QUITO — As COVID-19 sweeps across communities in the Amazon rainforest, the Indigenous Waorani in Ecuador are celebrating a bittersweet victory after a provincial court ruled in their favor in…
Tropical rainforests have an outsized role in the world. Of the Earth’s ecosystems, rainforests support the largest variety of plants and animal species, house the majority of indigenous groups still…
Ten days after showing his first symptoms, Dannes Piaguaje struggled to breathe as he leaned over a traditional steam remedy in his leaf-thatch jungle home in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The…
It's freezing cold. The wind whistles. A gentle drizzle falls from the sky, and the ground wheezes like a soaked sponge with every step. It is an inhospitable and at…
For nine months, the communities near Ecuador’s Los Cedros Protected Forest have been unable to fully celebrate a win in a provincial court to protect the forest. The decentralized autonomous…
The need to conserve and protect global forests is clear and urgent. Indigenous populations like the Amazonian Kichwa have recognized the need for action to prevent the worst effects of…
PUTUMAYO, Colombia - Yehimi Fajardo only had to hear the shriek of the common potoo (Nyctibius griseus) once to understand why this night bird is accused — so unfairly —…
PUCARÁ ALTO, Ecuador — Bellowing winds thrashed the farmers’ corn stocks and the wild patches of eucalyptus cropping up the largest hill in Pucará Alto. Then there was a crack,…
Ecuador is in a deep economic and health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has spread seriously in the city of Guayaquil, in the province of Guayas. Amid that…
Extreme flooding in the Ecuadoran Amazon has caused widespread disarray along the banks of the Bobonaza River, all amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past couple of weeks, the surging…
The first case of a member of an indigenous community in Peru testing positive for Coronavirus was recorded late last month. The person in question, Aurelio Chino, is an indigenous…
On February 2, something strange happened in Cayambe Coca Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The emblematic San Rafael waterfall, located on the Coca River between the provinces of Napo and…
A new analysis based on estimated deforestation in the Amazon in 2019 pinpoints hotspots of forest loss and identifies several country-specific trends in the region. The figures project that deforestation…
Looking back, 2019 was a year of mixed outcomes for Ecuador’s environmental agenda. The country’s ongoing economic crisis fossil fuel dependence will likely continue to fuel clashes with communities protecting…
For Ecuador, 2019 was a critical year for court decisions regarding environmental and social issues. At the end of 2018, the courts set precedent by ruling in favor of the…
This story is a journalistic collaboration between Revista Vistazo and Mongabay Latam. Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then…
A major six nation study finds that the arrau is thriving mostly in river systems where conservationists are active, but not elsewhere; climate change looms as a major threat.
“Palm oil is here to stay,” reads the 2018 report “Oil Palm and Biodiversity,” which was produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and represents one of…
On the 650-hectare (1,600-acre) El Pahuma Orchid Reserve in Andean cloud forest, you can find over 300 species of orchids, and even a handful of endangered spectacled bears. If you…
Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.
Spanning nearly 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) along the coast, Ecuador’s Chocó region is known as a biodiversity hotspot with high levels of endemism, among the richest region for…
LLANCHAMA, Ecuador — A long passenger boat floats abandoned outside Andres Machoa’s house, along the Tiputini River in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. The community bought the boat more than five years…
Don Lizardo was sitting in his hammock, rocking gently back and forth, as he told us heartbreaking stories about working in haciendas when he was younger. We were sitting in…
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and…
NAPO, Ecuador — Gloria Ushigua, president of the Sápara women’s association, stops by a large, thin, spindly tree that looks almost dead, and breaks off a thin branch. Running her…
Indigenous reserves and other conserved lands in nine Amazonian nations are under extreme pressure as roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, fires and deforestation encroach.
This story originally appeared on Mongabay Latam as part of a special series on threats facing isolated indigenous peoples in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. Other stories in the series…
A new report examines the “unchecked development” in the Amazon that has driven deforestation rates to near-record levels throughout the world’s largest tropical forest. The main drivers of deforestation vary…
QUITO, Ecuador — The indigenous Waorani community in Ecuador won a historic lawsuit against the government late last month, when a three-judge panel ruled that a consultation process conducted with…
Illegal fishing, overfishing and pollution are common problems in the waters of South America. But the overarching problem, the one that enables the rest, is weak governance, according to experts.…
