Colombia News

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…

For more than a decade, Canadian oil company Gran Tierra Energy has been attempting to boost its presence in Colombia’s Putumayo department, where it operates its La Cabaña exploratory drilling…

For years, Ruth Alipaz has been fighting against the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project. The project involves the construction of two reservoirs that together would flood at least 66,200 hectares (163,500…

A new analysis of satellite data of the Amazon published in late May provides the most detailed analysis yet of year-to-year deforestation in the region, revealing exactly where and why…

On some days, a strong smell of oil wafts through the Indigenous Kichwa community of October 12, located in Peru’s Amazonian region of Loreto. Residents going outside to see what…

In the world’s largest rainforest, wildlife crawls, hops, flies and prowls through every nook and cranny. Most animals are adept at hiding from humans, though, so finding them can be…

Over the past four decades, there have been more than 400 reported oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon. In Ecuador, the Amazon suffered from 1,202 spills between 2011 and 2021,…

When the Colombian government struck its historic peace accord with the paramilitary group FARC in 2016, heralding an end to one of the world’s longest-running wars, scientists and journalists were…

AGUA BONITA CAMP, Colombia – Walking all day through the jungle to visit the encampments of friends and relatives is what Tumni Abtukaru misses the most about life before his…

Adiela Jineth Mera Paz wakes up every morning with only one thing on her mind – protecting her land in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, on the Colombia-Ecuador border. However, this is…

Land degradation – the deterioration or loss of the productive capacity of land – is progressing at an alarming rate. Globally, over a fifth of the total land area has…