Scientists warn that we are approaching the Amazon biome tipping point, but proposed solutions in Brazil appear stillborn, politically impractical or lack sufficient scale and/or funding.
An average 75% of respondents in 12 European nations say the gigantic EU-Mercosur trade pact should not be ratified if Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil doesn’t end Amazon deforestation; EU governments are listening.
With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its…
Swamps, sloughs, marshes, bogs, fens; water purification, flood control, wildlife nurseries, nutrient providers, carbon sinks: wetlands have many names and serve many environmental purposes. But for centuries they have been…
Between April and November last year, the government of the Brazilian state of Bahia authorized agribusinesses to collect nearly 2 billion liters (528 million gallons) of water a day.
For citizens of the Netherlands and Japan, the dream of a comfortable retirement is fueling an environmental nightmare in the Amazon. Three of the biggest pension funds in thse countries,…
Today we’re taking a look at how agroforestry, an ancient indigenous technology that is increasingly being adopted by farmers around the world, can help solve many of the major environmental…
Brazil’s Ferrovia Paraense (FEPASA) railroad will run from Pará state’s rainforest interior to the Amazon estuary; traditional communities say they haven’t yet been consulted as required by international law.
The advent of the Amazon soy moratorium in 2006 seemed to usher in a new era of hope for ending deforestation for food production in the world’s largest rainforest. From…
Smallholders and family farms, Indigenous people, rural women, youth, and landless rural communities are being squeezed into increasingly smaller parcels of land or forced out entirely as global land inequality…
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.
Eight French supermarket chains will now require that their suppliers obtain soybeans that were not grown on deforested land, according to the Washington, D.C.-based environmental NGO Mighty Earth. The announcement…
Brazil’s major meat companies say they want to implement full traceability of cattle by 2025. But Brazil already has the necessary tools to identify cattle farmers who cut forest illegally.
This article is a one year follow up to the award-winning series, The Great Insect Dying published in June, 2019 on Mongabay. The original series documents insect losses in Europe, the U.S. and the tropics — here’s what we know today.
JAKARTA — Observers and activists have raised concerns about the leading role the Indonesian government plans to give to the military and to big corporations in a program to establish…
Maned wolves, pumas, giant anteaters, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals are threatened with local extinctions unless more conserved areas are established in Brazil’s savanna biome, say scientists.
Meatpackers in the Amazon are eyeing the Chinese market, but their certification is often the result of intense pressure amid systematic failures to consider environmental requirements.
The prominent placement of Brazil’s three biggest meatpackers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — on the country’s stock exchange has seen them net $121 million in investments.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is doubling down on a plan to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country, in a move that threatens widespread deforestation and the disenfranchisement of…
Wall Street fund manager BlackRock administers 2.2 billion reais ($408 million) in shares in the three largest Brazilian meatpackers operating in the Amazon today. The cattle purchase and slaughter operations…
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines. But they are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.
Nestled in the far reaches of eastern Cambodia lies Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nation’s most vital areas of protected forest and a haven for rare wildlife. Yet…
A recent report shows that one of the world’s most highly regarded, and wealthiest, universities invested heavily in land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands, where land-grabbing and other environmental crimes are rife.
Despite a growing realization worldwide of the need for environmentally responsible investing, financial institutions and fund managers who have otherwise committed to going green are still funding the sector most responsible for deforestation.
While individual investors have no idea where their money is applied, large finance firms camouflage participation in companies that foment tree-cutting in the Amazon.
For two years, regions of Brazil that depend on precipitation fed by Amazonian vegetation have seen rainfall below historical averages, impacting crops and harvests. A recent bulletin from a federal agency points to agribusiness itself as one of the drivers of this pattern.
When Hans Peter Lankes, a top official at the International Finance Corporation, visited Madagascar in February, he made it a point to tour the IFC-backed BoViMa facility near the southern…
In an episode of the Netflix dystopian sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” artificial bees have been deployed to pollinate the world’s plants after a massive pollinator extinction. A great idea, until…
Brazil is well positioned to benefit from forest restoration and agroforestry, but policies in states like Maranhão fail to address that potential and could contribute to further deforestation.
