Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…
Bolivia’s failure to combat illegal gold mining generated a heated national debate last year. Numerous news sites published investigations into deforestation, pollution and corruption tied to the mining industry, while…
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…
With its blood-red eyes and red, black and yellow scales, the Marley’s Snail-eating snake looks like it could end your life with a bite. But this delicate snake, Sibon marleyae,…
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…
In 2007, Ecuador’s then-president, Rafael Correa, announced an ambitious plan to prevent oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas and home to the Indigenous…
Ecuador this month recognized a new reserve in the Amazon rainforest in hopes of protecting Indigenous land from threats like mining and livestock. The Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka Reserve covers 1,237,395…
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…
INTAG VALLEY, ECUADOR — Hundreds of moths land on a white sheet, lit like a false moon in the still, dark forest. Elegant silver ones, fist-sized moths with spots on…
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,…
Opening up protected areas to mining in the Brazilian Amazon could have an even bigger impact than previously thought, according to a study published in Nature Sustainability earlier this year.…
LA PAZ — Mercury, even at room temperature, will slowly transition from its silver liquid state into a dangerous vapor that, when inhaled, can leave a person with permanent brain…
LA PAZ — Gold is Bolivia’s second-biggest export, valued at more than $1 billion annually and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the country. But much of that gold…
“For the first time ever, there is a government that is against fracking,” says Amarilys Llanos Navarro. An activist and lawyer with the Cesar Without Fracking and Gas Movement, an…
JAKARTA — An ambitious and long-anticipated plan by Indonesian lawmakers to revise the country’s criminal code, inherited from the Dutch colonial era, could make it much more difficult to prosecute…
JAKARTA — A China-backed zinc and lead mine being developed in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island may pose “extreme” risks to the environment and nearby communities, according to an assessment by the…
JAKARTA — Villagers in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island have demanded authorities revoke the permit of an iron ore miner after it continued operating in violation of an order to halt its…
National protests overwhelmed Ecuador in June, with Indigenous groups mobilizing in nearly every province of the country and President Guillermo Lasso announcing a state of emergency that restricted travel and…
In southern Venezuela, the headwaters of some of the country’s largest rivers snake through remote parts of the Amazon rainforest near the Brazilian border, where Yanomami, Ye’kwana and other Indigenous…
An Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained national protections for part of its territory after decades of fighting off deforestation and pollution in its mega-diverse rainforests. Ecuador’s National System…
JAKARTA — A surge in coal prices is driving a wave of bank loans to miners in Indonesia, the world's fifth-largest coal producer and top exporter. By continuing to finance…
JAKARTA — A court in Jakarta has rejected a lawsuit by a remote island community against a gold-mining operation that overlaps onto their villages, in a ruling deemed “problematic” by…
JAKARTA — Indonesian coal mining company Bayan Resources has challenged the government's decision to revoke its permits and effectively shrink its concession area. The legal challenge is the latest in…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s controversial plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta to Borneo has hit one of several snags that critics have long warned about: the presence…
JAKARTA — Indonesia looks set to continue its heavy reliance on coal in its energy mix under a legislative sleight of hand: it will define fuels derived from coal as…
China has spent the last two decades quietly establishing an economic foothold in Latin America, a region that has traditionally relied on Western investment. It’s become the top trade partner…
The recent discovery near Mount Everest of “super large” deposits of lithium, the key element in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has raised concerns over the fate of water resources…
Officials in Honduras say they are cracking down on open-pit mining, an activity that has plagued the country with deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, among other environmental hazards. The…
A ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court this month canceled two controversial mining concessions in Indigenous communities, which have been fighting to stop the projects for nearly two decades. The Nahua…
