The number of fires burning in standing Amazon rainforest spiked dramatically in recent weeks, threatening the forest’s biodiversity — a richness of flora and fauna not adapted to withstand the…
A new study finds that the four fish species most commonly consumed by Indigenous and riverine communities in northern Brazil contain the highest concentrations of mercury, up to four times in excess of WHO recommendations.
In recent years, five of the most powerful international banks and investment funds have financed oil exploration in the region where the Amazon River begins. These business ventures are impacting indigenous communities and countless species of fauna and flora.
In Brazil, indigenous lands make up 13.5% of the national territory and are home to half a million indigenous peoples speaking 280 distinct languages. New research, published in the journal…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting one of the most elusive mammals of…
The only positive effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is that it has generated public awareness of the risks of emerging diseases. One may hope that this will result in…
More than a decade of illegal gold mining around the upstart town of La Pampa in the Peruvian Amazon has tainted local water supplies, razed forests adjacent to a world-class…
Dung beetle species populations are moving toward collapse in parts of the Brazilian Amazon apparently due to climate change-driven drought, fires, and other human disturbances.
Researchers have discovered 15 new wasp species in lowland Amazon rainforests and Andean cloud forests that parasitize spiders in a “complex way.” The discoveries were made by a research group…
In January, indigenous leaders from 47 tribes participated in a historic event in a Kayapó village in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Chief Raoni Metuktire called the meeting to articulate a response to the Bolsonaro administration’s incendiary rhetoric and aggressive actions against the country’s indigenous population.
For more than 50 years, the Xavante indigenous group has been fighting to regain sovereignty of the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Reserve in Mato Grosso state. The most recent obstacle is the federal government's plan to pave BR-158, the interstate highway that cuts through the middle of the reserve.
Once used for leisure, navigation and fishing, almost all of the 150 small waterways, or igarapés, in the Amazonian city of Manaus are totally polluted. Experts say it could take up 30 years for them to recover, while others are considered “dead.”
In search of ways to occupy new positions of power in their villages, 200 women from 16 different ethnicities held the first summit on gender issues in the Xingu Indigenous Territory
A major six nation study finds that the arrau is thriving mostly in river systems where conservationists are active, but not elsewhere; climate change looms as a major threat.
Efforts to catalog the fast-declining biodiversity of tropical rainforests just got a $10 million boost via a new competition from XPRIZE, an organization that has more than a dozen competitions…
The burning of vegetation and the release of climate-warming gases into the atmosphere are conspiring to dry out the Amazon rainforest, according to a new study. “We observed that in…
Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.
The fires ravaging the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of Sept. 17, rendering them dead…
There are now three recognized species of electric eel after two new species were described to science in a paper published in Nature Communications this week. One of the new…
Conservation leaders join successfully with technologists to thwart artisanal gold mining and illegal logging by creating early warning systems and transparency.
Displeased with rising deforestation rates and the anti-environmental policies of Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, Germany has cut funding for projects in the Brazilian Amazon, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes.
Documentary offers a glimpse of the uncontacted Awá Guajá indigenous group, who live in the highly threatened Araribóia reserve in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
Jaguars, sloths, owls, vipers, spider monkeys — all of these live within the vast western Amazon, a region that boasts an incredible diversity of life. Roughly 20 percent of the…
Smallholder farming poses a significant threat to biodiversity in the western Amazonian forests of northeastern Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, a study led by researchers at…
NAPO, Ecuador — Gloria Ushigua, president of the Sápara women’s association, stops by a large, thin, spindly tree that looks almost dead, and breaks off a thin branch. Running her…
Eight past environmental ministers assail policies. Amazon Fund and 334 Brazilian parks at risk; sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties head to approval.
Due to their remoteness, the high-altitude tropical forests of the Cerros del Sira, an isolated mountain range in the eastern Andes of central Peru, are known to harbor a diverse…
A new species of short-tailed whip scorpion has been discovered in the eastern Amazon. The discovery was made by two arachnologists, Gustavo Ruiz and Roberta Valente of the Universidade Federal…
The dourada, one of the Amazon’s goliath catfish species, plus other commercially valuable migratory fish stocks crashed after Santo Antônio and Jirau dams were built, say researchers.
Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious…
