In 2019, suspect exports of rare wood to Europe, the US and beyond were legalized, likely prompting soaring damage to the Amazon rainforest and new attacks on indigenous people by illegal loggers.
Legislation would open indigenous reserves in Amazon and across Brazil to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, ranching, agribusiness, new dams and tourism.
In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.
25 environmental and indigenous groups in Brazil have filed a formal inquiry request into Environment Minister Ricardo Salles’ possibly illegal deal with convicted land grabbers.
Models and real-world events indicate that, unless action is taken now, up to 70% of the Amazon rainforest could become savanna in under 50 years, with huge carbon releases, destabilizing global climate.
The new council headed by nation’s VP who is a retired general will oversee all ministries ‘involved in the protection, defense and development… of the Amazon.’
A researcher at the INPE Center of Land System Science, Antonio Donato Nobre, describes the state of degradation threatening the future of the Amazon rainforest in an exclusive interview with Mongabay.
Brazil started the decade as an example to the world, dramatically curbing Amazon deforestation, but under Jair Bolsonaro the nation is moving toward ecological ruin.
An area of primary forest in the Brazilian Amazon the size of Hawaii’s Big Island was cleared in the past year. Experts warn the deforestation rate could be even higher in the coming months amid lack of enforcement and deforestation preceding fires in August and September 2019.
Amazon cattle, soy and timber producers employ “laundering” tricks to hide illegal deforestation. Easy solutions exist, but political will is weak: experts.
An indigenous Guajajara leader was reported murdered by loggers Friday, adding to rising violence occurring against forest protectors under the Jair Bolsonaro government.
Soybeans from a Belgium-sized swath of unregistered farms across Brazil are being exported to China and Europe via U.S. traders, according to a newly released report that raises concerns about environmental regulations being dodged.
Mamuru River traditional riverine and Sateré indigenous communities are fighting to save the rainforest and their way of life against invading illegal loggers and land grabbers.
Brazil’s army helped control Amazon fires in September, but loggers, miners and land grabbers — likely emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — are bringing a surge in deforestation.
At least 125,000 hectares (310,000 acres) of Amazon rainforest in Brazil were cleared in 2019 and then burned this August to prepare the land for conversion to agriculture — Mongabay exclusive.
At an Amazon fire meeting, President Jair Bolsonaro and 7 out of 9 state governors pressed forward with plans to open indigenous areas to mining and agribusiness.
KLP, with over $80 billion in assets, could divest in traders such as ADM, Bunge and Cargill that deal with Brazilian producers contributing to Amazon deforestation.
Critics link this year’s Amazon fires, especially in protected forests, to illegal deforesters emboldened by rightist government’s lax enforcement.
Forest fires in Brazil jumped 85 percent this year in the wake of soaring deforestation rates, environmentalists say. In the afternoon of August 19, São Paulo’s skies suddenly turned black, spurring discussion about the linkage between the fires and the phenomenon.
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.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro government, angered over rising Amazon deforestation statistics, has fired the head of INPE, Brazil’s highly regarded satellite monitoring program.
Documentary offers a glimpse of the uncontacted Awá Guajá indigenous group, who live in the highly threatened Araribóia reserve in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
Indigenous reserves and other conserved lands in nine Amazonian nations are under extreme pressure as roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, fires and deforestation encroach.
Millions in federal budget cuts have reduced the Amazon state’s ability to fight record forest fires in 2019, with many more wildfires expected.
The indigenous group is re-occupying its ancestral lands on Brazil’s Mariaquã River, but an outsider is trying to appropriate those lands by likely fraudulent means, inviting conflict.
Eight past environmental ministers assail policies. Amazon Fund and 334 Brazilian parks at risk; sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties head to approval.
Indigenous women have a long leadership tradition in the Amazon and across Brazil, but perhaps never more so than since the election of Jair Bolsonaro, whose policies they oppose.
Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl accused of buying corned beef sourced from Brazilian supplier JBS, a firm notorious for large-scale corruption and Amazon deforestation.
Bolsonaro has consolidated his authority, firing top environmental officials and replacing them with military officers, and easing environmental fines.
