Brazilian scientist Antonio Donato Nobre has long been a student of the Amazon Rainforest. An agronomist with a master's degree in tropical biology and a Ph.D. in Earth science, Nobre…
TERRA FIRME, Brazil — Growing up, Maria de Fátima Batista often studied in the dark, using a candle or lantern for light because the riverine community where she lives in…
Throughout 2022, Colombian authorities identified the presence of 40 dredgers on the Colombian side of the Puré River, with another 200 operating on the Brazilian side, where it is known…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — “I want to see the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol territories free of invasions,” Joenia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman named president of Brazil’s national Indigenous…
JBS's sustainability-linked bonds may be audited after Mighty Earth filed a complaint against the company in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, on Jan. 17. According to the NGO,…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — Hell, tragic and terror. These are the main key words used by Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara to describe to Mongabay what the four years of…
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…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — This autumn, Mongabay had the opportunity to interview Nelly Marubo, friend and colleague of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who was brutally murdered in the Brazilian Amazon…
The escalation of violence in Brazil’s northeastern region with the murders of two young Pataxó Indigenous leaders this week triggered the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to set up…
His goal is to transform the heart of the Amazon into a cutting-edge science production hub by connecting technical expertise and Native peoples’ knowledge. If he were not the project’s…
BRASÍLIA — Since Jan. 8, the whole world has watched as Brazil gets to grips with a violent attack led by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro on key government…
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…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — In the first day of his third mandate as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, issued measures to protect the Amazon and Indigenous people, acts highly celebrated…
Large hydropower dams that obstruct the Amazon basin have long come under fire for their environmental and cultural impact — Belo Monte being the most prominent example. Yet a bigger…
The protected swathes of primary Amazon Rainforest in the Paru State Forest in the north of Brazil became the fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, official data show. Illegal land-grabbing…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — “The right of those who used to live here to access the cemetery is in the [Brazilian] Constitution. … The cemetery is a sacred place,” sociologist…
Six months ago, more than 100 Indigenous people from five different ethnic groups entered the Itaquaí River, close to the city of Atalaia do Norte, in the Javari Valley, in…
Record fires, climate change, large-scale agriculture, deforestation and a proposed industrial waterway collectively threaten the world’s largest tropical wetland — a biodiversity hotspot and home to jaguars.
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — With trembling hands, Raimundo Serrão lights candles for his grandmother at the Livramento Cemetery's cross on the Day of the Dead because he couldn't find her…
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…
Officials and NGOs have hailed the European Union's agreement on a law banning the import of commodities associated with deforestation, but say it falls short of protecting areas typically not…
At the recently concluded COP27 climate summit in Egypt, 14 major agricultural commodity companies, including Cargill, ADM and JBS, released a plan to end deforestation associated with the production of…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center. WAIKAS, Brazil — From up above, long, massive, yellowish stains tear apart…
Artisanal gold mining is driving the global demand for mercury, with 2,058 metric tons of the toxic metal contaminating water, land and air every year, according to a recent report…
Palm oil production is leaving a deep mark on the rivers and forests of Latin America. Between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 palm oil…
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…
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil on Oct. 30 in a close runoff with incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. But voters of eight out of the 10…
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…
Organized crime cartels and Chinese laborers continue draining the Amazon of jaguars and other endangered species, threatening ecosystems with collapse.
