Amazon Basin urban centers are contaminating the Amazon, Negro, Tapajós and Tocantins rivers with pharmaceuticals and wastewater, with still largely unknown impacts on aquatic ecosystems.
The Amazon lost millions of hectares of primary forest in 2021, mostly as the result of cattle ranching and other agricultural activities, a new report reveals. Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of…
Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature (FFN) Award, given annually to…
As thousands of people protested in Brazil’s capital against a “death package” of bills deemed anti-environmental and anti-Indigenous, the lower house of Congress agreed to fast-track one of those bills,…
Three young women from the Munduruku Indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon run an audiovisual collective that uses social media to raise awareness about illegal invasions of their territory. “Many people no longer believe what we say, they only believe what they see,” says Aldira Akai, who, at 30, is the oldest member of the collective.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is off to its fastest pace to start a year since at least 2008 reveals data published on Friday by Brazil's national space research institute,…
Since 2013, the Ka'apor expelled the Federal Brazilian Indigenous Agency from their territory in the state of Maranhão, creating a new government council, adopting their own education system and establishing permanent settlements along their borders to contain the illegal advance of loggers, land grabbers and miners.
Whether walking along a beach boardwalk, installing new hardwood floors or sitting out on a friend’s deck, there’s a good chance you’ve already come across the wood of the rare…
“Since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated by the diversity of living beings on our planet and I dreamed to work to explore Earth's unexplored places and…
In Brazil, calling someone a tapir is usually an insult. But there’s plenty of reason it should be seen as a compliment. Few animals are as essential, underestimated and persecuted…
A Brazilian Federal Police operation dismantled a criminal organization that operates in illegal mining inside Kayapó Indigenous Land, in southern Pará state. The gold is sold abroad to Chimet, an Italian business group specializing in refining gold to make jewellery.
Restoration initiatives are slowly making a mark on the Atlantic Forest, a Brazilian biome that has been reduced to about a quarter of its original area. Brazil has made global commitments to restore tens of millions of hectares of forest by 2030, but the much smaller programs underway in the Atlantic Forest show country is still unable to monitor restoration efforts effectively.
The transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado, where the world’s greatest rainforest melds into its largest tropical savanna, is heating up, posing severe threats to both biomes, a…
We set out from the town of Extrema, in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, in a four-wheel-drive vehicle at 9 a.m. on a Monday. Driving beneath a mountainous vista and blue…
Tropical forests play a fundamental role in storing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. And while the Amazon rainforest is often top of mind when it…
Autazes in the heart of Brazil’s Amazonas state is a municipality that’s six times the size of Rio de Janeiro. This corner of the rainforest is so remote that the…
Smallholder farmers say agroforestry offers biodiversity and crop benefits, but lack of support from the Bolsonaro government is a key barrier to adopting restorative agricultural practices.
MANAUS, Brazil — As she walks through the rubble, Yawaratsuni Kokama steps over loose bricks and piles of broken tiles, her eyes welling up. From time to time, she stops…
During last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, more than 140 countries committed to halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use recognized…
On February 11, 2022, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro published a decree establishing the Program for Supporting the Development of Artisanal Mining (Pró-Mape), which aims to “stimulate” this type of mining…
Major investment managers including BlackRock and Capital Group are among more than a dozen U.S. and Brazilian institutions heavily financing mining companies that are destroying Indigenous reserves and their inhabitants’…
Brazil’s lower house of congress has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would loosen regulations for the use of pesticides, raising concerns that approval in the Senate would unleash further environmental…
Tropical rainforests are more resilient than previously thought, a new study shows, with a high capacity for natural regeneration in areas that are only slightly degraded adjacent to patches of…
Farmers with land interdicted by environmental authorities were granted loans with public money through a bank that belongs to the world’s largest agricultural machinery manufacturer.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon last month was the highest of any January dating back to 2008, reports Brazil's national space research agency INPE. According to data released today, 430…
ExxonMobil wants to drill 11 wells in a marine area near the estuary of the São Francisco River, in Northeastern Brazil. In the event of an accident, at least 52 conservation units would be affected, including a barrier reef that’s a priority for conservation.
Forest degradation due to environmental causes (such as drought) and human causes (such as fragmentation) released three times as much carbon as deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2010 and 2019, say researchers.
Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs snubbed new evidence of uncontacted Indigenous groups found by two expeditions in the Amazon last year, heightening concerns about political interference in the government…
The European Commission's plan to counter deforestation associated with certain imported agricultural products was unveiled on November 17, 2021. One third of global deforestation is linked to international trade, and…
As a best-selling author, the co-founder of the award-winning Amazon Conservation Team, and an acclaimed public speaker, Mark Plotkin is one of the world’s most prominent rainforest ethnobotanists and conservationists.…
