Rainforest Deforestation News

Indigenous group entered Brazilian museum and retrieved sacred funeral urns that courts said were rightly theirs, but which dam construction firm and authorities kept from them.

Amazon mega-dam was built with 11,233 MW capacity, but has fallen far short, even as deforestation and drought make the goal more remote. The US$9.5 billion dam may never be profitable.

Farmers and irregular occupants in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre are enjoying newfound political power and pressuring for the reduction of the first protected area of its kind in Brazil as it approaches its 30th anniversary in March.

Three indigenous men in Amazonas state, and two peasant farmers in Maranhão, have been killed so far this month in violence experts say is spurred by Pres. Bolsonaro’s policies.

JAKARTA — Environmental activists have called on the Indonesian government to swiftly crack down on plantation companies operating in protected forests, after the country’s highest court ruled such activities illegal.…

Once used for leisure, navigation and fishing, almost all of the 150 small waterways, or igarapés, in the Amazonian city of Manaus are totally polluted. Experts say it could take up 30 years for them to recover, while others are considered “dead.”

Transnational mining firms are in a rush to get access to the protected Amazon as the Bolsonaro administration plots with them to mine in RENCA and indigenous reserves.

PALEMBANG, Indonesia — A spate of recent tiger attacks on farmers in Indonesia's South Sumatra province has renewed calls from experts to protect wildlife habitats from development projects that threaten…

Land grabbers and agribusiness are the big beneficiaries of new, little publicized policies; Amazon forests, indigenous and traditional peoples are the big losers.

A legal battle brewing since 2013 is coming to a head as the Mura people resist a Potássio do Brasil transnational mining project that could change their way of life for good or ill, forever.

The town of Autazes has potash deposits vital to agribusiness; the Potássio do Brasil mine wants to open, but remains blocked — it lies on the land of the Mura indigenous group.

A researcher at the INPE Center of Land System Science, Antonio Donato Nobre, describes the state of degradation threatening the future of the Amazon rainforest in an exclusive interview with Mongabay.

Brazil started the decade as an example to the world, dramatically curbing Amazon deforestation, but under Jair Bolsonaro the nation is moving toward ecological ruin.

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has fined an palm oil company $1.8 million for fires that occurred on its concession in 2015, capping a four-year ordeal by the government to…

The Amazon worst-case scenario has arrived, say leading researchers, as predicted signs of a shift from rainforest-to-savanna begin to be seen in real time on the ground.

JAKARTA — Land and forest fires in Indonesia cost the country $5.2 billion in damage and economic losses this year, equivalent to 0.5% of its economy, according to a new…

Scientists warn that escalating deforestation due to mining, agribusiness and other human disturbance is reducing the ability of intact tropical forests to sequester carbon.

JAKARTA — Indonesia has launched a campaign that government officials say should boost the reputation of the country’s palm oil industry, even as activists and experts warn it could make…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian NGO has filed a complaint with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), alleging deforestation carried out by pulpwood firms linked to Indonesia’s wealthiest individual and supplying two…

Three indigenous Guajajara were killed in the last six days in the Amazonian state of Maranhão, making 2019 the country’s deadliest years for indigenous leaders in two decades. In total, 10 indigenous people were murdered so far this year; seven of them were leaders.