Saving The Amazon News

A surge in Amazon deforestation is trending this year, with a 22 percent rise from August 2017 to May 2018. Experts say land thieves and politics may be at the heart of the problem.

Increases in greenhouse gas levels are closing plant stomata (tiny pores in leaves); the plants then retain more water, potentially altering tropical rain patterns: study.

The unintended consequences of a U.S./China trade war could shift Chinese soy purchases from the U.S. to Brazil, leading to rising Amazon deforestation, and a hazardous climate change tipping point.

Both species of Amazon river dolphin declined by over 90 percent between 1994-2017 in an Amazonas state reserve, mostly due to hunting and fishing: study.

Gold mine owners have polluted a river in Brazil’s Tapajós basin and placed a price on the heads of resisting Munduruku leaders. A federal raid in May failed to stem the conflict.

The Netherlands for more than a decade has quietly supported Brazil’s plan for the Northern Corridor; road, rail and port projects that would do major harm to the Amazon, harm the Dutch disregarded.

Brazilian loggers have faked forest inventories and issued phony timber credits to harvest Ipê trees exported to U.S. and Europe. Importers often turn a blind eye: report.

A coalition of environmental analysts has a practical plan to end deforestation in the Amazon, and to boost agribusiness production and profit across the region. It starts by everyone sitting down at a table.

Most oil palm production in Pará state has so far been on degraded lands, but researchers warn a coming Brazilian oil palm boom could result in large-scale Amazon deforestation.

Brazil’s bancada ruralista has attached a wave of riders to bills in Congress that could overthrow the nation’s environmental and indigenous protections. There is a high chance of passage.

In January 2018, two officials announced an end to plans for Brazilian mega-dams; both have since been replaced, and to date, no planned dams have been cancelled.

“What’s going to drive you off this land is hunger,” an official from ICMBio, the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation, cautioned fishing families and settlers living along the mid-reaches…

“Grazing the Amazon,” a new film, is winning international acclaim and bringing public attention to severe deforestation caused by cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon.

Indigenous and traditional groups united in a protest last week in Brazil’s capitol seeking territory demarcation, consultation on infrastructure projects, and an end to violence.

Brazil is reporting its CO2 emissions within U.N. guidelines, but the nation’s true carbon releases due to forest degradation, wildfires and other key sources could be far higher.

In a win for the environment, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of executive orders to reduce conservation unit size. Also, Brazil conserved 1.2 million hectares last week.

Thirty-eight environmental and social groups are demanding an end to indigenous intimidation by a dam building consortium on the Teles Pires River that includes Chinese and Portuguese firms.

The Temer administration ignored UN letters warning of threats to land defenders and environmentalists, and condemning Brazil’s record number of activist murders.

Nearly 50 percent of Brazil’s lower house of congress received political donations from companies and individuals who committed environmental crimes, raising questions about influence peddling.

The struggle to protect the land and the environment in Latin America often costs lives. In 2017 alone, 116 environmental defenders were killed in the region, most of them for…