The great drought and megafires that the Amazon experienced in recent years caused the death of 2.5 billion trees and vines in the Lower Tapajós River Basin, one of the…
INPE released updated data on August 13. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon remained persistently high in July, but the country is nonetheless on track to experience the first year-over-year decline…
Since the beginning of time, Indigenous peoples have used signals from nature to guide their way of life. Their calendar is structured by the rhythm of plant growth or rains,…
The Amazon fire season is gaining momentum, and this year could be worse than last. As of today, 267 major fires have been detected in the Amazon this year, burning…
Devastating fires on legally protected land in the Amazon rainforest have surged under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, according to a new report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Satellite mapping…
A new “vulnerability index” for the world’s tropical rainforests will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests, in…
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The thick plumes of smoke stretched for miles across this slice of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, blanketing the dense rainforest surrounding it. Soon, they drifted…
The Amazon has long done its part to balance the global carbon budget, but new evidence suggests the climate scales are tipping in the world’s largest rainforest. Now, according to…
As the human population grows, so does our demand for food, and soy is one of the key crops meeting that demand. Found in far more than tofu, soy is…
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued on an upward trajectory in June, reports the country's national space research institute INPE. INPE's satellite-based forest monitoring system detected 1,062 square kilometers (410…
So far this year, 24 major fires have burned in the Brazilian Amazon, covering an area of 7,167 hectares (17,710 acres). All of the fires were set on land previously…
Destruction of Earth's largest rainforest is accelerating ahead of the region's peak fire and deforestation season, reveals data released today by Brazil's national space research institute INPE. According to INPE's…
Situated deep in the middle of Brazil, Xingu Indigenous Park encompasses some of the most biodiverse rainforest in the country and is home to dozens of Indigenous communities and a…
In recent weeks, nine major fires have ignited in the Brazilian Amazon, heralding the start of another fire season which, after a particularly dry year, experts say could be a…
Tropical forests around the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate, even in 2020 when the global economy slowed dramatically during the pandemic. A new report released this week…
For the past several years, Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park has been racked by one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country. According…
After Brazil, the South American country that lost the greatest area of primary forest over the past twenty years is Bolivia. The land-locked nation has seen its diverse forests rapidly…
From 2009 to 2018, Brazil recorded an annual deforestation rate of 6,493 square kilometers (2,507 square miles), on the back of policies aimed at slowing the destruction of the Amazon.…
Forest loss in Brazil’s lush Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area marches on, driven largely by a hunger for beef, emboldened land grabbers, and a lack of law enforcement. Triunfo…
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
At the beginning of the 1990s, while observing the large trees of the Amazon ceding ground to the scrub-like vegetation of the Cerrado, in a process driven by human activity,…
Over the past twenty years the concept of "tipping points" has become more familiar to the public. Tipping points are critical thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic…
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.
A day after Brazil announced 11,000 square kilometers of annual deforestation, France, the EU’s biggest buyer of Brazilian soy flour, announced plans to become more self-sufficient on the commodity.
It was another intense year for fires in the Amazon. More than 2,500 major blazes burned across Brazil’s Legal Amazon between May 28 and November 3, according to a fire…
Brazil's national space research institute INPE reported a third straight monthly drop in Amazon deforestation in September, but its data also showed a sharp increase in the area affect by…
Age-old Indigenous knowledge has guided the sustainable management of wilderness areas around the world: how to preserve the land, anticipating what will happen throughout the year, and adapting to how…
Traditional Amazonian populations have used fire for agricultural purposes for centuries, but leaving space for the forest to regenerate. The climate crisis, however, is making it increasingly difficult to control the fires. A project in the state of Pará promises an alternative to fight them.
Shifting rainfall patterns, especially those exacerbated by climate change, could drive large parts of the Amazon rainforest to become drier savanna, a new study has found. Rainfall acts like a…
337,427 square kilometers of Amazon forest were degraded between 1992 and 2014 ¬(mostly due to logging and understory fires), compared to 308,311 square kilometers completely cleared.