Indigenous reserves and other conserved lands in nine Amazonian nations are under extreme pressure as roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, fires and deforestation encroach.
13 tons of oxygen-starved fish died as water filled the new Sinop dam reservoir, a project of French firm Electricité de France (EDF), along with Brazilian companies.
As part of a wave of rural violence sweeping Amazonia, dam activist Dilma Ferreira Silva, her husband and a friend were brutally murdered last Friday; a large scale landowner is in custody.
The dourada, one of the Amazon’s goliath catfish species, plus other commercially valuable migratory fish stocks crashed after Santo Antônio and Jirau dams were built, say researchers.
Indigenous groups will be consulted but have no veto, says Brazilian mining minister as he announces opening indigenous reserves to mining in opposition to constitutional law.
Bolsonaro, using a justification of national security, is fast-tracking construction of 125-kilometers of powerline through the Waimiri Atroari indigenous reserve.
With 3,700 dams in the planning stages worldwide, it is time for governments and builders to consider the true socio-environmental cost of hydroelectric dams before building them: study.
The Sinop Dam has become a critical test case — not only on the question of clearing reservoirs before filling, but also on the real effect of Brazil’s environmental legislation…
On February 20, Nature published a comment on hydropower claiming that dams are good for the climate and should be subsidized through the Climate Bonds initiative, a proposal that is…
An upcoming Amazon Synod at which Catholic clergy from nine Amazon nations will discuss ecological, indigenous and climate issues is seen by Brazil as international interference.
Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.
A catastrophic 2019 Vale tailings dam collapse in Brumadinho – with 100s feared dead – shows Brazil has learned little since the similar 2015 Bento Rodrigues disaster.
A wave of announcements by the Bolsonaro administration threatens indigenous reserves, could worsen deforestation and bring major environmental harm: experts.
Bolsonaro has backed off from Paris withdrawal “for now,” but his actions imply emissions exceeding Brazil’s carbon cut pledge.
The collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil has killed at least 58 people and left hundreds more missing as they were buried by a wave of toxic mud. The…
A Brazilian official last week announced plans to build an Amazon River bridge, Trombetas River dam, and highway thru what he called “desert-like” rainforest.
Presidents in Peru and Brazil, and construction firm Odebrecht, schemed to build 22 Marañón River dams; the people and the law defeated them; today the river flows free.
Indigenous groups, quilombolas, agrarian reform settlements, and environmentalists are all responding to the new president’s early moves which could undermine past protections.
In 2018, logger Silvério Fernandes helped jail Father Amaro, land activist successor to slain U.S. nun Dorothy Stang. That logger may soon head a key Amazon land reform office.
As Grainrail, the BR-163 and BR-319 highways, and other transport projects improve Amazon access, they attract land thieves ready to kill.
The choice of Ricardo Salles as environment minister, and many generals for top posts, leaves activists concerned over a potentially repressive, anti-democratic government.
Brazil created 11 conservation units to protect the Amazon’s Purus-Madeira moist forest from development due to the BR-319 highway, but to date the preserves mostly exist only on paper.
From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan…
Jair Bolsonaro pledged to leave the Paris accord during his presidential run. But his Amazon agribusiness and mining expansion plans may pose a far bigger threat to forests and global climate.
The UN Inter-American Commission on Human Rights upheld a motion filed by civil society organizations condemning Brazil’s continued development of the Belo Monte mega-dam.
Agribusiness desperately wants Grainrail built, but it poses a clear threat to 20 indigenous territories, and to the livelihoods of Amazonia’s truckers. A battle could be brewing.
Severe flood events have become five times more common over the last century as a result of natural atmospheric oscillations and human-driven climate change.
The Brazilian government’s fraternization with Amazon dam building consortiums, mining firms, and agribusiness can leave little room for local people’s rights: analysis.
It is time to move away from large hydroelectric dams in favor of micro-scale energy generation and sustainable alternatives, according to a new report.
The biodiverse Amazon rainforest between the Purus and Madeira river basins was once deemed safe, but rapid deforestation is moving up the improved BR-319 highway.