TIGUA, Ecuador – Julio Toaquiza Tigasi sits at his easel in his small roadside art gallery, painting the mountains that sit outside his window. He is painting the face of…
A team of biologists surveying remote parts of the Cordillera del Cóndor (Condor mountain range) in Ecuador’s eastern Andes have described a species of tree frog that’s new to science.…
Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
Small farmers feel the pressure as Ecuador’s palm oil sector expands The first commercial oil palm trees were planted in Ecuador in 1953. Since then, the country has become Latin…
LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador — Nemonte Nenquimo covers her face and squeezes her eyes shut as a pungent whiff of petroleum hits. She’s digging with a pole into an unmarked lagoon…
Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…
Indigenous people in Ecuador say their territorial rights are being systematically violated, according to a top United Nations official. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous…
Quito, ECUADOR - Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters took a break from his South America-Mexico tour on Tuesday to visit Ecuador and denounce oil giant Chevron Texaco. Rogers said…
The top stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, investigated Colombia’s roadkill rates; Chile’s marine forests; and Chinese energy projects in Ecuador. Mammals pay highest toll on Colombia’s highways Plans…
One of the few benefits of having a father who had to fly each week from San Francisco to meet clients in Hawaii and Alaska during my formative years was…
Alarmed by the entry of poachers who illegally cut down and stole the oldest trees from their territory, members of the Shawi indigenous community organized an assembly this past August…
The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, followed trafficking of jaguar parts in Peru and Bolivia, a strategy to limit cattle ranches in Colombia, and liberated macaws in…
Protecting tropical forests is key to mitigating climate change. When California Governor Jerry Brown convenes the Global Climate Action Summit next week, he should seize the opportunity to make an…
The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, this past week followed high-volume fishing in the Galapagos, oil drilling in Colombian cloud forests, mercury levels in the Peruvian Amazon,…
The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, in the last week investigated how human hunger is driving hunting in Venezuela (and danger for zoo animals, pictured above), how…
Ecuador’s oil palm industry has taken what many see as another step forward by committing to a jurisdictional RSPO system as a way to transform the entire sector by making it…
WIMBI, Ecuador — When Yessenia Padilla heard that her community crops were being destroyed, she and about 70 of her neighbors rushed out to intervene. They grabbed large boards, rocks,…
Bigal River Biological Reserve was created in 2008 in the foothill forests of northeastern Ecuador, on the Amazonian side of the Andean slopes. The private protected area is located in…
LA CONCORDIA, Ecuador — Jorge Jurado has been farming oil palm on Ecuador’s coast for almost 20 years, and has seen the industry go through many changes. But over the…
The Constitutional Court of Ecuador has issued a long-awaited ruling in favor of those affected by the transnational oil company Chevron, which operated through its subsidiary Texaco in Ecuador between…
Billions in backing for infrastructure by international development finance institutions (DFIs) triggered large-scale Andes Amazon deforestation from 2000-15 – a trend now poised to hit the Amazon basin: study.
At 1,200 to 3,200 meters above sea level, the montane cloud forests on the eastern Andean flank in Ecuador lie between the Andes’ high-elevation grasslands (known as páramo) and the…
Below are summaries of the most popular stories by our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, from the week of June 11 - 17. Among the top articles: Port projects in…
Among the top articles from our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, for the week of June 4 - 10 was one about a golden spectacled bear named after Paddington Bear…
Able to retreat into their hard shells, snails seem to have a pretty good defense against would-be predators. But there’s a type of snake that has evolved unique adaptations and…
After a 20-minute canoe ride down the Curaray River, past a swamp that leaves her legs caked in mud up to her knees, Obe heads toward a waterfall set amid…
SUCUMBÍOS PROVINCE, Ecuador — “The land is dead,” says Camilo Pauche as he surveys with consternation the devastation that the oil industry has left in Pacayacu, a village in the Ecuadorian Amazon.…
QUITO, Ecuador - Nearly 100 indigenous women of the Ecuadorian Amazon spent five days protesting outside the country’s Presidential Palace last week. They were demanding a meeting with President Lenin…
The struggle to protect the land and the environment in Latin America often costs lives. In 2017 alone, 116 environmental defenders were killed in the region, most of them for…