“They are going to flood the Tapayuna people’s history,” says Yaku Suya, a 43-year-old Indigenous leader from the village of Tyrykho, in Xingu Indigenous Park in the heart of the…
UAUÁ, Bahia, Brazil — In the backlands of northern Bahia state, nobody ever thought about putting up a fence in the woods. According to the tradition that governs fundo de…
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has decreased for the eighth consecutive month, despite the region being affected by a severe drought. According to the latest data from Brazil's National Space…
This year’s COP28 kicked off in Dubai on Nov. 30 and saw Amazonian countries arriving with a string of environmental triumphs since the last climate summit hosted in Egypt. While…
Iracambi is a Brazilian NGO in the Serra do Brigadeiro mountain range, located in the heart of the Atlantic Forest, a biome largely destroyed by rampant deforestation.
A severe drought across the Amazon Rainforest continues to be felt along the Tapajós River in Brazil’s state of Pará, where locals say it “is the worst one ever.”
The most lucrative agricultural system in the Amazon is neither soy nor palm oil, but coca leaf, which is cultivated for both legal and illegal markets. There are two species,…
Between 15 and 18% of the least-studied areas in the Brazilian Amazon are at high risk of severe climate and land-use changes by 2050, research has shown, meaning we could…
There’s near-universal folklore told throughout Brazil of colorful fish that fall from the clouds during the rains to live in newly formed ponds. These stories arose to explain a hard-to-believe…
Many of our staple food products are highly dependent on industrial agriculture and global supply chains, but small farmers in the Amazon continue to produce foodstuffs for their families, local…
The municipality of Feijó in Acre state is the first in Brazil to receive a certification of origin for its açaí berries, raising hopes that the economy centered around the fruit will grow in value.
One of Brazil’s largest states is ramping up efforts to monitor cattle ranching in the hopes of combatting deforestation and reducing carbon emissions. A new traceability program will keep tabs…
Positive changes President Lula’s speeches at the Climate Conventions 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai contained positive signs for Amazonia and for mitigating climate change. Brazil had the…
Brazil has proposed a new mechanism for conserving the world's tropical rainforests. During a panel at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva and Finance Minister…
The Amazon has long been considered home to Indigenous peoples, dating back thousands of years. They worked the land in ways we are familiar with today. They built ditches, ponds,…
The Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
Germany was among the donor countries that welcomed the revival of the Amazon Fund at the start of the year, seen as an important conservation measure by Brazilian President Luis…
In 1996, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen first described a small “piggy-like” porcupine near the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon. The creature had brown fur, yellow and black quills,…
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is native to the Amazon rainforest and has been cultivated and consumed throughout the Americas since before Columbus. Cacao can be broadly segregated into to contrasting types…
Global food trader Cargill has announced new commitments to disentangle some of its most controversial agricultural products from deforestation in several South American countries. But some conservation groups say the…
The new model suggests that Amazon plants would reorganize, allocating more energy to their roots at the expense of stems and leaves; consequently, they would have a lower capacity to retain and absorb carbon in a scenario with reduced rainfall.
More than a year and a half since the iron ore mining stopped, the lives of Vanusia Souza dos Santos and her community in the heart of Brazil’s Bahia state…
There are two major cultivated species of coffee: arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), each with a multitude of varieties adapted to a broad range of ecological conditions. Arabica…
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.
The makeshift road tears through the emerald canopy, splintering one of the Amazon’s most pristine corridors of rainforest. Along the edges of the road, running through the heart of the…
Renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall is bringing her youth program, Roots & Shoots, to the Brazilian Amazon in partnership with Indigenous leaders and tech entrepreneur and conservationist Dax Dasilva.…
Coffee and cacao have much in common. Both are descended from understory trees adapted to the low-light conditions of the forest floor. Each have multiple cultivated varieties that differ with…
Breathing clean air in Brazil’s Cerrado grassland has become increasingly hard, according to a recent study by researchers in the central state of Goiás. It found a relationship between dying…
Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.
The spikes in commodity prices in the first decade of the twenty-first century coincided with a global boom in biofuels. The interest in biofuels was motivated allegedly by a concern…
