Prosecutors in Brazil have demanded immediate remedial action following a leak of waste from the Pitinga tin mine into rivers that serve Indigenous communities in the Amazonian reserve of Waimiri-Atroari.
In recent weeks, nine major fires have ignited in the Brazilian Amazon, heralding the start of another fire season which, after a particularly dry year, experts say could be a…
Wildcat miners fired shots and set houses ablaze in an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon this week, fueling worries among Indigenous rights groups of further violent attacks by gold…
The satellite’s eye view from high above northern Peru in mid-2013 laid out a stark reality: Ecologist Matt Finer and his colleagues were watching “blow by blow” in a series of…
After a week of violent clashes with illegal gold miners in Roraima state, the Yanomami people’s calls for federal help have remained unanswered. The government will incur daily fines of 1 million reais ($189,000) if the delay exceeds June 5.
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
A week after Brazil’s Lower House of Congress approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has been named in a probe for alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber, following a Federal Supreme Court ruling on May 19.
Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon are dying at twice the officially recorded rate from COVID-19, according to an independent study that also found a higher rate of infections than…
While Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state, Brazil’s Lower House approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, further endangering the country’s ecosystems and traditional communities.
An unprecedented lawsuit by an Indigenous group that was once nearly wiped out seeks $8.2 million in damages for continued invasions and destruction of their territory
In Brazil’s beef industry, meatpackers or slaughterhouses that are monitored and audited to comply with zero-deforestation purchasing criteria compete against facilities that flout the rules. Ranches with the space and…
At least two top Indigenous leaders in Brazil, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Suruí, were recently summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of slander against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
The Brazilian president is making big promises to reduce Amazon deforestation, even as he moves to legalize large scale land theft with potentially catastrophic results for Earth’s climate and the Amazon.
The climate and environmental crisis the world has long been experiencing is embedded in concern for future generations. But research shows that consequences are already affecting the world's population and…
That Indigenous peoples and traditional populations are the most important forest guardians in Latin America and the Caribbean is an established fact. A report released in March by the United…
From 2009 to 2018, Brazil recorded an annual deforestation rate of 6,493 square kilometers (2,507 square miles), on the back of policies aimed at slowing the destruction of the Amazon.…
In early March, the fish markets in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Manaus were full of fresh and dazzling specimens of local species such as matrinxã (Brycon amazonicus) and tambaqui…
In recent days, U.S. and Brazilian negotiators engaged behind closed doors to clinch an Amazon protection deal. So far, they’re stalemated, with Brazil asking for money and the U.S. seeking proof of real commitment.
For decades it was the only freshwater dolphin species in the world not considered threatened by human activity. The tucuxi of the Amazon held out even as similar species in…
A military operation against environmental violations in the Brazilian Amazon is coming to a close this month after nearly two years, But the show of force, backed by $71 million…
The science journal Biological Conservation published a special issue this month with a series of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on biodiversity. Among the articles selected is one by…
Anglo American has up to 86 applications pending to mine on Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon — a practice that is currently prohibited but could soon be allowed under a controversial bill. The company has refused to commit not to mine on Indigenous lands, yet also claims it never intended to do so when it and its two Brazilian subsidiaries filed nearly 300 applications for that very purpose.
Something is wrong in the lungs of the world. Decades of burning, logging, mining and development have tipped the scales, and now the Amazon Basin may be emitting more greenhouse…
Countless of them were massacred over centuries, and their eggs pilfered by the hundreds of millions. Today, the Arrau turtle is a rare species conservation success story in the Brazilian…
The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
A controversial freight railway line that would cut through Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon looks set to be approved for construction by the federal government as soon as April,…
IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, has reversed itself, allowing Norte Energia, operator of the mega-dam, to divert water flow to turbines, potentially wrecking the river’s Big Bend Indigenous and traditional fishery.
Scattered in the countryside around the municipalities of Itaituba and Jacareacanga in Brazil’s Pará state, gold mining operations run by the family of a notorious convicted enslaver have have subjected…
It happened the way it so often does in Colombia: the government announced a new official appointment and outrage ensued. As the year 2020 drew to a close, the minister…
Impunity still reigns when it comes to the murders of human rights defenders around the world, according to the Front Line Defenders organization, in its global analysis of 2020. The…
