Latin America News

Female Indigenous guardians. Image by Brandi Morin.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests

Brandi Morin 22 Oct 2025

Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests

Jenny Gonzales 11 Apr 2023
Soraida Chindoy, 38, Indigenous leader from the Inga community of the Condagua reservation. She has been part of the movement to stop the mining project from the beginning. Image by Antonio Cascio for Mongabay.

Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities

Natalia Torres Garzón 22 Mar 2023
Malocas (traditional longhouses) of Indigenous communities in isolation on the Peru-Brazil border. Image by ORPIO.

Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections

Yvette Sierra Praeli 16 Mar 2023
Since the beginning of the operation, government environmental agents have been destroying the logistical support of illegal mining, such as an airplane, a helicopter and a tractor, and have seized weapons and boats. Image courtesy of IBAMA by Ricardo Campos.

Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain

Jenny Gonzales 6 Mar 2023
People in San Juan Raya decided to join a research project to grow agave for mezcal sustainably. Image by Noel Rojo for Mongabay.

Amid global mezcal craze, scientists and communities try out sustainable plantations

Magdaléna Rojo 10 Feb 2023
Mennonites in the municipality of Bacalar.

Indigenous communities in Latin America decry the Mennonites’ expanding land occupation

Alexa Eunoé Vélez Zuazo 26 Jan 2023
Man spraying pesticides in woods. Image by Gilmer Diaz Estela via Pexels.

Poisoned by pesticides: Health crisis deepens in Brazil’s Indigenous communities

Aimee Gabay 16 Jan 2023
11. Alda prepares branches of wild rosemary (Baccharis dracunculifolia) to use as a duster to keep bees away during handling. An essential plant for bees, the wild rosemary also has a great capacity for regeneration and can be successfully used in the recovery of degraded areas. Lar de Pesquisas Agroecológicas Abacateiro, Egídio Brunetto Agroecological Settlement, Lagoinha, Paraíba Valley, Brazil. Image by Inaê Guion.

Photos: Newcomer farmers in Brazil embrace bees, agroforestry and find success

Inaê Guion 2 Dec 2022
Waikas, Raraima, Brazil September 1st 2022 Robervaldo a young Yek'wana that used to work in a Garimpo. Photographed in his community Waikas near the venezuelian border. Photo © Victor Raison 2022, all rights reserved.

Indigenous youths lured by the illegal mines destroying their Amazon homeland

Victor Raison; Jean-Mathieu Albertini 30 Nov 2022
A member of an indigenous community in Putumayo watches over his community’s territory. Photo courtesy of Michelle Carrere.

As gangs battle over Peru’s drug trafficking routes, communities and forest are at risk

Michelle Carrere 8 Nov 2022
Tewe Dayuma Michela Conta, one of the girls kidnapped from the Tagaeri and Taromenane territory, speak during the trial. Image courtesy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

First-ever regional court case involving rights of uncontacted peoples awaits verdict

Kimberley Brown 13 Oct 2022
A recently contacted Machiguenga girlon the outskirts of Manu National Park in Cusco. Image by Ronald Reategui.

Amazon reserve for uncontacted people moving forward amid battle over oil fields

Dimitri Selibas 30 Sep 2022
A resident of Asunción Mita confirms his identity and signature to vote in a school classroom during a municipal referendum on mining. Image by Sandra Cuffe.

Guatemalans strongly reject mining project in local referendum

Sandra Cuffe 23 Sep 2022

European bill passes to ban imports of deforestation-linked commodities

André Schröder 15 Sep 2022
gold mine

Can Two New Bills Reshape Indigenous Rights and Illegal Gold Mining in Suriname?

Charles Lyons, Charlie Espinosa 14 Sep 2022
Indigenous Guards from the mountains of Miraflores, Quinchía, department of Risaralda, Colombia. Photo courtesy of Sandra Bejarano Aguirre.

A 13-year fight against gold mining in Colombian community marches on

Maritza Palma Lozano / La Cola de Rata 24 Aug 2022
field

Regenerative agriculture in Mexico boosts yields while restoring nature

Dimitri Selibas 19 Aug 2022
A beetle on an Inírida flower.

How a rare Colombian flower cultivated with Indigenous know-how is changing lives

Soraya Kishtwari 18 Aug 2022
lake landscape

Restoring Mexico’s ‘Garden of Eden’ is a process of deep regeneration

Ocean Malandra 21 Jul 2022
Colombia dam

Displaced by a dam, women defenders fight for their land rights in Colombia

Jane K. Feeney 13 Jul 2022
A protest held in the Yankuntich community

Amazonian communities in Peru try to keep oil-rich Block 64 in their own hands

Gloria Alvitres 7 Jul 2022
Plantations in Cuesta del Ternero that burned in January 2021. Image courtesy of Denali DeGraf.

Tree plantations in Patagonia are the site of wildfires and land dispute

Denali DeGraf 6 Jul 2022
amazon landscape

Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Amazon move closer to self-governance

Dimitri Selibas 29 Jun 2022
Illegal gold mining inside the Munduruku and Sai Cinza Indigenous Lands

Swiss pledge to stop illegal gold imports from Brazil Indigenous reserves

Thais Borges and Sue Branford 27 Jun 2022
cerrado grasslands

EU’s anti-deforestation bill leaves out critical ecosystems, study shows

Sarah Sax 21 Jun 2022
Arabica coffee growing under a shade of trees. Image courtesy of Noel Rojo.

Farmers in Mexico fight coffee disease with resistant varieties and agroforestry

Magdaléna Rojo 15 Jun 2022

‘Lost’ Amazonian cities hint at how to build urban landscapes without harming nature

Kimberley Brown 15 Jun 2022
View of the Nangaritza valley from near Las Orquideas. Photo by Andrew Neil via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Illegal mining threatens one of the last forest links between the Andes and Ecuador’s Amazon

Jackeline Beltrán 10 Jun 2022
The Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher (Terenotriccus erythrurus) is a common species that forages on insects in the forest understory (an understory insectivore). Image courtesy of Dr. John Whitelaw.

Drastic declines in Neotropical birds in a protected Panamanian forest

Neha Jain 31 May 2022
Pedro Uc is a poet, campesino and defender of his territory. Photo taken from his Facebook page.

‘What’s lacking is respect for Mayan culture’: Q&A with Pedro Uc Be on Mexico’s Tren Maya

Thelma Gómez Durán 30 May 2022

Tale of two pandemics as mining thrived while communities faced restrictions

Sandra Cuffe 24 May 2022
Achiote trees in a Kwicha community in Pastaza province

Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation

Dimitri Selibas 11 Apr 2022

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