Rainforest Mining News

A recent publication confirmed that inhabitants of the indigenous Nahua population, located in the Santa Rosa de Serjali community in the Ucayali Region of Peru, have high levels of mercury…

A small community, far from Venezula’s Orinoco Mining Arc, discovers gold, leading to an incursion by illegal miners, environmental devastation and an allegedly deadly army raid.

Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that's found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it's also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live…

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%.

The Norwegian mining giant has denied a new toxic spill in Brazil at its Alunorte aluminum refining facility, but admits to a “clandestine pipeline to discharge untreated effluent.”

Operational in 2016, the Belo Monte mega-dam has done lasting damage to forests, fisheries, livelihoods, and indigenous and traditional communities (photo story).

JAKARTA — Environmental issues in Indonesia will once again be both bargaining chip and valuable stake this year as the country prepares to hold sweeping elections, according to an environmental…

A recent study finds that when parks and reserves don’t do a good job of safeguarding the forest they contain, they’re more likely to be stripped of their status as…

JAKARTA — The world lost nearly 150,000 orangutans from the island of Borneo in the past 16 years due to habitat loss and killing, and is on track to lose…

JAKARTA — Zely Ariane, an editor at the Tabloid Jubi newspaper in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, gets frustrated each time an acquaintance travels there and asks to meet up…

As Venezuela sinks into chaos and violence, Pres. Maduro rushes to salvage its sinking economy by selling off the nation’s natural legacy in the Orinoco Mining Arc – analysis.

SEKALAK, Indonesia — The inhabitants of Sekalak village, in this forested region of southern Sumatra, have for generations passed down the legend of Puyang Baju Lantung, a man who was…

Venezuela has proposed the Arco Minero and Petro cryptocurrency, backed by the nation’s oil and mineral wealth, as solutions to its economic crisis. Critics say it won’t work.

Visit by Pope Francis to Peru brought needed attention to Amazon deforestation and indigenous suffering due to illegal mining, but will the pontiff’s words be a game changer?

Pope Francis will visit one of the Peruvian Amazon’s most threatened regions today, where the leader of the Catholic Church is expected to address escalating deforestation and uncertainty about indigenous…

Experts say 2017 Brazilian wildfires were caused not principally by drought, but mostly set by people, and worsened by human-caused forest degradation. Agency budget cuts worsened the crisis.

In 2016, President Maduro declared the Arco Minero; today thousands of indigenous people are being impacted by a mining boom that endangers their lives and culture.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — The government of Indonesia’s Aceh province will reject applications for new mineral and coal-mining projects in the region for another half year, in a bid to…

While surveying the rainforests of eastern Ghana’s Atewa mountain range, scientists stumbled upon a surprise as they were checking footage from their camera traps: monkeys with long tails and distinctive,…

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.