Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.
In the coming weeks and months, a number of Guatemalan palm oil producers are expecting to receive memberships in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a move that…
A wave of announcements by the Bolsonaro administration threatens indigenous reserves, could worsen deforestation and bring major environmental harm: experts.
Bolsonaro has backed off from Paris withdrawal “for now,” but his actions imply emissions exceeding Brazil’s carbon cut pledge.
A Brazilian official last week announced plans to build an Amazon River bridge, Trombetas River dam, and highway thru what he called “desert-like” rainforest.
Agribusiness, well backed by government, is hailed an “economic miracle.” But family farms, with nominal help, provide 70% of the food Brazilians eat.
The Cerrado biome, covering 20 percent of Brazil, has seen rapid deforestation in the 21st century; a recent report says that much of this is driven by soy grown to feed livestock, which feeds Brazilians.
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.
On his first day in office, Brazil’s new president shifted the demarcation responsibility for indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, potentially putting the Amazon at risk, critics say.
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…
South America’s Gran Chaco is a hot, semi-arid biome that stretches from eastern Bolivia down through western Paraguay into Argentina, barely touching Brazil on its way. It’s characterized by sparse…
As Grainrail, the BR-163 and BR-319 highways, and other transport projects improve Amazon access, they attract land thieves ready to kill.
The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.
Brazil created 11 conservation units to protect the Amazon’s Purus-Madeira moist forest from development due to the BR-319 highway, but to date the preserves mostly exist only on paper.
From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan…
Jair Bolsonaro pledged to leave the Paris accord during his presidential run. But his Amazon agribusiness and mining expansion plans may pose a far bigger threat to forests and global climate.
Agribusiness desperately wants Grainrail built, but it poses a clear threat to 20 indigenous territories, and to the livelihoods of Amazonia’s truckers. A battle could be brewing.
The Brazilian government’s fraternization with Amazon dam building consortiums, mining firms, and agribusiness can leave little room for local people’s rights: analysis.
Nearly 70 percent of all investigated foreign capital going to 9 major soy and beef firms responsible for major Amazon deforestation was transferred through tax havens between 2000-2011.
