Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…
The route connecting the provinces of Loja and Zamora Chinchipe in Ecuador is a series of roads surrounded by green, leafy and picturesque mountains. Near the city of Zamora, signs…
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…
Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…
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…
Pressure from investors and conservationists has forced Home Depot to reevaluate how it does business, following findings that some of the plywood it sells may be coming from mega diverse…
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,…
Patricia Gualinga takes a deep breath and pictures herself inside the rainforest in Sarayaku, Ecuador. “It’s hard to describe the smell of such pure air when you’re in the rainforest”,…
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…
Ecuador has become the first Latin American country to join a growing international effort aimed at bringing greater transparency to the fishing industry and making it more sustainable. In a…
CANELOS, Ecuador — An almost invisible trail snakes through thick buzzing forest leading to a chakra, an ancestral food garden in the Kichwa Cuya community located in Ecuador’s largest province,…
China has spent the last two decades quietly establishing an economic foothold in Latin America, a region that has traditionally relied on Western investment. It’s become the top trade partner…
QUITO, Ecuador — On Jan. 28, 2022, Ecuador’s Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (known by its Spanish acronym OCP), ruptured, contaminating more than 20,000 square meters of the Cayambe Coca National…
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…
QUITO — Its a sad moment for any Indigenous community when spiritual leaders, those who hold the knowledge of sacred ceremonies and traditions, pass away from this world. But Sabino…
QUITO, Ecuador — Indigenous communities across Ecuador celebrated over the weekend after a historic ruling by the country’s highest court declaring that Indigenous communities have more autonomy over their territory and…
This is the second in a two-part series. Read Part One. Palm oil, a popular cooking oil as well as an ingredient in an ocean of products ranging from cookies to cosmetics,…
This is the first in a two-part series. Read Part Two. San Javier de Cachaví is a small village of some 120 families in Ecuador near the Colombian border. The…
Botanist Álvaro Pérez didn’t expect to discover a new species of magnolia while hiking through Ecuador’s Canandé Reserve. He said it was the enormous, unique fruit that tipped him off.…
"Ecuador is proud to announce the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve in the coming days," the country's president declares in an opinion piece shared with Mongabay. His country had…
Josefina Tunki is a mother, even though she doesn’t have any biological children. In 2019, she became the first president of the Shuar Arutam People (Pueblo Shuar Arutam, PSHA, in…
Palm oil producers across several Latin American countries have been the subject of complaints about their environmental practices, an analysis of official records has found, but these complaints rarely result…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
Yasuní National Park in Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest has long been famed for being one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, home to thousands of species of plants, birds,…
Wbeimar Cetina says he remembers with chilling clarity the 14 months he spent in jail in Arauca, Colombia. Because he couldn’t have visitors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he replayed…
Steven Donziger, the U.S. advisory lawyer for the Ecuador legal team that won a $9.5 billion ruling against Chevron over oil contamination in 2011, surrendered to a six-month prison sentence…
It’s six in the morning and the beach is empty. The tide has erased the footprints from the sand, and the surface is a blank slate of white and perfectly…
Early on the morning of Nov. 15, five Constitutional Court judges arrived by canoe to the Indigenous Cofan community of Sinangoe in Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest, wearing rubber boots and…
