Latin America News

The collapse of the San Rafael waterfall on Feb. 2 and the accelerated regressive erosion that began to occur on the riverbed and edges of the Coca River have turned…

New satellite data shows major tree loss, while Brazil’s VP cherry picks the findings, according to experts. Meanwhile, the environment minister appears to welcome illegal miners’ demands for less enforcement.

While MRN, a mining firm makes big profits working within, and harming, a Brazilian conservation unit, traditional people can be fined for collecting Brazil nuts and fishing sustainably in a nearby protected area.

An area of rainforest larger than the city of São Paulo was cleared during the month of July, bringing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon to 9,205 square kilometers over the…

Argentina’s Paraná Delta is on fire, and conservationists are sounding the alarm, warning that this major ecosystem could be devastated beyond repair. The delta system, which spans 19,300 square kilometers…

In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to…

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.

A canopy of thick smoke blanketed a vast patch of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, stretching as far as the eye could see. Underneath, flames were engulfing the yellowed grasslands of the…

This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fifth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…

In April, Brazil’s environment minister urged Pres. Bolsonaro to “run the cattle,” using the nation’s focus on COVID-19 as a diversion to dismantle environmental rule of law; some new executive acts appear to do just that.

Gold mining can demolish Amazon rainforest in just a few days. New research finds that the impacted forest does not recover even 3-4 years after a mine is abandoned.

The recent deaths of four Indigenous Yanomami babies and subsequent disappearance of their bodies from a hospital in Brazil have revealed yet another hardship in the way the coronavirus pandemic has impacted Indigenous communities.

This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fourth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…

In some Indigenous languages, two words are just not enough to convey everything encompassed by the phrase “climate change.” Alejo López, who speaks one of the varieties of Chinantec that…

Brazilian NGO flyovers show that indigenous reserves — including Munduruku lands in the Tapajós basin — are being illegally invaded and deforested by miners likely funded and directed by elite land speculators.

In early July, the Ashaninka indigenous people from Brazil launched a fundraising campaign to encourage food production in communities living near their territory. The “Ashaninka for the Peoples of the Forest” campaign plans to raise $200,000 to distribute food, farming tools and fishing gear to 1,800 local families, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Well organized global crime networks are pulling millions of tropical birds, fish, turtles and mammals out of the Amazon — a lucrative trade that is destroying ecosystems and putting public health at risk.

It’s a warm May morning in 2015, and beneath a chorus of birds and insects, a small gray-brown dog plops down in front of a camera perched in the Amazon…

This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the third installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…

The new Science Panel for the Amazon — modeled on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — aims to consolidate knowledge on the Amazon rainforest and guide future public policies to conserve it.

Niobium is an important element used as a steel additive in the making of cars, planes, nuclear weapons, and even piercings. Jair Bolsonaro would like to see it actively mined, even in indigenous reserves.

Protecting 30% of the world’s land and oceans would cost $140 billion annually with the target reached by 2030; that’s less than annual video game expenditures, and offers gigantic paybacks, researchers say.

This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the second installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…

In Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation rate, communities inside Tapajós National Forest have for the past 15 years run one of the most successful native timber management projects.

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.

In a step towards understanding the impending Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, scientists have quantified the knock-on effect that drought and deforestation have on each other for the first time.

JBS, a Brazilian company repeatedly accused of “laundering cattle” in the past, has again allegedly been caught purchasing livestock illegally reared in an Amazonian indigenous reserve in Rondônia state, Brazil.

Pac-Man walks quickly, wags the tip of his tail, and shows off his fangs while panting. Suddenly he stops and slightly raises his left rear leg. He turns to see…

Jan Erik Saugestad, executive vice president of Norway’s Storebrand Asset Management, who has led an international pressure campaign against deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, says the government must back up its promises with action to reverse the rising trend.

Farmers, ranchers, and land speculators in the Brazilian Amazon are continuing to burn forests despite an official government ban on burning in the region, reveal photographs released today by Greenpeace…