Amazon mega-dam was built with 11,233 MW capacity, but has fallen far short, even as deforestation and drought make the goal more remote. The US$9.5 billion dam may never be profitable.
Farmers and irregular occupants in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre are enjoying newfound political power and pressuring for the reduction of the first protected area of its kind in Brazil as it approaches its 30th anniversary in March.
Deforestation during the final five months of 2019 hit the highest level since at least 2006 reveals data released this week by Brazil's national space research institute INPE. According to…
Three indigenous men in Amazonas state, and two peasant farmers in Maranhão, have been killed so far this month in violence experts say is spurred by Pres. Bolsonaro’s policies.
Brazil is the most biologically diverse country in the world, harboring 10 to 18% of the world’s total biota. This biodiversity, however, is rapidly declining due to habitat degradation, overexploitation,…
Once used for leisure, navigation and fishing, almost all of the 150 small waterways, or igarapés, in the Amazonian city of Manaus are totally polluted. Experts say it could take up 30 years for them to recover, while others are considered “dead.”
Visual artist Denilson Baniwa and singer Djuena Tikuna are taking the Amazon to galleries and stages around the world, sharing the rainforest’s socio-environmental diversity and bringing up questions about its future.
Transnational mining firms are in a rush to get access to the protected Amazon as the Bolsonaro administration plots with them to mine in RENCA and indigenous reserves.
As the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, Spain came to a close with little progress earlier this month, the future of the Brazilian Amazon remained dangerously unclear. The Amazon is…
Land grabbers and agribusiness are the big beneficiaries of new, little publicized policies; Amazon forests, indigenous and traditional peoples are the big losers.
After a decade of increased deforestation, broken commitments, and hundreds of murders of rainforest defenders, the 2020s open as a dark moment for the world’s rainforests. Here are some key…
A ceaselessly growing human population and an ever-expanding world economy based on the unsustainable demands of a few over-consuming nations, have already caused habitat degradation, forest fragmentation, and forest loss…
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
A legal battle brewing since 2013 is coming to a head as the Mura people resist a Potássio do Brasil transnational mining project that could change their way of life for good or ill, forever.
The discovery of a new-to-science species is always an awe-inspiring bit of news, filling us with hope. This year, researchers introduced us to several such species. Some were the result…
The town of Autazes has potash deposits vital to agribusiness; the Potássio do Brasil mine wants to open, but remains blocked — it lies on the land of the Mura indigenous group.
DNA analysis has revealed a "new" species of monkey that only survives today because its habitat is difficult to access and therefore hasn't been converted for large-scale agriculture, reports New…
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.
The Amazon worst-case scenario has arrived, say leading researchers, as predicted signs of a shift from rainforest-to-savanna begin to be seen in real time on the ground.
