RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — In a far-flung slice of the Brazilian Amazon, a potholed highway cuts hundreds of miles through the heart of the rainforest. In its most rudimentary…
Record floods are battering the western and central Amazon, inundating Manaus and other communities and wrecking crops. To prevent future extreme weather events, deforestation and carbon emissions must be controlled.
As central and southern Brazil, along with a third of the nation's people, face the worst drought in more than 90 years, Jair Bolsonaro wrestles with how to supply water and electricity to agribusiness and to the nation.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The thick plumes of smoke stretched for miles across this slice of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, blanketing the dense rainforest surrounding it. Soon, they drifted…
Slowing the pace of mass extinctions and the climate crisis requires that nature be protected. But when it comes to protected areas, some have argued that safeguarding one area can…
The climate in the Amazon has been changing over the last few decades. The average temperature in the basin rose about 1º Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) between 1979 and 2018, with…
Amid soaring deforestation and growing criticism due to lack of transparency and persistent attempts to weaken environmental policies, the Brazilian government is now facing a new controversy regarding forest fires,…
Gold mining activities in a region of the Brazilian Amazon ravaged by illegal operations could be suspended after prosecutors filed a lawsuit this week. In its lawsuit, the Federal Public…
A recent spate of violence related to land conflicts in northeastern Brazil has targeted Indigenous people and small-scale farmers, raising concerns from activists about impunity in the region. On July…
The Amazon has long done its part to balance the global carbon budget, but new evidence suggests the climate scales are tipping in the world’s largest rainforest. Now, according to…
As the human population grows, so does our demand for food, and soy is one of the key crops meeting that demand. Found in far more than tofu, soy is…
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued on an upward trajectory in June, reports the country's national space research institute INPE. INPE's satellite-based forest monitoring system detected 1,062 square kilometers (410…
A hundred and ninety-six trees per minute. That’s how fast the forest was being cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year. A total of 29,191…
RIO DE JANEIRO — When the Portuguese fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha, a knight serving as the secretary to the…
RIO DE JANEIRO — Maracanã, Ipanema, the Lapa Arches, the Church of Our Lady of Glory of Outeiro … Millions of the visitors who flock to Brazil’s most famous city…
BOA VISTA, Brazil — When she was 24, Ariene dos Santos Lima adopted the Indigenous name Susui. In her ancestral Wapichana language, it means “flower” — the ornament that Ariene…
Behind some of the beef sold in Colombian supermarkets is a story of deforestation in protected areas and illegal armed groups who benefit from cattle ranching. The Colombian Agricultural Institute…
Oral tradition is one of the main means of transmitting knowledge between generations in Indigenous society. The elders know the specific songs for each of life’s milestones, like death, marriage,…
The signing of a peace deal in 2016 between the Colombian government and armed rebels was one of the most anticipated moments in decades for millions of Colombians. But the…
Three weeks after being named in a second probe into alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber and facing growing opposition, Brazil’s controversial environment minister, Ricardo Salles, was ousted on June 23 “upon request,” as announced in the country’s official gazette.
The renowned photographer endured the Nazi occupation. Settling in Brazil, she fought for the founding of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, long under attack by illegal miners. A new photo exhibition celebrates her life and the Yanomami people.
It was not easy for Munduruku Indigenous leaders to leave their reserve in Jacareacanga, in northern Pará state, and get to Brazil's federal capital, Brasília, to join a huge protest…
Indigenous people living near the Teles Pires and São Manoel dams in the Brazilian Amazon say the projects have polluted their river, causing health problems and wrecking the fishery. COVID-19 made things worse.
In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, a municipality in northern Amazonas state, the traditions and culture of 32 ethnic groups are the hallmarks of a daily life rich in diversity. But even here, traditional peoples face discrimination.
As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fighting off attacks and threats by…
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 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.
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.
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.
The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed more than 75% of all species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, triggered an ecological catastrophe that took the neotropical rainforests…
