In 2010, Electronorte initiated the construction of a high-tension (500 kW) transmission line to connect the power plants at Tucuruí and Belo Monte; this line was extended north to the…
The Tapajós is a clear-water river and the fifth largest tributary of the Amazon; it drops in elevation from about 800 meters above sea level in the highlands of central…
The most controversial hydropower project in the Pan Amazon is the complex on the Rio Xingu near the city of Altamira (Pará). The proposal to build a dam on the…
PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government has awarded another large swath of Botum Sakor National Park to local conglomerate Royal Group, carving out yet more land from this ostensibly protected…
A billion tires enter landfills, are burned, or litter the landscape every year, and more will be dumped as auto use surges planetwide. Industry analysts and entrepreneurs are pressing for circular economy solutions.
The Rio Madeira was the next Amazonian tributary to attract the attention of Brazil’s hydropower developers. The river is free of rapids as it flows along the western edge of…
The oldest hydropower facility in the Brazilian Amazon is the Tucuruí D&R complex (8.4 GW) on the lower Tocantins River, about 200 kilometers south of its confluence with the Amazon…
The largest hydropower complex in Venezuela is the oldest and least sustainable facility in the Pan Amazon. The complex of dams on the Rio Caroni is operated by Electrificación del…
After highways, investments in large-scale hydropower facilities are the most controversial infrastructure investments in the Pan Amazon. Governments pursue hydropower as a sovereign source of renewable energy and driver of…
Nepal is a small biodiversity-rich country that is subjected to climatic vagaries: conditions range from tropical in the south to alpine in the north. While Nepal contributes ~ 0.027% of…
Roads are scarce in the Northern Amazon, and surprisingly, the few that exist have not triggered widespread deforestation. This apparent anomaly is largely the consequence of a development dynamic that…
When it comes to advancing a much-needed ecological transition alongside the expansion of industrial mining, Brazil’s Lula Administration presents a clear contradiction. Recently, during the summit in Letícia, Colombia, President…
Although never organized as a specific project, the Carretera Marginal de la Selva has emerged from multiple projects that have been established in the Andean foothills from Colombia to Bolivia.…
SINGAPORE — For a while now, researchers and policy experts have touted the transition to a circular economy as a way to sustainably handle the world’s growing waste and pollution…
Cameroon’s government is again planning to open a portion of Ebo Forest to logging, threatening 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of largely intact forest that is home to several rare and…
KATHMANDU — On a hot and humid day in Bardibas, a town in the lowlands of Nepal, the sun beats down on the dusty roads where vans, cars and motorcycles…
The world’s linear economy, critically labeled as “take-make-waste,” is blamed for many global environmental problems, including climate change. The circular economy — focused on conserving resources and material reuse — is a proposed alternative.
Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia all invested in major highway building initiatives in the last half of the twentieth century, motivated in part to project sovereignty over their Amazonian provinces.…
The Southern Amazon has experienced massive deforestation, coupled with the degradation of soil and water resources. The forest frontiers at the remote corners of the Brazilian highway system have remained…
BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the…
Proposals to build an international airport on the Malaysian island of Tioman have reignited opposition from conservationists and local communities who say they’re “shocked” the project that environmental studies had…
It all starts with a road. In Brazil, the federal government commissioned the construction of mule trails and telegraph lines to link their coastal cities with long-established settlements on remote…
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines infrastructure as the ‘underlying structure’ of a country – specifically, the physical installations needed to ensure that its economy functions for the benefit of society. Modern…
YAOUNDÉ — It’s already been three years since the nearly 4,000 inhabitants of Apouh, a village in eastern Cameroon, have been locked in an intractable conflict with Socapalm, a local…
Indonesia is readying a fleet of drones to launch over Nusantara, its new capital city, as part of efforts to protect the under-construction site in Borneo from wildfires, officials told…
The consensus strategy for saving the Amazon is based on a set of five self-reinforcing policies: (1) create protected areas and recognize Indigenous reserves; (2) improve governance to combat illegal…
The current development trajectory of the Pan Amazon is uncertain. The ongoing investment in protected areas and Indigenous territories has created a solid foundation for conservation of the region’s biodiversity.…
GORONTALO, Indonesia — Marine and fisheries activists in Indonesia are ramping up their calls for the revocation of a new government regulation allowing the export of sea sand, saying the…
Environmental economics views the environment as a form of natural capital: land, water and biodiversity are viewed as assets that mediate the flow of goods and services from ecosystems toward…
The explosive growth of protected area networks was accompanied by the simultaneous recognition of the territorial rights of Indigenous people, an ongoing process that has yet to conclude. There are…