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…
The fight to save the Amazon has continued in 2022, as tragedy and political hope are shaping the region. Violence against environmental defenders ran rampant Indigenous people have continued to…
This year ended with a big bang for many Indigenous leaders, communities and activists around the world. During the U.N. biodiversity conference, known as COP15, Indigenous traditional lands and rights…
The city of Lago Agrio, which lies in the province of Sucumbíos in northern Ecuador’s Amazonian region, is considered the country’s oil capital. It also sits in the midst of…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center. WAIKAS, Brazil — From up above, long, massive, yellowish stains tear apart…
Opening up protected areas to mining in the Brazilian Amazon could have an even bigger impact than previously thought, according to a study published in Nature Sustainability earlier this year.…
Artisanal gold mining is driving the global demand for mercury, with 2,058 metric tons of the toxic metal contaminating water, land and air every year, according to a recent report…
The new Brazilian president pledges to protect the Amazon, Indigenous peoples and their lands, ending illegal mining, logging and land grabbing. But he must deal with a largely hostile congress and “not enough” international forest funding.
Lucía lives in Peru, in one of more than 50 indigenous communities along the Putumayo, an Amazonian river that marks the border between Peru and Colombia. She has a banana…
LA PAZ — Mercury, even at room temperature, will slowly transition from its silver liquid state into a dangerous vapor that, when inhaled, can leave a person with permanent brain…
LA PAZ — Gold is Bolivia’s second-biggest export, valued at more than $1 billion annually and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the country. But much of that gold…
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil on Oct. 30 in a close runoff with incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. But voters of eight out of the 10…
As the rest of the world closely watched Brazil’s presidential election on Oct. 2, the country’s conservative bloc made significant gains in a Congress that it already dominates. This could…
Industrial mining wiped out nearly 2,000 square kilometers, or 770 square miles, of forests in Indonesia between 2000 and 2019. The country is one of four worldwide where direct tropical…
Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We’ve been fighting the government of Suriname for almost 25 years, for recognition…
Brazilians will go to the polls in October to vote in presidential and congressional elections that many consider a critical moment for the fate of the environment in Brazil. Activists…
Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
Forest loss is increasing south of the Orinoco River due to lack of Venezuelan official oversight, a growing Colombian insurgency, fires set to create mining camps, and new agricultural lands cleared to feed miners.
A Brazilian company stands poised to start mining inside an Indigenous territory in the Amazon as soon as October, highlighting the precarious nature of the protections afforded to Indigenous lands…
Coordinated raids by police in Brazil have shed new light on the workings of the illegal mining industry in the Amazon. Federal police carried out three simultaneous raids against the…
Repórter Brasil’s tool points out the federal deputies with the worst socio-environmental performance and shows that the right-wing wave of 2018 strengthened the rural caucus in Congress. Analysts say that the ruralist leanings of the Chamber were already a reality, but the Bolsonaro government unbalanced the political chessboard with the weakening of the Ministry of Environment.
The deforestation sweeping across the Brazilian Amazon is driven largely by industrial agriculture, mining and cattle ranching. But those activities wouldn’t be possible without heavy machinery like bulldozers and tractors,…
From the Scarlet Macaw to the glass frog, Peru is a land of tropical splendors. At least half the country is blanketed by Amazon rainforest. It is one of the…
Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after reading my articles and hearing…
Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…