Latin America News

‘Multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth,’ warned Pope Francis, urging conservation of the rapidly vanishing Amazon — but the world’s media barely took notice.

Local forest managers in southeastern Mexico are sounding the alarm that their livelihoods are under threat, as companies press for access to the region’s gold, silver and other minerals. “They…

An illegal armed group connected to land grabbers killed four members of the indigenous Mayangna people, left two injured and burned 16 houses in northern Nicaragua on Jan. 29, according…

A new analysis based on estimated deforestation in the Amazon in 2019 pinpoints hotspots of forest loss and identifies several country-specific trends in the region. The figures project that deforestation…

For three years, the Bandeiras e Rodovias project looked at how giant anteaters interacted with the highways in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. One of the conclusions: road deaths have cut the species' growth rate in half.

A new initiative by Nutreco, Tesco and Grieg Seafood pledges $13 million to pay soy growers not to deforest the savanna for new soy fields. More are hoped to join the fund.

Soy-driven deforestation is destroying Brazil’s savanna; the Bergamaschi family is committed to sustainable soy, but the EU government and consumers aren’t — so far.

Despite global concern over last year's catastrophic forest destruction and associated fires in Earth's largest rainforest, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continues to rise, according to data from Brazil's national…

Legislation would open indigenous reserves in Amazon and across Brazil to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, ranching, agribusiness, new dams and tourism.

SANTIAGO, Chile — In late January 2019, as Juan Nahoe Hereveri awaited questioning in the Easter Island courthouse, people gathered outside, shouting, swearing revenge, and calling for his death. The…

A degraded secondary forest in Brazil stores carbon at only twice the rate of primary forest, compared to up to 11 times elsewhere; scientists could be overestimating Amazon carbon storage capacity.

Looking back, 2019 was a year of mixed outcomes for Ecuador’s environmental agenda. The country’s ongoing economic crisis fossil fuel dependence will likely continue to fuel clashes with communities protecting…

Gold mining in just 23,613 hectares (58,349 acres) of the Peruvian Amazon forest — an area about twice the size of the city of Paris — emitted as much carbon…

Tech giant Microsoft says it will go “carbon negative” by 2030; to get there, it will rely on Pachama, a startup using LIDAR and artificial intelligence to truthfully track forest carbon storage projects.

Under the sea, jutting into the Pacific from the southern Peruvian department of Ica, rises a mountain range called Dorsal de Nasca. The 93 submarine mountains harbor more than 1,100…

Video footage of a pack of rarely-seen bush dogs has been captured by a camera trap at a ranch in eastern Bolivia. The footage, provided exclusively to Mongabay, was captured…

For more than 50 years, the Xavante indigenous group has been fighting to regain sovereignty of the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Reserve in Mato Grosso state. The most recent obstacle is the federal government's plan to pave BR-158, the interstate highway that cuts through the middle of the reserve.

In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.

Study finds that worsening Amazon fires are melting Andean glaciers; soot builds up on snow, absorbing more solar radiation. Melting source isn’t accounted for in current climate models.

Three European countries have put up $366 million in foreign aid to fight deforestation in Colombia’s Amazon. The region’s rate of forest loss remains stubbornly high, up 97% since the…