that draw traders here from across the border in the Brazilian city of Bonfim, 132 kilometers (82 miles) away from the capital of Boa Vista, the Amazonian state of Roraima. Separated by the Tacutu River (or Takutu in Guyana), the cities are easily accessible by the BR-401 highway. I crossed the border from Brazil into Guyana without being subjected to any inspections, despite the presence of a Federal Police post on the Brazilian side. Over the course of seven days in Roraima, three sources told me that traffickers in Boa Vista often recruit girls in Roraima and take them to Lethem, where they’re dragged into the sex trade at bars catering to gold miners. In Guyana, prostitution is prohibited and mining operations are supervised. However, sources who requested anonymity for security reasons told Mongabay that the sexual exploitation of young women, including Brazilians and especially Venezuelans, routinely occurs. In general, according to the sources, bars and other places frequented by young people in Boa Vista are targets for groomers working for organized crime networks that have invested heavily in mining activities in the Amazon. They lure girls and young women with invitations to business trips and promises of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/amazon-illegal-gold-mines-drive-sex-trafficking-in-the-brazil-guyana-border/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>A new mall for the village: How carbon credit dollars affect Indigenous Guyanese</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/a-new-mall-for-the-village-how-carbon-credit-dollars-affect-indigenous-guyanese/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/a-new-mall-for-the-village-how-carbon-credit-dollars-affect-indigenous-guyanese/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2025 16:52:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Clarissa Levy from Agência Pública]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/26150630/Capa-Shopping-na-aldeia-como-dolares-do-carbono-afetam-indigenas-na-Guiana-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299670</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation, Amazon Mining, Carbon Credits, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Culture, Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the center of the village is a soccer field. Around it, in nicely painted wood, are the main community buildings of the roughly 1,000 Kapohn Indigenous people who live on the banks of the Kako River, in an area of preserved Amazonian forest less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Guyana&#8217;s border with Venezuela. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the center of the village is a soccer field. Around it, in nicely painted wood, are the main community buildings of the roughly 1,000 Kapohn Indigenous people who live on the banks of the Kako River, in an area of preserved Amazonian forest less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Guyana&#8217;s border with Venezuela. Near the church and next to the health care center, the village&#8217;s newest development stands out in fresh, light-green paint: a mall, or, perhaps more accurately, a shed of shops. Andy&#8217;s Mall is the result of the first payment made by Guyana&#8217;s government to the Indigenous people of the Kako area, who are proud to say that they were the last to give in and sign the contract with the government that determined the conversion of their forests into carbon credits, sold to the Hess Corporation, a U.S. oil company. The sale of the first batch of carbon credits issued by the country for the deforestation avoided between 2016 and 2020 was completed in 2022 and made international headlines. The move made Guyana the first country in the world in which credits issued on a national scale and managed by a government body — &#8220;jurisdictional credit&#8221; is the term used in the sector — were available for sale on the private market. Almost 100% of the forest area of the small South American country was included in the negotiations. Combining public forests and Indigenous peoples&#8217; forests in the same package, the government certified and issued&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/a-new-mall-for-the-village-how-carbon-credit-dollars-affect-indigenous-guyanese/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Mining drove 1.4m hectares of forest loss in last 2 decades: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2024/11/mining-drove-1-4m-hectares-of-forest-loss-in-last-2-decades-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2024/11/mining-drove-1-4m-hectares-of-forest-loss-in-last-2-decades-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Nov 2024 03:05:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kristine Sabillo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/11/05030351/rainforest-indonesia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=289677</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Ghana, Guyana, Indonesia, Myanmar, North America, Peru, Russia, South America, Suriname, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Green, Impact Of Climate Change, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Logging, Mining, Protected Areas, Rainforest Conservation, Rainforest Deforestation, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Global mining activity is increasingly destroying forests, including protected areas, according to a recent analysis. Between 2001 and 2020, nearly 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of tree cover, an area a third the size of Denmark, was lost from mining-related activity, the analysis from the World Resources Institute (WRI) found. The associated greenhouse gas [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Global mining activity is increasingly destroying forests, including protected areas, according to a recent analysis. Between 2001 and 2020, nearly 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of tree cover, an area a third the size of Denmark, was lost from mining-related activity, the analysis from the World Resources Institute (WRI) found. The associated greenhouse gas emissions amounted to about 36 million metric tons annually, the authors write, similar to Finland’s fossil fuel emissions in 2022. Of the total tree cover loss, some 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) were in tropical primary rainforests, 260,000 hectares (643,000 acres) were in lands governed by Indigenous peoples and local communities, and 150,000 hectares (371,000 acres) were in protected areas. Nearly 90% of the mining-related tree cover loss was concentrated in just 11 countries: Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, the U.S., Canada, Peru, Ghana, Suriname, Myanmar, Australia and Guyana. “Cutting down trees not only destroys habitats and pushes species toward extinction but also worsens climate change by releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Radost Stanimirova, the report’s co-author and research associate at WRI, told Mongabay in an email. “Additionally, many Indigenous communities rely on these forests for food, medicine, and their cultural practices.” The report notes that mining’s contribution to the overall global tree cover loss is smaller than other drivers of deforestation, such as forestry, which caused 130 million hectares (321 million acres) of tree cover loss, or wildfires (90 million hectares, or 222 million acres) in the same period. However, Stanimirova said the regional impacts&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2024/11/mining-drove-1-4m-hectares-of-forest-loss-in-last-2-decades-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Indigenous communities in the Amazon fight for full recognition</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/indigenous-communities-in-the-amazon-jungle-fight-for-full-recognition/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/indigenous-communities-in-the-amazon-jungle-fight-for-full-recognition/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Oct 2024 10:59:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Agriculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Cultures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Groups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous territories]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Population]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/08041436/shutterstock_2155701315-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=288332</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Guyana, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Deforestation, Human Migration, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Migration, and Population]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Amazonian lowlands were home to several hundred ethnic groups living in tens of thousands of villages with a population estimated at between four and fifteen million inhabitants. Over millennia, these societies transformed landscapes along the main stem of the Amazon River and its major southern tributaries by developing [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Amazonian lowlands were home to several hundred ethnic groups living in tens of thousands of villages with a population estimated at between four and fifteen million inhabitants. Over millennia, these societies transformed landscapes along the main stem of the Amazon River and its major southern tributaries by developing agricultural practices that created dark earth soils, a technology that improved the physical and chemical properties of tropical soils, increased their productivity and ensured their sustainable use over centuries. These rural societies for the most part lacked large urban centers, but were sufficiently sophisticated to domesticate dozens of plant species and manipulate natural populations in native forests to create managed groves dominated by species that provided food and fiber. Simultaneously, cultures occupying the seasonal forest and savanna regions on the southern rim of the Amazon engineered landscapes by building mounds, causeways and ditch systems that improved crop yields while creating logistical systems that supported even denser populations. Tragically, all of these societies collapsed in the fifteenth and sixteenth and centuries, when epidemics caused by pathogens introduced during the Colombian Exchange burned through their communities. Although archaeology has yet to discover all the gruesome details, these societies were particularly susceptible to pandemics because of their relatively high population density and a trade network that promoted cultural interactions. The population is believed to have fallen to fewer than 400,000 individuals in a cataclysmic demographic collapse. The number of ethnic groups that existed before the ‘Great Dying’ is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/indigenous-communities-in-the-amazon-jungle-fight-for-full-recognition/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Clearest picture yet of Amazon carbon density could help guide conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clearest-picture-yet-of-amazon-carbon-density-could-help-guide-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clearest-picture-yet-of-amazon-carbon-density-could-help-guide-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Sep 2024 10:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carbon Sink]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conservation technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[forest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Carbon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greenhouse gas emissions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mapping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforest Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/10164850/Feature-12-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287218</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Carbon, Forests, Mapping, Rainforest Conservation, Rainforests, Research, Satellite Imagery, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Cutting-edge machine-learning models have created one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps yet of aboveground carbon density in the Amazon Rainforest, revealing where the forest is most intact and what areas are most in need of conservation attention. A combination of machine-learning models and satellite readings show that the Amazon Rainforest contains 56.8 billion metric [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Cutting-edge machine-learning models have created one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps yet of aboveground carbon density in the Amazon Rainforest, revealing where the forest is most intact and what areas are most in need of conservation attention. A combination of machine-learning models and satellite readings show that the Amazon Rainforest contains 56.8 billion metric tons of aboveground carbon, or the amount of carbon contained in plants on the surface of the Amazon. It’s one of the most precise estimates to date and amounts to more than one and a half times global emissions in 2023. “I was just really mesmerized by the data,” Matt Finer, director and senior research specialist of Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), told Mongabay. “You just put your glasses on and you can suddenly see. The carbon feature of the Amazon is suddenly clear.” The map is the result of an MAAP analysis of data from the Forest Carbon Diligence program run by Earth-imaging outfit Planet, which measures tree cover, tree height and the carbon storage of trees. It also used high-resolution airborne lidar data (a technology that employs lasers to scan an area, much like radar), combined with a global carbon data set from NASA satellite readings. The result was one of the most precise readings ever of forest carbon in the Amazon, showing which areas are the densest and providing clues to what conservation approaches are the most effective. According to the map, the highest carbon levels are located&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/clearest-picture-yet-of-amazon-carbon-density-could-help-guide-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>In a fight to save a rare bird, Indigenous communities in Guyana are winning</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/in-a-fight-to-save-a-rare-bird-indigenous-communities-in-guyana-are-winning/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/in-a-fight-to-save-a-rare-bird-indigenous-communities-in-guyana-are-winning/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Aug 2024 20:54:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carla Ruas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Community-based Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Happy-upbeat Environmental]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protected Areas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wildfire Smoke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wildlife]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wildlife Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wildlife Trafficking]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/05204246/5-Illegal-bird-traders-have-aggressively-sought-the-Red-Siskin-for-over-a-century.-Credit_-SRCS-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=285718</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas, Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[During an expedition to southern Guyana in 2000, researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Kansas were surprised to see a red siskin flying overhead. A small bird with a bright red chest, the red siskin (Spinus cucullatus) had never been observed outside Venezuela, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago. And even in those [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[During an expedition to southern Guyana in 2000, researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Kansas were surprised to see a red siskin flying overhead. A small bird with a bright red chest, the red siskin (Spinus cucullatus) had never been observed outside Venezuela, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago. And even in those countries, sightings were extremely rare. For the Guyana expedition, it was the Wapichan, Macushi and Wai Wai — local Indigenous communities in this region known as South Rupununi — who were essential to helping the scientists understand their findings. The partnership sparked a decades-long community-led conservation movement that has protected the red siskin and helped locals reconnect with nature. Once common across tropical South America, the red siskin’s population declined dramatically over the last century. The species is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, and its international trade is prohibited under Appendix I of CITES, the global convention on the wildlife trade. In southern Guyana, red siskins inhabit savanna bush islands and forest edges. Image courtesy of SRCS. Yet it continues to be hunted illegally for its unique red-and-black plumage, used as a fashion accessory. Bird breeders also seek out the species, looking to produce a red hybrid of a canary. (Both birds belong to the same family of finches, Fringillidae.) Most recently, pet owners have pursued them for their song and beauty, with markets spanning from the West Indies to the United States. The news of a new population in Guyana made&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/in-a-fight-to-save-a-rare-bird-indigenous-communities-in-guyana-are-winning/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Study says 40% of Amazon region is potentially conserved — more than officially recorded</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/study-says-40-of-amazon-rainforest-is-protected-more-than-officially-recorded/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/study-says-40-of-amazon-rainforest-is-protected-more-than-officially-recorded/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jul 2024 20:13:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Lizkimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[forest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Fires]]></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[Rainforest Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/06/18041629/peru_220697-e1718684422579-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=283961</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Protected Areas, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A larger portion of the Amazonian region might be under protection or potentially conserved than official records indicate, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. A team of international researchers found that more than 40% of land across the nine Amazonian countries is under some form of conservation management, significantly higher [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A larger portion of the Amazonian region might be under protection or potentially conserved than official records indicate, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. A team of international researchers found that more than 40% of land across the nine Amazonian countries is under some form of conservation management, significantly higher than the 28% reported in official records. This figure includes all biomes in the region such as the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado, Atlantic forest, the Chaco, and Pantanal. In the Amazon rainforest alone, 62.44%  of land is under some sort of area-based conservation. To arrive at this number, the authors looked beyond traditional protected areas such as national parks and nature reserves. They gathered information from scientific papers, legal documents and local knowledge to include land managed by Indigenous peoples, community-based natural resource management areas, regions covered by payment for ecosystem services programs and even sustainably managed forest production areas. The researchers say this method provides a more complete picture of conservation efforts than current tracking systems and will help others assess the effectiveness of different types of conservation governance systems. &#8220;Knowing who is governing these lands and how, as well as recognizing their visions related to conservation, is the first step to collectively planning for a fair and feasible future for our planet,&#8221; Siyu Qin, a lead author of the study, told Mongabay. Figure from Qin et al 2024 illustrating the types of conservation areas considered in the study. Women from the Sinangoe Indigenous&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/study-says-40-of-amazon-rainforest-is-protected-more-than-officially-recorded/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Guyana road projects spark concerns for future development on wetlands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/guyana-road-projects-spark-concerns-for-future-development-on-wetlands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/guyana-road-projects-spark-concerns-for-future-development-on-wetlands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 May 2024 17:12:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Communities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infrastructure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Land Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[roads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sustainable development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/21164131/Feature-768x460.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282349</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Infrastructure, Rainforests, Roads, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ongoing upgrades to roads through the southern part of Guyana have many conservationists on high alert, as the projects could impact forest and savanna ecosystems as well as Indigenous communities. A series of roads traveling over 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital of Georgetown to the city of Lethem, in the south, are supposed [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ongoing upgrades to roads through the southern part of Guyana have many conservationists on high alert, as the projects could impact forest and savanna ecosystems as well as Indigenous communities. A series of roads traveling over 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital of Georgetown to the city of Lethem, in the south, are supposed to improve access to more rural parts of Guyana while facilitating international trade, most notably with Brazil. But the project also crosses sensitive wetlands and Indigenous communities, raising concerns about how the government will manage future development there. “Throughout the Amazon, when roads are developed, they pose threats to natural ecosystems that they’re passing through and developed through, especially when the right approaches aren’t taken,” Aiesha Williams, WWF conservation director in Guyana, told Mongabay. The project expands upon the already paved roads in some areas while creating entirely new ones in other parts. In total, it will extend from 121 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital Georgetown to Liden then continue to the towns of Mabura Hill and Lethem. The project also includes around 45 bridges, according to official comments made to local media. An alternative road between Toka and Lethem is also under consideration. The Rupununi River in Guyana. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia. Many of the roads in those areas are underdeveloped, with limited users and minimal environmental impact. But this project — which started construction in 2022 — could bring thousands of vehicles through the area once it’s completed in 2025. In addition&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/guyana-road-projects-spark-concerns-for-future-development-on-wetlands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>What’s really at stake in the Venezuela-Guyana land dispute? (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-venezuela-guyana-land-dispute-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-venezuela-guyana-land-dispute-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Apr 2024 21:28:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jean La Rose]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/03203924/Kaieteur-Falls-is-on-the-Potaro-River-in-Kaieteur-National-Park-central-Essequibo-Territory-Guyana_Credit-Rainforest-Foundation-US-e1712176865936-768x504.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280617</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Rainforest, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Commentary, Conflict, Development, Forests, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Groups, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Rainforest Mining, Rainforests, Resource Conflict, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has deployed military troops, light tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats, and armored carriers to the Guyanese border in what appears to be a brazen threat to claim two-thirds of the smaller country’s national territory by force, according to a recent report. Despite a written agreement in December between Maduro and Guyanese President [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has deployed military troops, light tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats, and armored carriers to the Guyanese border in what appears to be a brazen threat to claim two-thirds of the smaller country’s national territory by force, according to a recent report. Despite a written agreement in December between Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali denouncing the use of force, Venezuela’s military deployment signals a departure from that agreement. It has the potential to escalate tensions further. This development happened days after Exxon Mobil announced its intention to continue oil exploration in the offshore territory contested by Venezuela. We are Guyanese citizens, and as such, we stand in solidarity with the Guyanese government and reject any foreign claim on this land. We are also Indigenous peoples, and it is important to acknowledge that for our ancestors, all colonial borders were arbitrary at the time of their occurrence. They cut between our customary lands, separating peoples who share a language and culture, and depriving people of access to sacred sites. All media coverage lists the rich natural resources of the Essequibo region, including oil, gold, and diamonds. However, as the global community becomes more aware of human-driven climate change and the urgent need to mitigate its effects, there is a notable lack of discussion about the immense ecological importance of the region, which plays an outsized role in regulating rainfall across the continent. There is also little mention of the Indigenous peoples who live there and hold those lands&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-venezuela-guyana-land-dispute-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Land distribution in Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana &#124; Chapter 4 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/land-distribution-in-colombia-venezuela-and-guyana-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/land-distribution-in-colombia-venezuela-and-guyana-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Feb 2024 14:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/02/12204834/PORTADA-2-surinam-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278788</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Guyana, and Suriname]]>
						</locations>
					
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The unequal distribution of land in Colombia is the root cause of that nation’s violent history. Multiple policy initiatives spanning decades have failed to resolve the problem. The first agrarian reform law was promulgated in 1936, but it only motivated landowners to protect their assets by converting tenant farmers into contract labour. A backlash to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The unequal distribution of land in Colombia is the root cause of that nation’s violent history. Multiple policy initiatives spanning decades have failed to resolve the problem. The first agrarian reform law was promulgated in 1936, but it only motivated landowners to protect their assets by converting tenant farmers into contract labour. A backlash to land reform eventually led to a civil war between 1948 and 1958 when the two major political parties battled for power during a period referred to as La Violencia. Subsequently, a coalition government pursued a renewed effort at agrarian reform with the creation of the Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria (INCORA) in 1961. This initiative established clear criteria for the expropriation of land and instituted mechanisms to indemnify landowners. As in other countries, it had the support of the Alliance for Progress and promoted colonization programmes within the Amazon. This effort also failed and contributed to the formation of the guerilla armies and decades of violent conflict. A third agrarian reform in 1994 was based on a market-based approach for redistributing land by providing subsidies so peasant farmers could purchase land from large estates. This followed the precepts of the Constitutional reform of 1991 and coincided with the legal decrees in 1995 that recognized the rights of Indigenous and traditional people. INCORA was replaced in 2003 by Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Rural y Reforma Agraria (INDECORA), which diversified its mission by sponsoring the sustainable development of campesino, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. These initiatives also&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/land-distribution-in-colombia-venezuela-and-guyana-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>A coalition created by a demand for land is splintered by a competition for territory &#124; Chapter 4 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/a-coalition-created-by-a-demand-for-land-is-splintered-by-a-competition-for-territory-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/a-coalition-created-by-a-demand-for-land-is-splintered-by-a-competition-for-territory-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Feb 2024 23:33:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/02/01162311/PORTADA-bolivia_191366-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278455</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Books, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The political movement that brought Evo Morales to power incorporated a latent conflict between highland and lowland Indigenous communities. The lowland nations are intent on recuperating their ancestral territories, which had been appropriated by families of European extraction or, more recently, allocated to timber companies as long-term forest concessions. The promise of recovering these lands [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The political movement that brought Evo Morales to power incorporated a latent conflict between highland and lowland Indigenous communities. The lowland nations are intent on recuperating their ancestral territories, which had been appropriated by families of European extraction or, more recently, allocated to timber companies as long-term forest concessions. The promise of recovering these lands was the reason lowland Indigenous groups overwhelmingly supported Evo Morales in 2005. In contrast, highland Indigenous groups believe they have a constitutional right – as Bolivian citizens – to settle unoccupied public lands, particularly the forest concessions that were rescinded in the early days of the Morales’ administration. The highland and lowland Indigenous groups are competing for the same land. This conflict is manifest in the evolving self-identity of the Andean migrants, who for decades referred to themselves as colonizadores. Since about 2000, however, they have self-identified as interculturales, a term that recognises their status as Indigenous people who have left their ancestral homeland. They are politically powerful, in part because they maintain familial and commercial ties with a large population of urban migrants, but also because they have organised militant syndicates skilled in the tactics of economic blockade. They exercise their electoral power by demanding that INRA, which is controlled by the central government, distribute land via settlement associations affiliated with the Confederación Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales Originarios de Bolivia (CSCIOB) or the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB). The alliance among the highland and lowland Indigenous groups was fractured in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/a-coalition-created-by-a-demand-for-land-is-splintered-by-a-competition-for-territory-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>How Bolivia pioneered agrarian reform in South America</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/bolivia-pioneer-of-agrarian-reform-in-south-america-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/bolivia-pioneer-of-agrarian-reform-in-south-america-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jan 2024 11:24:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/31081717/POST-7_Bolivia_191351_Rhett-A.-Butler-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278265</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Books, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia was a leader in the agrarian reform movement in South America. A defining moment in its modern history was the national revolution of 1952, which started as an uprising against the feudal system that bound Indigenous communities to estates owned by wealthy families. The revolutionary government created the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (INRA) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia was a leader in the agrarian reform movement in South America. A defining moment in its modern history was the national revolution of 1952, which started as an uprising against the feudal system that bound Indigenous communities to estates owned by wealthy families. The revolutionary government created the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (INRA) in 1958 to provide legal status to the lands occupied and claimed by Indigenous peasants. The revolution largely occurred in the Andean highlands and eventually led to the proliferation of extremely small (micro) landholdings that motivated many campesinos to migrate to urban areas or the eastern lowlands. Large estates in the Bolivian Amazon avoided confiscation but their owners were forced to bequeath a fraction of their properties to the Indigenous communities upon which they depended for labour. In 1965, Bolivia established the Instituto Nacional de Colonización (INC) to foster the migration to the lowlands and, in the process, created a parallel and overlapping bureaucracy for granting land titles. Both agencies distributed land in the Bolivian Amazon to the growing stream of Indigenous migrants from the Andean highlands. Organised colonisation projects in the 1970s created smallholder landscapes in the Chapare, Cochabamba (Human Modified Landscape or HML #32); Alto Beni, La Paz (HML #33); and San Julián, Santa Cruz (HML #31). Japanese immigrants also arrived in the 1960s and established colonies in Santa Cruz at Yapacaní (HML #32) and Okinawa (HML #31), landscapes with unusually fertile soils uniquely suited for the cultivation of irrigated rice. Mennonites settled&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/bolivia-pioneer-of-agrarian-reform-in-south-america-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>Terra Legal program to regularize small property owners &#124; Chapter 4 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/terra-legal-program-to-regularize-small-property-owners-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/terra-legal-program-to-regularize-small-property-owners-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jan 2024 16:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/24064052/PORTADA-amazon_200893-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277950</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The need to fast-track the regularização of smallholder titles motivated the Terra Legal programme, which sent teams of surveyors to selected municipalities to accelerate the process for landholdings established prior to 2004. The initial goal was to review and certify 300,000 smallholdings in 463 municipalities; however, the programme collected data on only 117,000 landholdings and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The need to fast-track the regularização of smallholder titles motivated the Terra Legal programme, which sent teams of surveyors to selected municipalities to accelerate the process for landholdings established prior to 2004. The initial goal was to review and certify 300,000 smallholdings in 463 municipalities; however, the programme collected data on only 117,000 landholdings and issued less than 23,000 CCIRs (Certificado de Cadastro de Imóvel Rural or Rural Property Registration Certificate). As of June 2021, none of these recently registered properties has been incorporated into the SIGEF databases available via INCRA’s (Instituto Nacional de Colonização y Reforma Agraria) public portal. Although the Terra Legal system failed significantly to increase the inscription of smallholders in the SNCR, it demonstrated how a wall-to-wall effort can resolve potential conflicts among neighbors and achieve impacts at scale by engaging an entire community. That experience will be replicated in Titula Brasil, an initiative launched in 2021 by the Bolsonaro administration, that will delegate most of the administrative and technical tasks of property mensuration to the newly created Núcleos Municipais de Regularização Fundiária (NMRF). These offices are meant to function as decentralized units of INCRA and, like Terra Legal, prioritize assistance for smallholders. The forest landscape adjacent to BR-319 south of the Amazon River near Manaus is largely intact forty years after the construction of this federal highway; nonetheless, numerous land claims have been regularized (white polygons) and more have been inscribed into the Cadastro Ambiental Rural (red polygons). Data source: Google Earth and INCRA (2020).&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/terra-legal-program-to-regularize-small-property-owners-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>INCRA as a regulatory agency &#124; Chapter 4 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon&#8221;</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/incra-as-a-regulatory-agency-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/incra-as-a-regulatory-agency-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jan 2024 11:38:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/24073924/brazil_155252-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277953</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Books, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The third pillar of the institutional mission of the Instituto Nacional de Colonização y Reforma Agraria (INCRA) encompasses both administrative and legal aspects of land tenure and, as such, is the most important agency regulating rural real estate markets. Administratively, the institution is charged with collecting and organizing the records of all rural properties in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The third pillar of the institutional mission of the Instituto Nacional de Colonização y Reforma Agraria (INCRA) encompasses both administrative and legal aspects of land tenure and, as such, is the most important agency regulating rural real estate markets. Administratively, the institution is charged with collecting and organizing the records of all rural properties in Brazil, including their creation and all subsequent sales, subdivisions and unifications. Legally, INCRA functionaries must review and verify that documents are legitimate and validate the spatial attributes of individual land parcels. This is a gargantuan task that would test the governance capacity of any country but is particularly challenging in a nation of continental dimensions undergoing a massive distribution of land. The decision to organize rural properties into a national land registry, Sistema Nacional de Cadastro Rural (SNCR), coincided with policies to transform the Amazon via migration and settlement. That task might have been completed automatically if the smallholder programmes, which distributed about twelve million hectares, had accurately and precisely recorded those transactions. Unfortunately, that did not happen. That missed opportunity was confounded by a collateral decision to facilitate a land rush that was occurring organically across the Southern and Eastern Amazon. After about 1978, the military government became disenchanted by the smallholder settlement framework due to high overhead costs, low economic return and terrible public relations. Instead, they decided to expedite the transfer of public lands to corporations and influential families with the capacity to invest in productive enterprises at economies of scale. Over&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/incra-as-a-regulatory-agency-chapter-3-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Agrarian reform agencies and national land registry systems in the Pan Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/agrarian-reform-agencies-and-national-land-registry-systems-in-the-pan-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/agrarian-reform-agencies-and-national-land-registry-systems-in-the-pan-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jan 2024 12:23:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/16234738/POST-5_portada-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277725</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rural real estate markets in the Pan Amazon are regulated by institutions that are a legacy of the agrarian reform movements that played a prominent role in domestic politics during the last half of the twentieth century. Prior to World War II, the region was characterised by a quasi-feudal land tenure system, with ownership concentrated [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rural real estate markets in the Pan Amazon are regulated by institutions that are a legacy of the agrarian reform movements that played a prominent role in domestic politics during the last half of the twentieth century. Prior to World War II, the region was characterised by a quasi-feudal land tenure system, with ownership concentrated among affluent families of European extraction. In Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, large estates were dependent on the labour of Indigenous peasants (campesinos) with ancestral ties to the land, while in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, the rural labor force was composed of individuals with a contractual relationship with the landowner. The states of the Guiana coast were in the early stages of post-colonial rule, and the relationship between landlord and tenant was in a state of flux, but landless peasants were the majority in an economic system that was overwhelmingly rural. This inherent inequality was a political tinderbox that was exacerbated by the expanded influence of Marxist philosophies and the explosion of radical movements after Fidel Castro consolidated the Cuban Revolution. Governments throughout the region responded by enacting agrarian reform legislation. Unsurprisingly, these policies were unpopular with conservative elites seeking to protect their financial patrimony. The decades following the Cuban Revolution were dominated by military governments; these governments varied in their adhesion to the principles of genuine agrarian reform, but all seized upon a solution originally championed by Abraham Lincoln: colonise public lands on the frontier. Distributing public lands in wilderness areas was popular; better yet,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/agrarian-reform-agencies-and-national-land-registry-systems-in-the-pan-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Guyana Amerindian communities fear Venezuela’s move to annex oil-rich region</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/guyana-amerindian-communities-fear-venezuelas-move-to-annex-oil-rich-region/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/guyana-amerindian-communities-fear-venezuelas-move-to-annex-oil-rich-region/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jan 2024 20:04:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/17172017/amerindian-guyana-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277774</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Guyana, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conflict, Conservation, Education, Environment, Environmental Education, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Funding, Government, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Law, Mining, Oil, Oil Drilling, Politics, Resource Conflict, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In December, the Venezuelan government launched a series of measures and legislation to cement the country’s annexation of Guyana’s oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region. This is prompting fears among dozens of Amerindian communities that the conflict may threaten ongoing efforts to legally recognize their collective territorial lands or undermine their land titles in this Amazon [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In December, the Venezuelan government launched a series of measures and legislation to cement the country’s annexation of Guyana’s oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region. This is prompting fears among dozens of Amerindian communities that the conflict may threaten ongoing efforts to legally recognize their collective territorial lands or undermine their land titles in this Amazon region. According to Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, 90% of Venezuelans voted in favor of ownership over Essequibo in a Dec. 3 referendum called by the president in which fewer than half of voters cast their ballots — a result widely criticized by international analysts. The dispute between the two countries over the territory, an area the size of Greece, dates back to 1899 when an international tribunal of arbitration drew the border between them. However, the Venezuelan government states that the dispute began much earlier. Amerindian toshaos, or village chiefs, in Essequibo fear that a drastic shift in control of natural resources in this large belt of tropical forests may threaten their traditional lands. All five chiefs told Mongabay they are also worried about their safety in the case of an invasion, a concern that extends within the villages. The Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), a Guyanese NGO, told Mongabay that some families have already moved away from their villages in search of security. But Faye Stewart, a representative of the APA, said that while the threat is real, immediately fleeing lands is mostly due to a lack of access to credible information from the authorities&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/guyana-amerindian-communities-fear-venezuelas-move-to-annex-oil-rich-region/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>The dynamics of violence in pursuit of land in the Pan Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/the-dynamics-of-violence-in-pursuit-of-land-in-the-pan-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/the-dynamics-of-violence-in-pursuit-of-land-in-the-pan-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jan 2024 18:47:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/27003149/Image-4_3-shutterstock_1834141216-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277659</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Books, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The adage ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is not legally true, but the concept reigns supreme on frontier landscapes in the Pan Amazon. Land grabbers and peasant pioneers share a modus operandi: they occupy land that does not belong to them. Historically, this process was condoned by the state, and conflict occurred only when [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The adage ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is not legally true, but the concept reigns supreme on frontier landscapes in the Pan Amazon. Land grabbers and peasant pioneers share a modus operandi: they occupy land that does not belong to them. Historically, this process was condoned by the state, and conflict occurred only when the two groups competed for the same territory – or when either group sought to steal land from forest communities. Smallholders have the advantage of numbers, while land grabbers use their political connections to formalise their claims and label their competitors as ‘squatters’. In Brazil and Bolivia, ranchers use force to clear landholdings, usually by hiring thugs to beat the smallholders and destroy their belongings. The smallholders resist by organising themselves into peasant syndicates associated with the Movimento Sim Terra (MST) and the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB). Resistance leads to an escalation of violence. In Brazil, criminal land grabbers contract pistoleiros to murder posseiros who stand in their way. The most famous incidents have involved activists who were assassinated for defending the rights of forest people and smallholder peasants, most notably Francisco Alves (Chico) Mendes, who was ambushed at his home in Xapuri, Acre, in 1988; and Dorothy Stang, who was executed in 2005 on a remote road near Anapú, Pará. These crimes led to high-profile public prosecutions and the incarceration of the men who pulled the trigger, as well as the ranchers who contracted their services. Unfortunately, it is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/the-dynamics-of-violence-in-pursuit-of-land-in-the-pan-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Obtaining a certified legal title in the Pan Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/obtaining-a-certified-legal-title-in-the-pan-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/obtaining-a-certified-legal-title-in-the-pan-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jan 2024 14:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/29201556/PORTADA_post-2_ch4-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
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											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Occupying a plot of land is the first, and perhaps easiest, step in the process of creating a legally constituted private property. In all eight Amazonian nations, a title or a certification of a title must be issued by an agency of the central government, which in most cases is a lineal descendant of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Occupying a plot of land is the first, and perhaps easiest, step in the process of creating a legally constituted private property. In all eight Amazonian nations, a title or a certification of a title must be issued by an agency of the central government, which in most cases is a lineal descendant of the colonisation agencies of the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, these agencies issued provisional titles because full tenure was contingent upon establishing a successful homestead. This negative legacy grew over decades as the rural economy expanded and the number of landholdings multiplied. One key responsibility of these agencies was the compilation of a land registry, known as a ‘cadaster’, which functions as a documentary reference point for all legal transactions involving rural property. The decision to delegate the task of title certification to a national rather than a local agency was a logical consequence of the distribution of public lands by the central government. A national solution probably appealed to central planners who doubted the capacity of local (frontier) governments to manage a large and technically complex undertaking. Individual landholdings are incorporated into the national rural cadaster, but only after their spatial attributes and legal providence have been validated by public servants. The failure to complete this process and consolidate national cadasters is a major driver of the lawlessness that defines frontier society. These agencies, whether by design or happenstance, oversee a chaotic system where fraud and graft facilitate the misappropriation of public lands. As&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/obtaining-a-certified-legal-title-in-the-pan-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>Land in the Pan Amazon, the ultimate commodity: Chapter 4 of &#8220;A Perfect Storm in the Amazon&#8221;</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/land-in-the-pan-amazon-the-ultimate-commodity-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/land-in-the-pan-amazon-the-ultimate-commodity-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Jan 2024 13:39:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/29200541/PORTADA_post-1_ch4-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277221</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions. A third factor – land values and their tendency to appreciate over time – is a synergistic product of these two phenomena. Understanding the dynamics [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions. A third factor – land values and their tendency to appreciate over time – is a synergistic product of these two phenomena. Understanding the dynamics of rural real estate markets is essential in devising policies to halt the advance of the conventional economy into the forest wilderness. The agricultural frontier in the Pan Amazon is the product of centuries of cultural tradition and decades of economic policy. This phenomenon, which is central to the history of the Western Hemisphere, became a major disruptive force in the Pan Amazon only in the 1960s, when governments implemented programmes to occupy and develop their Amazonian hinterlands. Unlike previous colonisation periods, such as the rubber boom of the nineteenth century, this latter period included initiatives to promote the mass migration of families into the region, which were combined with strategies to attract investment in market-based production systems. These policies were contingent on the offer of free, or nearly free, public land. Access to land was conditional, however, and pioneers had to install a productive enterprise, which obligated them to replace natural vegetation with cultivated plants. Official policies have changed, but this practice continues to motivate individuals on the forest frontier, where people clear forest as a strategy to project ownership of land they view, rightly or wrongly, as their own. Most believe they are&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/land-in-the-pan-amazon-the-ultimate-commodity-chapter-4-of-a-perfect-storm-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>Rural finance in the Pan Amazon: the Brazil success case</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/rural-finance-in-the-pan-amazon-the-brazil-success-case/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/rural-finance-in-the-pan-amazon-the-brazil-success-case/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Dec 2023 21:50:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/11233727/OTRA-PORTADA-brazil_1964-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276580</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Amazon Agriculture, Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The agricultural producers of the Amazon have access to radically different levels of credit depending upon national policies, the willingness of each country’s financial services industry to engage rural populations and, most importantly, the scale of their production system. Brazil has the most sophisticated agricultural sector and, not surprisingly, the most generous and far-reaching system [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The agricultural producers of the Amazon have access to radically different levels of credit depending upon national policies, the willingness of each country’s financial services industry to engage rural populations and, most importantly, the scale of their production system. Brazil has the most sophisticated agricultural sector and, not surprisingly, the most generous and far-reaching system to support its producers. Industrial-scale farmers have access to multiple forms of credit, which they access to pay operational costs, acquire technology and invest in on-farm infrastructure. If they are entrepreneurial, and many are, they borrow money to acquire land and expand production. Small family farms have fewer options, but the federal government has programmes to provide them with affordable short-term credit. Regardless, the cash economy predominates on forest frontiers and within smallholder landscapes where producers must overcome barriers imposed by physical isolation and subsistence livelihoods. Financial credit to support production is largely absent in the Andean Amazon, where small farmers operate within an informal economy with limited access to financial services. Brazil’s financial system operates on two tracks: the Sistema Nacional de Crédito Rural (SNCR), which is managed by the financial industry according to rules established by the federal government; and an independent system managed by multinational trading companies designed to capture commodities for their competing supply chains. The latter includes the four well-known western giants: ADM, Cargill, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus, as well as second-tier companies based in Brazil (Amaggi), Japan (Gavilon), Europe (Sodrugestvo) and China (COFCO). Pasture and legal forest reserve near&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/rural-finance-in-the-pan-amazon-the-brazil-success-case/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Roundtables and certification schemes in the Pan-Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/roundtables-and-certification-schemes-in-the-pan-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/roundtables-and-certification-schemes-in-the-pan-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Dec 2023 13:38:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/11225512/PORTADA-brazil_0609-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276575</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Amazon Agriculture, Amazon Biodiversity, Amazon Conservation, Amazon Destruction, Amazon People, Amazon Rainforest, Community Development, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forests, Rainforests, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Threats To The Amazon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Sustainability initiatives have been organised for most of the agricultural commodities of the Pan Amazon, including palm oil, soy and beef, but also for coffee and cacao. Several of these initiatives have adopted the term roundtable in their names because it conveys the notion of inclusiveness that is a core concept in these multi-stakeholder initiatives. Typically, the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Sustainability initiatives have been organised for most of the agricultural commodities of the Pan Amazon, including palm oil, soy and beef, but also for coffee and cacao. Several of these initiatives have adopted the term roundtable in their names because it conveys the notion of inclusiveness that is a core concept in these multi-stakeholder initiatives. Typically, the stakeholders include all the participants in a supply chain, from the farmer to the retailer, but also commodity traders, consumer goods manufacturers, banks and service supplies, as well as civil society groups. Their shared goal is to identify effective solutions to the social and environmental challenges associated with conventional production systems. The mechanism used to reform supply chains is typically a voluntary certification system that verifies that the production, trade and transformation of a commodity has complied with a set of best practices that have been agreed to by all the parties. The search for consensus is important, because it means all of the stakeholders have agreed to accept this package of solutions and commit to supporting the commercialisation of the goods that have been certified as sustainable. Some environmental activists view these initiatives as a form of greenwash and have questioned their efficacy. Participating companies certify the production within their own supply chain, but roundtable initiatives have not succeeded in transforming their respective sectors. Demand for certified commodities has failed to attract a critical mass of producers that would actually transform the market and change the economic drivers of deforestation. Adoption is highest for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/roundtables-and-certification-schemes-in-the-pan-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Amazon deforestation declines but fossil fuels remain contentious, COP28 shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/amazon-deforestation-declines-but-fossil-fuels-remain-contentious-cop28-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/amazon-deforestation-declines-but-fossil-fuels-remain-contentious-cop28-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Dec 2023 23:50:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sarah Brown]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Carbon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Groups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforest Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rainforests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Threats To The Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
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											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation, Amazon Logging, Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Soy, climate finance, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environmental Politics, Indigenous Peoples, Saving The Amazon, Threats To The Amazon, Tropical Deforestation, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This year’s COP28 kicked off in Dubai on Nov. 30 and saw Amazonian countries arriving with a string of environmental triumphs since the last climate summit hosted in Egypt. While these nations largely agree on the necessity to preserve the Amazon Rainforest, the conference has also unveiled a split over fossil fuel use and deforestation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This year’s COP28 kicked off in Dubai on Nov. 30 and saw Amazonian countries arriving with a string of environmental triumphs since the last climate summit hosted in Egypt. While these nations largely agree on the necessity to preserve the Amazon Rainforest, the conference has also unveiled a split over fossil fuel use and deforestation targets. At COP27 in 2022, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed to achieve zero deforestation by 2030, and he reiterated the same promise this year. He arrived in Dubai with figures indicating that he’s serious about fulfilling this pledge, declaring in his opening speech that his government had cut overall deforestation by almost 50% in the first 10 months of this year. Colombia appears committed to preserving the Amazon, having reduced primary forest loss this year by 69%, according to data from a new report from Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), the satellite monitoring program of the organization Amazon Conservation. Among all the Amazonian nations, the total primary forest loss from January to the start of November was 911,740 hectares (2.25 million acres) compared with 2,062,939 hectares (almost 5.1 million acres) in the same period last year, representing a 55.8% decrease. Primary forest loss across the Amazon in 2023. Across all the countries sharing the Amazon Basin primary forest loss decreased this year by about 55.8%. Data: ESA/S2, GFW, ACA/MAAP, NICFI. Experts credit the countries’ political willpower and command and control efforts for the decrease. “The major factor is clearly the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/amazon-deforestation-declines-but-fossil-fuels-remain-contentious-cop28-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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