Conservationists recently awoke to the extraordinary value of the Cerrado - a biodiverse biome long outshone by the Amazon and a key carbon sink; but agribusiness is fast destroying it.
Most environmentalists expect more deforestation in the Amazon and elsewhere due to last week’s high court ruling upholding the constitutionality of much of the 2012 New Forest Code.
A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.
Forest fires are no longer driven mainly by deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, with climate change induced drought now taking a major role.
La Paya National Park sits on the edge of the Amazon rainforest along southern Colombia’s border with Ecuador and Peru. It comprises more than 4,200 square kilometers (1,620 square miles)…
President Temer, pressed by the ruralist lobby, attacked indigenous and traditional land rights, conserved lands, and Amazon forests this year, and retreated from Brazil's Paris climate goal – analysis.
Parts of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, leaked by Greenpeace, reveal incentives to radically push Latin American soy and beef production and exports, putting rainforests and global climate at risk.
Brazil’s Temer has forgiven 6o percent of $3.5 billion in fines for environmental crimes, so long as perpetrators pay other 40 percent. No new means of enforcement was announced.
Conservationists call for total halt to deforestation and implementation of sustainable agroforestry in Brazilian state of Maranhão.
Indians decry Temer’s backing of “marco temporal,” which could negate legal indigenous claims to millions of hectares in the Amazon and elsewhere, protestors say.
Brazil’s president approves new criteria for indigenous land demarcation to deny Indians their traditional lands; opens door to elite land thieves, agribusiness, opponents say.
Satellites are mechanical reporters of the Amazon deforestation process. By documenting the degradation and gaps created by the clear-cutting process over the years, they deliver the verdict: two-thirds of the…
The earth's forests have been broken into around 50 million fragments, the edges of which add up to a length that would make it a third of the way to…
When one thinks of cattle ranchers destroying the Amazon rainforest, one usually thinks of Brazil. And for good reason: cattle ranching continues to be the leading cause of deforestation in…
New evidence that global pasture extent is declining presents an important conservation opportunity, according to a researcher. Some 62 million hectares of pasture (about 153 million acres, an area three…
A pastured sheep near the Chimborazo volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. Photo by Guido Alvarez. As tropical forests around the world are cleared for human development, scientists and conservationists are…
Biologists may have discovered essential information that could help trees overcome specific grass species on tropical forest restoration sites What happens to degraded pastureland once the cows are kicked out?…
Pasture with rainforest behind in the Lacandon rainforest. Photo by: Alejandro Linares Garcia. Tropical reforestation is not easy, especially in abandoned pasturelands. But a new study in mongabay.com's open access…
An interview with Roberto Smeraldi, founder and director of Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira. One of the loudest voices calling for reduction of forest clearing in the Brazilian Amazon…
