Illegal miners attacked and tried to block Indigenous leaders in Brazil’s Amazon from traveling to the country’s capital to protest invasions of their lands and violence against their people, in…
A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says. The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since…
This piece was originally published on Atmos as Paid in Blood on June 7, 2021. It has been republished here with the permission of Atmos. Fernando dos Santos Araújo woke…
Destruction of Earth's largest rainforest is accelerating ahead of the region's peak fire and deforestation season, reveals data released today by Brazil's national space research institute INPE. According to INPE's…
A gold mining impacts calculator launched this week is the first to offer Brazilian authorities and society a consistent science-based formula for calculating the social and economic costs of the industrial-scale illegal mining operations that have swept the Brazilian Amazon, experts say.
Situated deep in the middle of Brazil, Xingu Indigenous Park encompasses some of the most biodiverse rainforest in the country and is home to dozens of Indigenous communities and a…
The Amazon Indigenous group — utilizing lessons learned from the disease-ridden contact period — is protecting itself from the pandemic ravaging Brazil, and documenting its success story on video.
Satellite imagery reveals several areas of primary rainforest were cleared alongside agricultural fields in the Brazilian Amazon, all in close proximity to Indigenous and protected lands. In March, the Global…
Chinese banks and investors funneled billions of dollars into global agribusinesses driving deforestation in the past seven years, according to new analysis published by eco-watchdog Global Witness. The report, released…
132 Amazon protected areas have been offered for adoption, with three transnational companies signing on so far (French Carrefour, Dutch Heineken, and U.S. Coca Cola). Activists say traditional peoples are not being consulted.
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.
Ricardo Salles publicly sided with suspected illegal loggers following a record timber seizure, but claims his interference in the police operation wasn’t a crime
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon last month reached the highest level in any May since at least 2007, reports Brazil's national space research institute INPE. The new data come as…
The Caatinga is the most densely populated semiarid region in the world and the only exclusively Brazilian biome. The region needs assistance to prevent it from becoming an immense desert.…
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…
Land conflicts in Brazil hit 1,576 cases in 2020, the highest number ever recorded by the Catholic Church-affiliated Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), which has been keeping track of the issue…
Brazil is internationally known for its astonishing biodiversity. Nevertheless, there is another natural heritage for which Brazil should also be recognized: its caves. As a continental-sized country, with a rich…
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 COVID-19 pandemic has raised plenty of questions about whether the planet's declining health is what ails humans. The answer is yes, and it’s not a metaphorical response. Distorting the…
The Xingu River Basin, one of the most biodiverse regions of the Brazilian Amazon, is reeling from an explosion of illegal deforestation that has coincided with the rise and presidency…
An expansive clearing of primary forest has been detected in a protected area in the Brazilian Amazon, possibly driven by illegal mining activities. In March, the Global Land Analysis and…
On March 25, water from a pond owned by Canadian miner Equinox Gold spilled over its embankments in the Brazilian state of Maranhão amid heavy rain. The water flowed into…
What growls, chirps, chuckles and swims in the swift flowing rivers of Central and South America? A new study reveals that neotropical river otters (Lontra longicaudis) have a rich repertoire…
Twenty-four years ago, an Indigenous leader was set on fire and killed in Brazil’s capital as a “joke.” Today, little seems to have changed, say Indigenous people living in Brasília.
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.
Tropical forests around the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate, even in 2020 when the global economy slowed dramatically during the pandemic. A new report released this week…
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.
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
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…
