Brazilian politicians and economically dominant social classes have for centuries exploited nature as if it was infinite. It is not. The consequences are more than evident.
Public protest and congressional action have forced Brazil’s politically embattled president to reverse his decree allowing mining in vast RENCA Reserve.
Study warns that six hydroelectric mega-dams proposed for Andean highlands would put environment and food security at risk in Amazon basin.
On August 23, 2017, Brazil’s president Michel Temer issued a decree revoking the RENCA (National Reserve of Copper and Associated Minerals), an area the size of Switzerland on the northern…
It’s not uncommon to find ecologist Greg Asner flying transects over the rainforests of the Amazon or Borneo. His specially outfitted plane has helped map out the three-dimensional structure of…
Activists, military police, and other unusual collaborators meet in Marabá, Pará, Brazil to seek agreement on sustainable solutions, extraction, dams.
Violent contact is alleged between Illegal miners / farmers in Amazonas state and two uncontacted indigenous groups; up to 10 deaths reported.
A high-profile case involving money, gold and cocaine has come to an end for two Miami businessmen. Samer Barrage and Juan Granda pleaded guilty in Miami federal court on September…
Environmentalists and indigenous people condemn Chinese owned Mirador and Panantza-San Carlos copper mines in Ecuador’s biodiverse Cordillera del Cóndor region.
Brazilian president’s order to open 17,800 square miles of Amazon rainforest to mining met by crushing opposition; voided by judge (this story has been updated).
Three South American studies find that severe deforestation in one region can impact faraway forests and continent-wide climate, while intact forests offer more resilience.
The president opens vast Amazon lands to mining; decrees new mining code that guts environmental monitoring, puts mining companies in charge of enforcement, opponents say.
Tambopata National Reserve is a haven for plants and wildlife, not to mention ecologists eager to understand the mysteries of the forest in this corner of the Peruvian Amazon. “It’s…
Indians decry Temer’s backing of “marco temporal,” which could negate legal indigenous claims to millions of hectares in the Amazon and elsewhere, protestors say.
Mining of vast diamond reserves, plus three new dams which could power the mines, would likely harm Indians on Roosevelt and Aripuanã rivers.
Brazil’s president approves new criteria for indigenous land demarcation to deny Indians their traditional lands; opens door to elite land thieves, agribusiness, opponents say.
Many dozens of major infrastructure projects — including highways, dams and mines — have been given the green light in the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, and hundreds more are…
Last week saw a busy, but contradictory, stream of actions likely to impact Amazonian forests. Brazilian president Michel Temer — supposedly at the urging of supermodel and environmentalist Gisele Bündchen…
In the late 1970s, Raimunda Gomes da Silva and her husband, João Pereira da Silva, moved to Tucuruí in Pará state. João went to work on the dam being built…
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read this Mongabay article in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) he Amazon is the sort of wild place where…
CHOCÓ, Colombia - Rivers, forests and its inhabitants are inseparably connected in Colombia's Chocó department on the country's northwest coast. The gravity of the contamination that has begun to affect…
Indigenous leaders and activists gathered in Quito, Ecuador, last Thursday, March 9, to denounce the Ecuadorian government for its complicity in allowing international mining companies to take over indigenous territory. The…
A Brazilian judge dealt a blow to the Belo Sun mining company’s plans to open the largest goldmine in Brazil this week. The proposed mine is slated for the Volta…
An Amazonian catfish -- the dorado catfish -- makes the world's longest known freshwater migration, a new study has confirmed. Clocking more than 7,200 miles (~11,600 kilometers), the dorado catfish (Brachyplatystoma rousseauxii)…
Sometimes for a scientist, the disconnected pieces of years of research come together in a single, “really awesome” point in time. For ecologist Greg Asner, where it happened was about…
In the Cordillera del Cóndor mountains of southern Ecuador, a copper mining project has incited numerous confrontations between Chinese mining company EXSA and the Shuar indigenous community, which both claim…
A conflict is brewing in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. Specifically, in the rural towns of the San Juan Bosco and Limón Indanza, located in the Cordillera del Cóndor mountains in…
Few places on Earth escape the reach of humankind, and those areas are dwindling, according to a new study. Between 2000 and 2013, the world lost a Venezuela-sized expanse of…
In the popular imagination, the Amazon is often seen as a wild, mostly unpopulated place. But, it’s not jaguars and piranhas that stand as the chief dangers here; it’s the…
The price of oil controls much of what happens in Venezuela, determining the nation’s economic health, policies and politics. In 1995, when that price fell to just 16 dollars per…
