ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly…
Between 2004 and 2012, Brazil was able to slash deforestation by nearly 84% with a series of policies known as PPCDAm, a major instrument in reducing environmental destruction in the…
In 2007, Ecuador’s then-president, Rafael Correa, announced an ambitious plan to prevent oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas and home to the Indigenous…
A transnational, large-scale restoration strategy for the Amazon basin would allow the countries that share it to create an alternative future for the world’s largest tropical forest, by making it…
When Takushi Sato left Japan for Belém, Brazil, in 1971, he never imagined what he would go through. By 2000, as the manager of a timber company that shipped Brazilian…
Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu region, in Pará; project foresees the extraction of 74 tons of gold in 20 years of operation.
Residents of a landless worker’s settlement in Anapu, Pará state in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the Federal Government of favoring large landowners, land grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
At his inauguration on Jan. 1 as Brazil’s new president, Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated a promise to reach zero deforestation and to recover degraded land. He’d already made the…
NOVA CALIFÓRNIA, Brazil — Hamilton Condack smiles and points to a towering ipê tree rooted in the plot of land where he lives and produces food. “When I first got…
The new Brazilian president pledges to protect the Amazon, Indigenous peoples and their lands, ending illegal mining, logging and land grabbing. But he must deal with a largely hostile congress and “not enough” international forest funding.
As a Black Amazonian woman, former environment minister and just-elected congresswoman, Marina Silva is one of the most complex and fascinating figures in current Brazilian politics. As the daughter of…
Soy cultivation and cattle ranching are two of the biggest drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. But instead of clearing more forest area for farmland, what if soy was…
You probably haven’t heard of Vieira’s titi, a monkey found only in the Brazilian Amazon. Until recently, even researchers knew so little about it that they couldn’t determine its conservation…
At the heart of Brazil’s “arc of deforestation,” the São Nicolau Farm has become a demonstration reforestation project, designing and refining tropical reforestation techniques on 2,000 hectares of degraded pastureland.
Scientists warn that the Amazon is hurtling toward a tipping point, beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna, unable to support…
Brazil has lost a Belgium-sized swath of the Amazon Rainforest since Jair Bolsonaro took office as the country’s president at the start of 2019. Deforestation has soared under his administration,…
Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance. In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after reading my articles and hearing…
Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…
A new guide published in May is helping companies make smarter decisions about purchasing tropical forest credits, a strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, slowing deforestation and mitigating climate change.…
Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian rainforest. According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon microbasins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
The Amazon Rainforest is resilient: the largest rainforest on the planet has been around for at least 55 million years, surviving repeated ice ages and warming. But human impacts, combined…
Farmers with land interdicted by environmental authorities were granted loans with public money through a bank that belongs to the world’s largest agricultural machinery manufacturer.
Felipe “Pipe” Henao is a young environmentalist from the small town of Calamar in southeastern Colombia. At the meeting point of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, it’s an area of…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the…
Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
A first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots across the Amazon shows that Brazil, once again, has the grim distinction of being a leader in destruction. Massive areas of forest…
New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
