Bolivia News

14 million Amazon animals and plants — caiman skins, turtles, parrots, orchids and more — are legally exported annually. Illegal trafficking levels are unknown.

Soy-fed chicken sold in British supermarkets and fast food chains — including Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald’s — appear to be driving deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado.

Study warns that six hydroelectric mega-dams proposed for Andean highlands would put environment and food security at risk in Amazon basin.

From villain to hero, the jaguar (Panthera onca) stands at the cusp of a radical overhaul in its public image. As the largest cat in the Americas, the species commands…

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 Amazon basin faces irreversible environmental disturbance on an enormous scale due to hydroelectric dam development. Hundreds of existing and planned dams in both the Amazonian lowlands and the Andean…

Companies are still getting their soybeans from the clearance of little-known forests and savannas in Brazil and Bolivia, according to a new report, despite calls to shift their focus to degraded…

After relentless trapping for the pet trade reduced wild Blue-throated macaw populations to mere rumors, the bird was rediscovered in 1992 in a remote area of Bolivia. Endemic only to…

Two new species of clown tree frogs have been discovered in the Amazonian rainforests of Bolivia and Peru. Clown frogs are widespread throughout the Amazon region and get their name…

When you bite into a Bacon King Sandwich, you could be indirectly eating away some of Brazil’s ancient savanna and Bolivia’s lowland forest. That’s because the two quarter-pound beef patties…

When an Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita) suddenly showed up in the middle of a synthetic soccer field in Bolivia, the wild feline was far from anywhere that should have been home.…

Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…

The Mongabay-Latam team spent weeks investigating the illicit world of wildlife trafficking. Officials, specialists and lawyers helped this group of journalists reveal how this illegal market works, which species have…

Bolivia introduced a general and indefinite ban on the wildlife trade two decades ago, but this measure has failed to stop the trafficking of wild animals. Birds, monkeys, turtles and…

In northern Bolivia, a sugarcane operation is carving large plantations out of rainforest. New imagery shows that forest loss has ramped up over the past month, with around 700 more…

In Bolivia, the Brazil nut is the second most exported non-traditional product after soybeans, according to official figures. In 2015 more than 20,000 tons of Brazil nuts were exported, earning…

Northern La Paz - Fifteen years ago, ex-miner Pedro Espinoza decided to leave behind gold mining and go to live in the middle of a forest in the Yiquimuni area,…

The ancestor of the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is the Florida spectacled bear (Tremarctos floridanus), which migrated from the Florida peninsula a million years ago. But while the Florida spectacled…

Cultivation of coca, the plant from which the drug cocaine is extracted, has long been considered a “deforestation multiplier” in the Andean Amazon rainforests of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. For…

This story originally appeared on Mongabay Latam. It was translated by Romina Castagnino. I am flying over Madidi National Park in a Cessna 172 aircraft. From the air, the phrase "green ocean"…

Indigenous leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America attended the UN climate talks in Paris last December to present research showing that traditional indigenous territories in the Amazon Basin, the…

Waldo Valer Salas, our expedition guide, launched two firecrackers in the air, producing a loud echo that reverberated in the rainforest. That was the only way to announce the arrival…

The two food production systems that support Bolivia — family farming and agribusiness — are being hit by the worst drought in the last quarter century and one of the…

olivia’s TIPNIS Highway — defeated by mass protests from indigenous groups and environmentalists — rates as one of the most controversial Latin American construction projects of recent years. The role…

An ongoing expedition in Bolivia's Madidi National Park has recorded its 1,000th bird species, highlighting the park as a hotspot of avian biodiversity. The park is thought to contain more…

Author's note: The data that underpins this post is updated on a regular basis on Mongabay's rainforest site: Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Mammals, Reptiles, Vascular Plants. September 26, 2021 update: this…

The discoveries include three new frogs, three new catfish, and one new lizard species.

Many timber woods of conservation concern are hard to distinguish anatomically from species resembling them, especially when the wood sample lacks leaves or other botanical features. For instance, big-leaf mahogany…

Scientists on a multi-year expedition in Bolivia's Madidi National Park have recorded nearly a thousand species of butterflies – with many more expected to come. Madidi National Park sits along…

Bolivia's Tacana communities have developed successful sustainable land-use methods, for which they were awarded the prestigious Equator Prize during a ceremony at COP21 in Paris.