Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…
With its blood-red eyes and red, black and yellow scales, the Marley’s Snail-eating snake looks like it could end your life with a bite. But this delicate snake, Sibon marleyae,…
The election victory in 2022 of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president in decades, has fanned winds of change in the country. The new government has vowed to tackle many…
Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We have to be very skeptical,” says Carlos Latorre, artisanal gold miner and…
Je’chu, a god, first created bees so that their wax would cure the world. So goes the spiritual testament of the Yucuna Indigenous peoples of Colombia. “He is our god…
BECERRIL, Colombia — “This makes me very happy, this is why we came down from the Sierra, to see the people celebrating the guáimaro tree,” says Orfelina Perez Restrepo, an…
Long before climate change had been deemed a global crisis, the Kogi Indigenous people, who have long lived in seclusion in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, were already warning that industrial…
Flying this November into a remote region of the Orinoquía savanna in Vichada, Colombia, environmental biologist Jacobo Arango could spot the Hacienda San José cattle ranch that his team was…
Once covering an expanse of more than 2,140 square kilometers (826 square miles) of the Colombian Amazon Rainforest, Tinigua National Natural Park has lost 29% of its forests over the…
Scientists say they have solved the mystery behind the periodic disappearance and reappearance of the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) across huge areas of central and South America. A new study…
This year’s Amazon fire season was milder than the previous two years, but there were still nearly 1,000 major fires, many of them in recently cleared areas in the Brazilian…
Deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest dangerously close to its tipping point, and the effects could soon be felt across the globe. A new report from the World Wildlife Fund…
Lucía lives in Peru, in one of more than 50 indigenous communities along the Putumayo, an Amazonian river that marks the border between Peru and Colombia. She has a banana…
“We always grew native products that come from here, like corn, beans, potatoes or lulos,” says Don Danilo, a longtime farmer near Sonsón, a small municipality in the Colombian state…
Plot out all the Indigenous territories in the Amazonian region of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and you’ll get an idea of just how important conserving these lands is for…
“What the figures show us today is that President [Iván] Duque’s government is closing out its term by breaking the rising trend of deforestation in Colombia, which had reached its…
“For the first time ever, there is a government that is against fracking,” says Amarilys Llanos Navarro. An activist and lawyer with the Cesar Without Fracking and Gas Movement, an…
Scientists warn that the Amazon is hurtling toward a tipping point, beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna, unable to support…
(This report by La Cola de Rata is part of their series entitled Especial Tierra de Resistentes, which can be viewed here) Edith Lucía Taborda Guevara is an anxious…
INÍRIDA, Colombia –– Carolina Mora Gaitan takes one of the striking-looking flowers from the blue bucket lying at her feet and shakes off the excess water. Using a toothbrush, she…
“We receive reports of murders, crimes and threats every day,” says Esneda Saavedra, counselor for the rights of Indigenous peoples, human rights and peace with the National Indigenous Organization of…
In the mountains of Colombia, an experienced bird-watcher saw an iridescent flash of blue and green. “A hummingbird caught my attention. I got out my binoculars and was shocked to…
CAJIBIO, Colombia – From a birds-eye view, greenery expands far into the tropical Andean horizon in Colombia’s department of Cauca, easily confused with a sprawling native forest. However, for the…
Organic, shade-grown, bird-friendly: coffee comes with a lot of labels these days, certifications that tell the consumer their beans were farmed in a way that supports the people who grow…
Researchers have described six species of ferns new to science from the tropical forests of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, all in the genus Danaea. “The described species are no tiny…
Scientists and conservationists are calling for action to stop violence against Indigenous peoples, local communities and environmental defenders across the Amazon region in South America. The Association for Tropical Biology…
A new multi-million-dollar conservation initiative in Colombia aims to create numerous new protected areas and biological corridors across the country, bringing it closer to meeting long-term climate change prevention goals.…
In La Playa, a fishing village of around 500 people in Santander, Colombia, well-kept houses and vibrant murals live in the shadow of el monstruo — the locals’ nickname for…
Even the greatest, most mobile predators aren’t immune to the shrinking of South America’s forests. The endangered black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori), one of the largest raptors on the continent, has…
RINCON VITINA, Colombia — In this small Indigenous reserve, or resguardo, in the Colombian department of Guainía, people tend to their cassava, plantain and pineapple crops, raise ornamental fish, and…
