Experts say 2017 Brazilian wildfires were caused not principally by drought, but mostly set by people, and worsened by human-caused forest degradation. Agency budget cuts worsened the crisis.
In 2016, President Maduro declared the Arco Minero; today thousands of indigenous people are being impacted by a mining boom that endangers their lives and culture.
Flood pulses, important to Amazon basin aquatic and terrestrial ecology, are being severely impacted by both large and small hydropower dams.
In 2018, expect more Amazon assaults by the Temer administration, as indigenous and environmental resistance builds, with court rulings and October elections adding uncertainty.
In a major policy shift, the Brazilian government says it is abandoning plans for new mega-dams in the Amazon basin, a victory for conservationists and indigenous groups.
President Temer, pressed by the ruralist lobby, attacked indigenous and traditional land rights, conserved lands, and Amazon forests this year, and retreated from Brazil's Paris climate goal – analysis.
A new study of dung beetles offers evidence for the need to adopt new forestry practices creating a patchwork of highly logged sites and intact forest reserves.
Habitat fragmentation and biomass reduction on isolated forest islands at the Balbina dam – with trees replaced by lianas – resulted in increased carbon emissions.
Parts of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, leaked by Greenpeace, reveal incentives to radically push Latin American soy and beef production and exports, putting rainforests and global climate at risk.
A soon to be finalized Mercosur / European Union trade deal will contain indigenous human rights clauses that may be a last hope for indigenous groups under attack in Brazil.
In 2016, Pres. Maduro proclaimed the Orinoco Mining Arc. Today armed gangs and the military fight over its riches at the expense of the environment and small-scale miners.
Brazil is fast-tracking the Ferrogrão grain railway planned for the Tapajós Basin without prior environmental review, and despite protests from indigenous groups.
Global efforts by companies to tackle deforestation are lagging behind climate actions, with the adoption of zero deforestation policies going at a snail’s pace, according to a recent report by…
Under President Correa, Ecuador partnered with China, building megaprojects like the Coca Codo Sinclair dam, with negative outcomes for local communities and the environment.
With COP23 well underway, scientists warn that President Temer’s policies could doom the Amazon and Brazil’s Paris goals, while destabilizing the global climate.
In Paris, Brazil promised to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by 2025. But the country’s emissions grew by 8.9 percent in 2016, largely due to deforestation.
To avoid impeachment on corruption charges, Brazil’s president has bought Congress and wealthy elite ruralists with a wave of decrees that will destroy the Amazon.
As COP23 negotiators meet in Bonn, indigenous and rural leaders warn that time is running out to protect global forests — a crucial hedge against perilous global warming.
27 percent of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park in Goiás state has burned; flames blazed for 12 days. Arson is suspected, with recent park enlargement a possible motive.
A new study found that mining caused nearly 10 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2005 and 2015, not the 1-2 percent assumed by past assessments.
Brazil’s Temer has forgiven 6o percent of $3.5 billion in fines for environmental crimes, so long as perpetrators pay other 40 percent. No new means of enforcement was announced.
Federal police arrest a gang of timber thieves who cut rare ipê trees on an Amazon indigenous reserve and used falsified records for export to U.S., Europe and Asia.
PUERTO LEGUIZAMO, Colombia – Already infamous for coca production and conflict, Colombia’s southwest department of Putumayo borders Ecuador and Peru and is ripe for a variety of eco-crimes. In 2016…
The president has undermined Brazil’s slavery law, making it very difficult to prosecute the wealthy elites enslaving roughly 155,000 Brazilians, critics say.
During the wet season, manatees swim Amazon basin floodplains; in dry times they migrate to lakes. Hundreds of planned dams could disrupt that cycle.
Last Friday, eighty Munduruku warriors — demanding an apology for destruction of two sacred sites — tried to occupy an Amazon dam; they were met by armed police.
An exceptional increase in Brazilian wildfires has alarmed scientists who say lack of government will, bad policies and forest degradation are adding to drought’s toll. Horrific Amazon mega-fires may be coming, as climate change escalates.
Soy-fed chicken sold in British supermarkets and fast food chains — including Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald’s — appear to be driving deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian Cerrado.
100 families, given legal title to their land by the Brazilian government, are being threatened by illegal miners. The Temer government has yet to respond.
Brazilian politicians and economically dominant social classes have for centuries exploited nature as if it was infinite. It is not. The consequences are more than evident.