This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
Drug trafficking, logging, oil palm plantations, oil spills, highways, illegal fishing, expanding Mennonite communities — in the Peruvian Amazon, there’s no shortage of threats against Indigenous peoples or their lands.…
The borders between the countries that make up the South American trading bloc Mercosur (or Mercosul in Brazil) have an economic life of their own, where different characters subsist. An…
Peru has attracted millions of dollars in forest conservation projects over the years, has a series of international agreements and targets to protect forests and has 254 public and private…
Earlier this year, 25 Congolese and international civil society organizations wrote a letter to the U.S. secretary of state, calling on the United States government to maintain sanctions against diamond…
A major oil spill earlier this month in the Ecuadorian Amazon has sparked criticism of cleanup efforts and the lack of transparency from the government regarding the spill’s environmental impact.…
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
In 1997, people in Asunción Mita, a municipality in eastern Guatemala, weren’t really thinking that mining could arrive close to home. But that same year, the country’s Ministry of Energy…
Officials are struggling to keep up with an increasing wave of deforestation in one of Guatemala’s largest protected areas, where squatters are clearing the rainforest to make room for settlements,…
Six grassroots environmental activists received the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 24. Known as the "Green Nobel Prize," the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from the six continental regions. The…
Mining is one of the top drivers of deforestation globally, with huge swaths of forest being cleared for excavation pits, access roads and workers’ settlements. Yet details about mining’s environmental…
The European Union is one step closer to adopting landmark regulations that hold companies accountable for ensuring their products don’t contribute to deforestation. A new law, passed with an overwhelming…
Around 15 million people across the globe are working at artisanal and small-scale gold mining sites, nearly a third of them women and children. Instead of operating advanced equipment supplied…
More than 60% of people in Central Africa have no access to electricity. An ambitious proposal aims to change that with a network of pipelines, refineries and gas-fired power plants…
A carbon credit program in a prominent national park in Peru appears to have failed at preventing significant deforestation, raising questions about whether officials in charge of the program inflated…
Paraguay is considering opening up mining and natural gas drilling in one of its national parks in the Gran Chaco, despite widespread outcry that development could compromise the fragile savannah…
Ahead of the presidential election in Brazil last October, deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest level in 15 years. Was this an anomaly, or part of a pattern? Are…
MEXICO CITY — China has taken a special interest in deepening ties with Latin America over the last twenty years. It’s provided well over $100 billion in loans for the…
Mennonites, often searching for new land to expand their simple, rural lifestyles, have founded hundreds of communities across Latin America over the last century. In forested areas, particularly the Amazon,…
The election victory in 2022 of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president in decades, has fanned winds of change in the country. The new government has vowed to tackle many…
Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We have to be very skeptical,” says Carlos Latorre, artisanal gold miner and…
There was hope, back in 2014, that the world would be able to halve deforestation rates within the following five years. The New York Declaration of Forests, a list of…
MEXICO CITY — Fishing for hammerhead sharks is now illegal in Costa Rica, thanks to the signing of a new executive decree this month by President Rodrigo Chaves Robles. The…
DAKAR — Scientists warning of a “potential ecological disaster” from gas drilling off West Africa have won a small victory after convincing U.K. oil major BP to review the project’s…
MEXICO CITY — It was considered a major environmental victory, back in 2017, when El Salvador’s government announced it would be the first country in the world to issue a…
It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening to the environment in Nicaragua. Data on everything from mining to deforestation to biodiversity loss is nearly impossible to get from the government.…
GUATEMALA CITY — After heavy rains, hotel workers and other residents in Honduras walk up and down beaches picking up everything from plastic bottles to toys to medical waste. They’ve…
With its towering natural walls, Sumidero Canyon National Park is one of the main tourist attractions in Chiapas state in southern Mexico. Protecting mostly dry tropical forest — one of…
COLCHANI, Bolivia — Bolivia is taking another shot at lithium investment. After decades of stalled projects and soured relationships with international investors, the central government, under left-wing President Luis Arce,…
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…
