The unintended consequences of a U.S./China trade war could shift Chinese soy purchases from the U.S. to Brazil, leading to rising Amazon deforestation, and a hazardous climate change tipping point.
Gold mine owners have polluted a river in Brazil’s Tapajós basin and placed a price on the heads of resisting Munduruku leaders. A federal raid in May failed to stem the conflict.
Brazil’s bancada ruralista has attached a wave of riders to bills in Congress that could overthrow the nation’s environmental and indigenous protections. There is a high chance of passage.
Indigenous and traditional groups united in a protest last week in Brazil’s capitol seeking territory demarcation, consultation on infrastructure projects, and an end to violence.
Thirty-eight environmental and social groups are demanding an end to indigenous intimidation by a dam building consortium on the Teles Pires River that includes Chinese and Portuguese firms.
The Temer administration ignored UN letters warning of threats to land defenders and environmentalists, and condemning Brazil’s record number of activist murders.
Operational in 2016, the Belo Monte mega-dam has done lasting damage to forests, fisheries, livelihoods, and indigenous and traditional communities (photo story).
As Venezuela sinks into chaos and violence, Pres. Maduro rushes to salvage its sinking economy by selling off the nation’s natural legacy in the Orinoco Mining Arc – analysis.
Venezuela has proposed the Arco Minero and Petro cryptocurrency, backed by the nation’s oil and mineral wealth, as solutions to its economic crisis. Critics say it won’t work.
Visit by Pope Francis to Peru brought needed attention to Amazon deforestation and indigenous suffering due to illegal mining, but will the pontiff’s words be a game changer?
Experts say 2017 Brazilian wildfires were caused not principally by drought, but mostly set by people, and worsened by human-caused forest degradation. Agency budget cuts worsened the crisis.
In 2016, President Maduro declared the Arco Minero; today thousands of indigenous people are being impacted by a mining boom that endangers their lives and culture.
In a major policy shift, the Brazilian government says it is abandoning plans for new mega-dams in the Amazon basin, a victory for conservationists and indigenous groups.
President Temer, pressed by the ruralist lobby, attacked indigenous and traditional land rights, conserved lands, and Amazon forests this year, and retreated from Brazil's Paris climate goal – analysis.
A soon to be finalized Mercosur / European Union trade deal will contain indigenous human rights clauses that may be a last hope for indigenous groups under attack in Brazil.
Brazil is fast-tracking the Ferrogrão grain railway planned for the Tapajós Basin without prior environmental review, and despite protests from indigenous groups.
As fossil fuel firms drive bitumen tar sands pipelines toward U.S. and Canadian coasts, a bold alliance of U.S. Native Peoples and Canadian First Nations is successfully blocking their way.
To avoid impeachment on corruption charges, Brazil’s president has bought Congress and wealthy elite ruralists with a wave of decrees that will destroy the Amazon.
Brazil’s Temer has forgiven 6o percent of $3.5 billion in fines for environmental crimes, so long as perpetrators pay other 40 percent. No new means of enforcement was announced.
Last Friday, eighty Munduruku warriors — demanding an apology for destruction of two sacred sites — tried to occupy an Amazon dam; they were met by armed police.
Brazilian politicians and economically dominant social classes have for centuries exploited nature as if it was infinite. It is not. The consequences are more than evident.
A Brazilian court has ordered the Belo Monte dam to shut down due to resettlement violations, but Norte Energia, the consortium building and operating the dam, has so far refused to comply.
Brazilian court finds Norte Energia consortium guilty of failure to keep housing commitments for those displaced by mega-dam in Amazon. Installation license suspended.
Violent contact is alleged between Illegal miners / farmers in Amazonas state and two uncontacted indigenous groups; up to 10 deaths reported.
Conservationists call for total halt to deforestation and implementation of sustainable agroforestry in Brazilian state of Maranhão.
Environmentalists and indigenous people condemn Chinese owned Mirador and Panantza-San Carlos copper mines in Ecuador’s biodiverse Cordillera del Cóndor region.
Brazilian president’s order to open 17,800 square miles of Amazon rainforest to mining met by crushing opposition; voided by judge (this story has been updated).
Court decides against claims of Mato Grosso state, which wanted compensation for land lost to Indian reserves set up in that Amazonian state by federal government.
Indians decry Temer’s backing of “marco temporal,” which could negate legal indigenous claims to millions of hectares in the Amazon and elsewhere, protestors say.
Mining of vast diamond reserves, plus three new dams which could power the mines, would likely harm Indians on Roosevelt and Aripuanã rivers.
