Brazil created 11 conservation units to protect the Amazon’s Purus-Madeira moist forest from development due to the BR-319 highway, but to date the preserves mostly exist only on paper.
From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan…
Jair Bolsonaro pledged to leave the Paris accord during his presidential run. But his Amazon agribusiness and mining expansion plans may pose a far bigger threat to forests and global climate.
Agribusiness desperately wants Grainrail built, but it poses a clear threat to 20 indigenous territories, and to the livelihoods of Amazonia’s truckers. A battle could be brewing.
Severe flood events have become five times more common over the last century as a result of natural atmospheric oscillations and human-driven climate change.
The Brazilian government’s fraternization with Amazon dam building consortiums, mining firms, and agribusiness can leave little room for local people’s rights: analysis.
COMBU ISLAND, Brazil - It is rare to find someone who doesn’t like chocolate. When the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave cocoa its scientific name in 1753, he chose Theobroma…
Nearly 70 percent of all investigated foreign capital going to 9 major soy and beef firms responsible for major Amazon deforestation was transferred through tax havens between 2000-2011.
The biodiverse Amazon rainforest between the Purus and Madeira river basins was once deemed safe, but rapid deforestation is moving up the improved BR-319 highway.
A Cerrado accord breakthrough could be at hand, conserving Brazil’s biodiverse savanna, and setting a new conservation precedent protecting not just forests but a mosaic of ecosystems.
President elect Jair Bolsonaro signals his government will be strongly pro-business, likely bringing major setbacks for the environment, indigenous groups and social movements in Brazil.
The benefits of zero-deforestation agreements in the Amazon are being offset by the spillover of deforestation and native vegetation loss into other biomes.
The president elect’s plan to fuse the ministries has met with staunch resistance from environmentalists, scientists, and even some in the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby.
Brazil has plans for an expansive Amazon and Cerrado rail network, including two transcontinental Atlantic to Pacific lines, but development likely depends on China.
Alcoa, Vale Mining, Suez Energy, Camargo Corrêa Energia, and Brazil’s government promised the town of Formosa mega-dam reparations, a pledge never fulfilled.
The Brazilian cattle industry’s lack of traceability allows deforestation-linked beef to reach retailers committed to eliminating it. Uruguay’s digital traceability system could be a solution.
Over 3,000 Quilombos, rural communities established by runaway slaves, are seeing their legal land claims denied and settlements whittled away by Brazilian government policies, say critics.
Brazil’s elections have brought an apparent surge of violence, with indigenous groups, quilombos and rural minorities fearful as the right’s rhetoric grows more hostile.
A group of Latin American early-career Earth system scientists are concerned over the possibility of a Jair Bolsonaro presidency in Brazil.
Soy farmers see Grainrail as salvation; traders ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Amaggi see it as profit; but the Amazon railway could harm habitat and indigenous communities.
Brazil is on the verge of electing a president who, supported by a new Congress, could escalate Amazon deforestation and pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement: analysis.
In the early 21st century, Brazil greatly reduced Amazon deforestation. A Jair Bolsonaro presidency would again put forests and the global climate at risk: study.
Interviewed by Mongabay in 2016, Aluisio Sampaio is the most recent victim in a growing wave of Amazon violence against socio-environmental activists.
The imminent election this month of far right Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president poses threats to the environment, indigenous people, and the global climate.
The fires closing in on Erika Berenguer’s research site in Brazil’s eastern Amazon were unlike anything she had seen in years working in the forest. Smoke hung heavy the air.…
The Legislative Assembly of Rondonia state has voted to abolish 11 newly created protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon; a vote forced by the ruralist agribusiness lobby.
Climate scientists were wary when the Brazilian government announced in August that its 2020 goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions had already been met. Brazil has certainly reined…
Mongabay begins a new series in which our contributors drive the BR-319 highway into one of the Amazon’s most remote wild areas – a region facing rapid deforestation.
Two-thirds of federal deputies seeking re-election to Brazil’s Congress this October supported bills harmful to the environment, indigenous peoples, and rural workers.
Caura National Park is under pressure from gold miners, but Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous groups have teamed with NGOs and companies to do sustainable agroforestry and safeguard forests.