An upcoming Amazon Synod at which Catholic clergy from nine Amazon nations will discuss ecological, indigenous and climate issues is seen by Brazil as international interference.
Federal litigators warn of “imminent genocide” for the Karipuna people, while at least 14 indigenous reserves have been threatened or invaded. Bolsonaro government slow to act, say critics.
Peru’s placing of its independent OSINFOR forest inspection agency in the Ministry of Environment – likely a U.S. trade agreement violation – is a serious setback in Amazon illegal logging fight.
A mid-January land grabber invasion of a Rondônia state indigenous reserve prompted urgent indigenous calls for Bolsonaro administration law enforcement assistance.
Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.
On his first day in office, Brazil’s new president shifted the demarcation responsibility for indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, potentially putting the Amazon at risk, critics say.
In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.
The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.
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…
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.
Floor & Decor, a leading flooring retailer in the United States, has continued to purchase products that contain tropical timber from Indusparquet, a supplier in Brazil, despite accusations that the…
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.
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.
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.
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 Kaxuyana-Tunayana indigenous reserve on the Pará and Amazonas state border has been approved for demarcation – though when that step will be implemented is unknown.
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.
The government of Brazil has announced that it has cut its climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions to the point that it has met a long-established goal three years ahead of time.…
Falsified numbers are contributing to widespread forest degradation from illegal logging and the over-exploitation of Amazonian timber species, according to experts. In a study published in Science Advances, researchers in…
AREIA, Pará state, Brazil — “I’m only leaving here when I’m dead. And I hope it won’t be after a gunman has killed me,” said peasant farmer Osvalinda Maria Marcelino Pereira,…
Current Brazilian government policies could increase deforestation and carbon emissions, costing the nation $2-5 trillion dollars more to meet its Paris Climate Agreement pledge.