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Latin America in 2025: Conservation promises collide with crime and extraction

Mie Hoejris Dahl 31 Dec 2025
A woman gathers plants along the banks of the Mekong River while a child plays in the background. Water levels of the mighty Mekong River have dropped drastically due to drought-like conditions and damming upstream. The drop disrupts the region’s water supply, transport routes, and the livelihood of communities in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that more than one billion people will face water shortages due to climate change. Credit: © Greenpeace / Vinai Dithajohn

New mapping reveals hidden mining boom in Laos that threatens the Mekong

Andy Ball, Gerald Flynn, Konlaphat Siri 10 Dec 2025
Satellite imagery from February 2025 shows the transformation of the landscape at Global Green's gold mine, which is believed to be contaminating the O'Ta Bouk River. Image provided by Google Earth, Maxar Technologies.

Toxic runoff from politically linked gold mine poisons Cambodian rivers, communities

Andy Ball, Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha 24 Nov 2025

The price of gold: In Venezuela, mining threatens Indigenous Pemón

Catherine Ellis 11 Nov 2025
Leaching ponds have been drilled into the mountains of Laos, using a mix of toxic chemicals to separate the rare earth minerals from the other materials siphoned out of the ground. Image supplied by source.

Rare earth mining expands into Laos, threatening entire Mekong River

Mongabay 27 Oct 2025
Flowing from Myanmar into Thailand, the Kok River carries toxic runoff from rare earth mines into Chiang Mai province. Image supplied by Brian Eyler.

More Thai rivers and downstream communities at risk from Myanmar’s rare earth mines

Mongabay 20 Oct 2025

A closer look at Peru’s Amazon reveals new mining trends, deforestation

Maxwell Radwin 17 Oct 2025
In just a few months, Global Green have cleared vast swathes of forest in Prey Lang, opening the northern section of the wildlife sanctuary up to more potential deforestation. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Protected areas hit hard as Mekong countries’ forest cover shrank in 2024

Gerald Flynn 6 Oct 2025
Miners work at a legal mining concession in Huaypetue, Madre de Dios, Peru. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Mexico’s rising mercury trade fuels toxic gold mining in Latin America: Report

Maxwell Radwin 30 Jul 2025
A part of Putumayo rainforest showing areas of deforestation.

Illegal roads expand in Colombia’s deforestation hotspots

Mie Hoejris Dahl 25 Jul 2025

Rectifying the damage: environmental fines in the Brazilian Amazon

Timothy J. Killeen 14 May 2025

Peru’s rare peatland swamps at risk as illegal gold mining expands

Maxwell Radwin 26 Mar 2025
Artisanal miners in Rubaya area, DRC.

How illicit mining fuels violence in eastern DRC: Interview with Jean-Pierre Okenda

Ashoka Mukpo 6 Feb 2025
Mist rising from the Amazon rainforest at dawn. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

Latin America in 2024: politics, turmoil and hope

Alexandra Popescu 3 Jan 2025

An underground gold war in Colombia is ‘a ticking ecological time bomb’

Joshua Collins 31 Dec 2024

In Ecuador, booming profits in small-scale gold mining reveal a tainted industry – investigation

Arturo Torres, Dan Collyns 3 Oct 2024

Permits granted for Colombia’s Alacrán mine amid pollution, deforestation concerns

Maxwell Radwin 20 Sep 2024

Wildcat miners: will cyanide displace mercury?

Timothy J. Killeen 13 Sep 2024
Illegal mining is spreading in the Amazonian rivers that enter the Madidi National Park in Bolivia.

A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining

Iván Paredes Tamayo 16 Aug 2024

The Andes are a key supplier of gold for the Amazon Basin

Timothy J. Killeen 15 Aug 2024

Expanding the colonization of the Brazilian Amazon through gold mining

Timothy J. Killeen 1 Aug 2024

Brazil’s wildcat mining is deeply rooted in its politics and thirst for minerals

Timothy J. Killeen 26 Jul 2024

What’s at stake for the environment in Venezuela’s upcoming election?

Maxwell Radwin 24 Jul 2024
On May 29, 2024, five Mother Nature Cambodia activists stood trial on charges of plotting and insulting the king. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Trial begins for Mother Nature Cambodia activists on conspiracy charge

Gerald Flynn 29 May 2024

Ecuador’s Los Lobos narcotrafficking gang muscles in on illegal gold mining

Arturo Torres, Dan Collyns 28 May 2024

Is the extractive sector really favorable for the Pan Amazon’s economy?

Timothy J. Killeen 8 May 2024
Nasidi holds up a water lettuce plant, which is often found in the Lenggang River.

Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island

Moh. Tamimi 25 Apr 2024

The environmental mismanagement of enduring oil industry impacts in the Pan Amazon

Timothy J. Killeen 17 Apr 2024

Illegal mining in the Pan Amazon: an ecological disaster for floodplains and local communities

Timothy J. Killeen 9 Apr 2024

Mining in the Pan Amazon in pursuit of the world’s most precious metal

Timothy J. Killeen 4 Apr 2024

Forest restoration planned for Colombia’s Farallones de Cali National Park

Maxwell Radwin 9 Jan 2024
Since 2014, Nerea Turreira-Garcia and Dimitris Argyriou have worked with Indigenous communities in Cambodia's Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary to identify species of flora and their uses to the communities. Image by Nerea Turreira-Garcia and Dimitris Argyriou.

‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars

Gerald Flynn 13 Dec 2023

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