Journalist Alex Cuadros’s latest book, “When We Sold God’s Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon” tells the story of how an Indigenous group in Brazil was forced to reckon with Western culture.
A wide range of sustainability, health and environmental programs in the Amazon Rainforest are at stake after the U.S. government announced a 90-day pause on all foreign aid funding, including…
In December 2024, Ecuador completed a debt-for-nature swap to support Amazon conservation through the creation of the Amazon Biocorridor. While this provides economic relief, Amazonian leaders contend they were not…
Unprecedented images of uncontacted Indigenous people in Brazil’s Massaco Indigenous Territory, in the Amazon region, have prompted a push for greater enforcement to protect the land of these vulnerable populations.
Rodrigo Agostinho, head of IBAMA, Brazil's federal environmental agency, for two years now, spoke with Mongabay about the progress of his agency and the challenges it faces in protecting the country's biomes after four years of regression under former president Jair Bolsonaro.
According to the Brazilian Federal Police, Bruno Heller is one of Amazon's largest deforesters and relied on legal and technical advice, including a fake contract, bribing police officers, and near-real-time monitoring of deforestation work through satellite imagery, investigators said.
The private sector is the largest single promoter of conventional development. Its lobbying organizations tend to be well-funded and staffed with competent individuals grounded in the analytical abilities of traditional…
The constituency for the conservation of the Pan Amazon is broad-based and diverse. Academics and civil society organizations have been successful in framing conservation of the Amazon as an issue…
Brazil is poised to invest tens of billions reais to build more than 2,000 km (1,240 miles) of new shipping channels in shrinking rivers – a dramatic, costly, damaging channelization…
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant. YURIMAGUAS, Alto Amazonas, Peru — The boat sets sail early in the morning. The plan is to…
MANAUS, Amazonas, Brazil — Located near the confluence of the Solimões and Japurá rivers, Lake Amanã, which means “the path of the rain,” is known as the home of the…
The task at hand was nothing short of grueling. In the depths of the Amazon Rainforest earlier this year, it was a mad scramble as six teams deployed cutting-edge technology…
SÃO PAULO — After years of delays in protecting the Munduruku Indigenous people from illegal gold mining and mercury use decimating the Tapajós River Basin, Brazil’s independent public prosecutors said…
Bolivia’s newest protected area, Gran Manupare Integrated Management Natural Area, sprawls across an area a tenth the size of Switzerland in the municipality of Sena, in the northern department of…
At just six years old, Nemonte Nenquimo understood that there were two worlds. The first one was where her oko (a big house where she lived in the rainforest) existed.…
One reason it is possible to be optimistic about the future of the Pan Amazon is that none of the countries must deal with an impending demographic explosion. This was…
Ten years ago, four Indigenous Asháninka environmental defenders were murdered in the forests near their community of Saweto in Peru’s Amazon Ucayali region. In 2023, a court in Pucallpa found…
In a defining moment for the rights of Indigenous peoples in Peru, 37 land titles were secured in the Amazon in record time, from June 2023 to May 2024. This…
The Forest Stewardship Council has suspended its certification of a controversial logging company in the Peruvian Amazon accused of encroaching on the traditional territory of the Mashco Piro, an Indigenous group…
With the past 10 years, the hottest on record, and four days in July the hottest ever recorded, the climate emergency is coming ever more into focus. Directly linked to…
If long-term field research is like a marathon, then this was the 100-meter sprint. Over the course of 72 hours, participants scrambled to gather biodiversity data, analyze it, and generate…
Experts urge stronger law enforcement to curb the sale and consumption of manatee meat, while conservation efforts focus on educating communities on the importance of the mammal to the biome.
One year since Ecuador citizens voted on Aug. 20, 2023, to halt all future oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, the government is nowhere near close to meeting its deadline.…
Ahead of hosting 2025’s COP30 climate summit, Belém is betting on the development of products such as honey-based spirits, digital glasses from local wood and jambu-infused medicine at a local tech park.
“Three years ago, I bought a solar panel so we could have light at home. Before that, we could only light our house with candles. We don’t have power, so…
AMAZONAS, Brazil: Two researchers wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants to resist mosquitos, and high boots to block snake bites, gaze at a shattered tree. It lies on the ground garlanded…
The construction is part of a series of projects to upgrade infrastructure in Belém ahead of the COP30 climate summit next year, alongside dredging Guajará Bay to make space for ocean liners to address the shortage of hotel rooms in the city.
There are a multitude of mineral ores used to produce industrial metals, which can be organized into four major groups with similar geological histories. Iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) are…
After being locally extinct for a century in Belém, the host city of next year’s COP30 climate summit, it’s being reintroduced by conservationists who have so far released 50 individuals into the wild since 2018.
In April, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recognized an additional two Indigenous territories, including one 32,000-hectare (more than 79,000-acre) territory belonging to the Karajá peoples in Mato Grosso.…
A year-long Mongabay investigation tracked several dozen illegal or suspicious activities in and around Araroibia in the last few years, including logging, deforestation and cattle ranching, and found a clear rise in environmental crimes in the region in mid-2023, the deadliest year for Indigenous people in Arariboia since 2016.
"What makes these trees so special is still a great mystery, and it takes time and studies to unravel," Eric Gorgens said. The professor of spatial and environmental analysis at…
