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.
From the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in South America, researchers have described six new species of catfish that have tentacles on their faces, spines sticking out from their heads, and…
In January 2018, the Cofán indigenous people of Sinangoe, Ecuador, discovered several machines mining the Aguarico riverbed near Cayambe Coca National Park. This came as a surprise to them because…
A wave of announcements by the Bolsonaro administration threatens indigenous reserves, could worsen deforestation and bring major environmental harm: experts.
Bolsonaro has backed off from Paris withdrawal “for now,” but his actions imply emissions exceeding Brazil’s carbon cut pledge.
A Brazilian official last week announced plans to build an Amazon River bridge, Trombetas River dam, and highway thru what he called “desert-like” rainforest.
More than 2,000 illegal mining sites in the Amazon, a wetland in Chile threatened by a highway extension, and a possible new monkey species in Peru were among the top…
Presidents in Peru and Brazil, and construction firm Odebrecht, schemed to build 22 Marañón River dams; the people and the law defeated them; today the river flows free.
The recent top stories from Mongabay Latam, our Spanish-language service, include a 'pirate' fishing vessel being welcomed in Panama, news of forestry officials indicted for illegal logging in Peru’s Amazon,…
Agribusiness, well backed by government, is hailed an “economic miracle.” But family farms, with nominal help, provide 70% of the food Brazilians eat.
The Cerrado biome, covering 20 percent of Brazil, has seen rapid deforestation in the 21st century; a recent report says that much of this is driven by soy grown to feed livestock, which feeds Brazilians.
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
A 40-year conservation effort on the remote Juruá River in Brazil’s Amazonas state cut turtle poaching to 2 percent, while also conserving bird, river dolphin and other species too: study.
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.
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
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 costs of acting now to adapt to a predicted, dramatic loss of Amazon rainforest would be at least one order of magnitude lower than the economic fallout if we…
