The Siona are a binational people, their territory straddling two countries: Sucumbíos province in northeastern Ecuador and in the Putumayo department in southeastern Colombia. But the forest they depend on…
Bogotá — As the world became fixated on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the situation for environmental defenders across the globe has only become more precarious. In 2019, 212 environmental…
Flor Angela Martinez is a mother, campesino and entrepreneur. Based in the Colombian Amazon, her company has become renowned for its sustainable timber harvesting practices. But before she made the…
In a small, sprightly basement office in the neighborhood of Chapinero in Bogotá, navigating the winds of political dysphoria and generalized uncertainty that have characterized the year the world over,…
Between 2010 and 2020, South America lost an average of 2.6 million hectares of forest per year, according the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In other…
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented a travel moratorium for staff and contributing journalists in March 2020. In practice, this meant we stopped assigning stories that required travel…
“This is a country that has a forestry vocation,” says José Miguel Orozco, professor of forest governance and policy at Bogotá’s Francisco José de Caldas District University. High-altitude Andean forests,…
Nazareth Cabrera is like a 'manicuera' they say, a sacred drink of the Indigenous Uitoto people that is obtained from the sweet yucca or fareka. Everything that is bitter, she…
María Clemencia Herrera Nemerayema did not get a diploma when she finished primary school at the Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús boarding school in the municipality of La Chorrera, in…
A group of nomadic hunters who once lived deep in the Amazon is today on the brink of physical and cultural extinction. Though their tribal lands are designated as an…
By the time the war broke out in Syria, researchers from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) had already duplicated and safely transported most of…
December 3, 2020 was a fateful day for the defense of the environment in Colombia. Javier Francisco Parra Cubillos, an official from regional environmental authority Cormacarena in the department of Meta…
As Colombia searches for a way forward after a half-century of war, the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) could have a significant role to play. Called the food of the gods,…
MOCOA, Colombia — The Union of Traditional Yage Medics of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC) brings together five ethnic groups — the Cofán, Inga, Siona, Coreguaje, and Kamëntsá — who practice…
This story is a journalistic collaboration between El Colombiano Medellin and Mongabay Latam. CAJAMARCA, Colombia — Jimmy's face lights up when he remembers César. A man who drew people to…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we’re shining a spotlight once again on women who are leading Amazon conservation — as well as a new international treaty that would…
At just 25 years old, Camila Chindoy is seen by many in her community as a possible future governor of the Inga Indigenous reserve of Yunguillo in the Colombian Amazon.…
Georeferencing, a digital process for registering land ownership, is now widespread in South America, but it is high-tech that can be used by landgrabbers and companies to obtain deeds to collective ancestral lands.
Wade Davis is a celebrated anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and author who has written thought-provoking accounts of indigenous cultures around the world. These have ranged from The Serpent and the Rainbow…
Mining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Amazon…
The area surrounding the town of Nuquí and its neighboring bay of Tribugá on Colombia’s northern Pacific coast has some of highest levels of rainfall in the world, a unique…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at how women are leading the charge to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world. Listen…
Two Brazilian biologists divided the Amazon Forest into 13 subregions, according to tree and shrub species. This spatial distribution allows targeting protection efforts.
Sunday – Indigenous Peoples’ Day – felt like anything but a celebration. We are supposed to be celebrating and honoring Indigenous Peoples but – instead – we are mourning the…
A dramatic surge in jaguar poaching and confiscations could be linked to Chinese-led investment in Latin America, poverty and corruption, according to a new study.
Between the departments of Boyacá and Santander in Colombia is one of the last remnants of tropical rainforest of the Middle Magdalena Valley. The Serranía de Las Quinchas is so…
BOGOTA — The first time biologist Luis Jorge Vargas visited the Conejera wetlands in 1993 it was as an undergraduate doing research. He said he and his fellow classmates remained…
In March 2020, as Bogota’s coronavirus quarantine began, a white smog hung over the city, coming from fires burning in Nukak National Nature Reserve, nearly 400 kilometers, or 250 miles,…
2019 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists, according to a new report by the advocacy watchdog Global Witness. In total, the group says that at least 212…
