President elect Jair Bolsonaro signals his government will be strongly pro-business, likely bringing major setbacks for the environment, indigenous groups and social movements in Brazil.
Brazil has plans for an expansive Amazon and Cerrado rail network, including two transcontinental Atlantic to Pacific lines, but development likely depends on China.
A group of Latin American early-career Earth system scientists are concerned over the possibility of a Jair Bolsonaro presidency in Brazil.
Soy farmers see Grainrail as salvation; traders ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Amaggi see it as profit; but the Amazon railway could harm habitat and indigenous communities.
Matilde Noza says she has never chewed a coca leaf. Noza, an indigenous woman, lives in the Nueva Galilea community of the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, better…
Brazil is on the verge of electing a president who, supported by a new Congress, could escalate Amazon deforestation and pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement: analysis.
In the early 21st century, Brazil greatly reduced Amazon deforestation. A Jair Bolsonaro presidency would again put forests and the global climate at risk: study.
The imminent election this month of far right Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president poses threats to the environment, indigenous people, and the global climate.
Mongabay begins a new series in which our contributors drive the BR-319 highway into one of the Amazon’s most remote wild areas – a region facing rapid deforestation.
Five candidates lead the polls for Brazil’s presidency, with a vote 7 October. Mongabay offers some of what’s known, and what’s not, about their environmental positions.
“We used to go into the forest to tap copaiba oil but we had no good way of selling it. The regatão [traveling river trader] paid us whatever he liked…
A bill, which experts say could pass, would set a 5-year deadline for land dispute resolution in protected areas. If not resolved by then, a conserved area’s protected status could be revoked.
Billions in backing for infrastructure by international development finance institutions (DFIs) triggered large-scale Andes Amazon deforestation from 2000-15 – a trend now poised to hit the Amazon basin: study.
Current Brazilian government policies could increase deforestation and carbon emissions, costing the nation $2-5 trillion dollars more to meet its Paris Climate Agreement pledge.
Gold mine owners have polluted a river in Brazil’s Tapajós basin and placed a price on the heads of resisting Munduruku leaders. A federal raid in May failed to stem the conflict.
The Netherlands for more than a decade has quietly supported Brazil’s plan for the Northern Corridor; road, rail and port projects that would do major harm to the Amazon, harm the Dutch disregarded.
Brazil’s bancada ruralista has attached a wave of riders to bills in Congress that could overthrow the nation’s environmental and indigenous protections. There is a high chance of passage.
In January 2018, two officials announced an end to plans for Brazilian mega-dams; both have since been replaced, and to date, no planned dams have been cancelled.
“What’s going to drive you off this land is hunger,” an official from ICMBio, the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation, cautioned fishing families and settlers living along the mid-reaches…
Brazil is reporting its CO2 emissions within U.N. guidelines, but the nation’s true carbon releases due to forest degradation, wildfires and other key sources could be far higher.
In a win for the environment, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of executive orders to reduce conservation unit size. Also, Brazil conserved 1.2 million hectares last week.
Thirty-eight environmental and social groups are demanding an end to indigenous intimidation by a dam building consortium on the Teles Pires River that includes Chinese and Portuguese firms.
The Temer administration ignored UN letters warning of threats to land defenders and environmentalists, and condemning Brazil’s record number of activist murders.
Nearly 100,000 small hydropower dams exist or are planned worldwide, and science has done little to study or inform policymakers about cumulative environmental impacts.
Study: 142 existing and under construction Andean dams are fragmenting the Amazon, putting ecosystems at risk and impacting up to 30 million people. Another 160 dams are planned.
The Norwegian mining giant has denied a new toxic spill in Brazil at its Alunorte aluminum refining facility, but admits to a “clandestine pipeline to discharge untreated effluent.”
Operational in 2016, the Belo Monte mega-dam has done lasting damage to forests, fisheries, livelihoods, and indigenous and traditional communities (photo story).
A recent study finds that when parks and reserves don’t do a good job of safeguarding the forest they contain, they’re more likely to be stripped of their status as…
As Venezuela sinks into chaos and violence, Pres. Maduro rushes to salvage its sinking economy by selling off the nation’s natural legacy in the Orinoco Mining Arc – analysis.
Venezuela has proposed the Arco Minero and Petro cryptocurrency, backed by the nation’s oil and mineral wealth, as solutions to its economic crisis. Critics say it won’t work.