Forests and Ecuador News

Today, Mongabay launches a digital version of the book, A Perfect Storm in the Amazon, by Timothy J. Killeen, an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the…

A major oil spill earlier this month in the Ecuadorian Amazon has sparked criticism of cleanup efforts and the lack of transparency from the government regarding the spill’s environmental impact.…

Protected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest experienced just one-third the amount of primary forest loss as non-protected areas, according to a new report. The Monitoring of the…

A court in Ecuador ordered oil companies to stop the hazardous practice of burning natural gas at extraction sites because it was a major driver of cancer and other illnesses…

Communities in the Intag Valley of Ecuador have won a significant legal victory after a court ruled to halt copper mining in one of the world’s most biodiverse forests. The…

Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…

With its blood-red eyes and red, black and yellow scales, the Marley’s Snail-eating snake looks like it could end your life with a bite. But this delicate snake, Sibon marleyae,…

Up in the pure water streams of the tropical Andes dwells a fantastic little creature painted with patches of color. This small wonder, the Rio Negro stream tree frog (Hyloscirtus…

Ecuador this month recognized a new reserve in the Amazon rainforest in hopes of protecting Indigenous land from threats like mining and livestock. The Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka Reserve covers 1,237,395…

Since the 1990s, communities of the Intag Valley of Ecuador have been leading a conservation campaign to protect the remaining cloud forests in this highly biodiverse region of the planet,…

INTAG VALLEY, ECUADOR — Hundreds of moths land on a white sheet, lit like a false moon in the still, dark forest. Elegant silver ones, fist-sized moths with spots on…

A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula,  an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…

Scientists say they have solved the mystery behind the periodic disappearance and reappearance of the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) across huge areas of central and South America. A new study…

We have two fascinating conversations about forests in the Americas for you on this podcast episode: the first is the story of how the Shuar Indigenous community in Ecuador recently…

Plot out all the Indigenous territories in the Amazonian region of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and you’ll get an idea of just how important conserving these lands is for…

Scientists warn that the Amazon is hurtling toward a tipping point, beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna, unable to support…

The world’s largest rainforest makes its own weather. Up to half of all the rainfall in the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as moisture is recycled from the trees…

National protests overwhelmed Ecuador in June, with Indigenous groups mobilizing in nearly every province of the country and President Guillermo Lasso announcing a state of emergency that restricted travel and…

An Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained national protections for part of its territory after decades of fighting off deforestation and pollution in its mega-diverse rainforests. Ecuador’s National System…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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.…

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…

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…