Between 2019 and 2020, the Peruvian government cracked down on illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios, its southeastern Amazon region, through an unprecedented initiative dubbed “Operation Mercury.” But according…
The Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.
Gold, whose value has spiked by more than 55% since the 2008 financial crisis, is notoriously difficult to trace. Once mined, it can follow a maze-like path to market, passing…
More than half of Indigenous environmental defenders and leaders killed for safeguarding their ecosystems, their homes, and their family on the planet are Amazonians. This violence stems from a new…
When it comes to advancing a much-needed ecological transition alongside the expansion of industrial mining, Brazil’s Lula Administration presents a clear contradiction. Recently, during the summit in Letícia, Colombia, President…
The Amazon Rainforest is the largest in the world and a key player in regulating global water and carbon cycles. It also happens to be home to sophisticated criminal networks…
In early April, 35-year-old Indigenous health worker Angelita Prororita Yanomami went missing near Boa Vista, the capital city of the northernmost Brazilian state of Roraima. Two months later, her remains…
The alerts of illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have zeroed for the first time since 2020, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian Federal Police.
This investigation is a collaboration between the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), NBC News, Mongabay and El Espectador, with support from the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Conservation…
The environmental issues facing Venezuela are serious and wide-ranging: illegal mining in the Amazon, national water shortages, mudslides and flooding exacerbated by climate change, the degradation of protected areas, oil…
LA PAZ — At dawn in Apolobamba, in the Bolivian highlands, groups of vicuña and alpaca — some sheared, some shaggy — amble around looking for scrub to graze on,…
YANOMAMI INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil – Four officers from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, throw themselves from a helicopter into the murky waters of the Uraricoera River below and swim toward…
Engineers and realtors from southern Pará take advantage of their knowledge to abet land grabbers.
After four years of environmental destruction, Brazil has reached a crossroads that will determine the fate of its biomes and its role in the global climate crisis. In its first…
PORTO VELHO, Brazil — Cruising north in a speedboat along the Madeira River, the signs of Brazil’s illegal gold mining boom are everywhere: mounds of sand extracted from the riverbed…
Canadian mining company Aura Minerals plans to establish a major gold extraction project in Brazil’s Tocantins state without hearing the Quilombola (slave descendant) community that will be affected by the operations, thus violating their right to free, prior and informed consultation.
Illegal deforestation, wildcat mining, drug trafficking, and lethal violence: Name your scourge and the Amazon Basin seldom disappoints. But as an unusual compact between police officers, prosecutors, environmental protectors, and…
MOCOA, Colombia — “We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon but throughout humanity,” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist who…
In 2015, researchers in Brazil started a project to address a tricky challenge: Reducing exposure to mercury contamination in the region of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the…
SÃO PAULO — Since the new Brazilian government under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1, its ministries have been working together to overcome a humanitarian…
In January, a wave of outrage swept Brazil after photos and footage of sick and starving Yanomami were made public. The newly sworn-in Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,…
The election victory in 2022 of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president in decades, has fanned winds of change in the country. The new government has vowed to tackle many…
ALTAMIRA, Brazil — The warehouse donated to house the Castelo dos Sonhos farmers’ market for local growers has stood empty for nearly 15 years. Opened in 2008 and spanning 480…
On Dec. 5, a flight over the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s northern Amazon showed the Greenpeace and Brazilian NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) members on board an illegal road, already…
On the morning of May 24, 2017, police and military carried out an operation in the Santa Lúcia farm in Brazil’s northern Amazon state of Pará, killing 10 unarmed rural…
Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu region, in Pará; project foresees the extraction of 74 tons of gold in 20 years of operation.
Illegal gold mining is accelerating deforestation in one of Venezuela’s most threatened national parks, a new report from Amazon Conservation revealed. Satellite imagery analyzed by the NGO shows that thousands…
Residents of a landless worker’s settlement in Anapu, Pará state in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the Federal Government of favoring large landowners, land grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
APYTEREWA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — Deep in the Apyterewa reserve, Tye Parakanã waves a hand toward the lush rainforest flanking his village. In the distance, a faint cloud of smoke…
