One night, 10-year-old Sebastián Montilla heard a creature moving over a tree branch on his father’s farm in Pijao, Quindío department, one of Colombia’s renowned coffee-growing regions. As he pointed…
Reports on the health and vitality of the Amazon — often dubbed as Earth’s lungs — have been grim for years. Record drought has stressed large swaths of the world’s…
With evidence that the giant river otter is in an increasingly perilous state, delegates to the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) listed it as an…
In recent years, we have seen clear signs that the global market for forest and nature-based carbon credits is gaining momentum. More and more companies and governments are turning to forests as…
In the southern tip of Colombia’s Cauca department, known as the “boot” for its shoe-like shape, volunteer members of an Indigenous guard patrol their territories in the Andean foothills to…
MATO GROSSO, Brazil — In 2025, soy farmers in Brazil saw a new boost caused by the tariff war between the United States and China. Brazilian soy exports to the…
In 2025, botanists Rodrigo Cámara-Leret and Juan Carlos Copete embarked on a two-hour boat ride down the Vaupés River in the Colombian Amazon, followed by a two-hour hike to the…
The idea of a railway line stretching across the width of South America — from Peru on the Pacific coast to Brazil on the Atlantic — has gained steam since…
Kashiri, the Moon, saw the young woman through a window. The celestial body descended from the sky and found her eating soil molded into the shape of a tubercle. “What…
HONORIA, Peru — Jacqueline Flores sits cross-legged on a wooden platform inside a dim Asháninka maloca, the Indigenous longhouse where her dress, painted with geometric patterns, seems to merge with…
In October 2023, a delegation of La Gente de Centro — the Andoke (Pɵɵsiɵhɵ), Nonuya (Nonova), Muinane (Féénemɨnaa) and Uitoto (Nɨpode) peoples of the Middle Caquetá River Basin — traveled…
On Feb. 3, at the request of an association of the Indigenous Cinta Larga people in the Amazon, the Brazilian Supreme Court authorized the possibility of mining exploration and exploitation…
Families awaiting land reform in the Amazon now face a surge in mining that can destroy their chance at a decent life.
Brazil bet big on a mega river dam using old data, but climate change is leaving its massive turbines high and dry.
The tropical forests of the Amazon and Andes are some of the most biodiverse places on the planet, but across both regions, changes in climate and landscape conditions are driving…
Paul Rosolie has had a career unlike any other. First traveling to the Peruvian Amazon at the age of 18, Rosolie partnered with Juan Julio Durand, a local member of…
Tucked into Brazil’s Amazon forest, along the Maici River where recently contacted Pirahã people live, journalists observed a dramatic uptick in forest loss. According to data from Global Forest Watch,…
The Brazilian government has built a map to help commodity exporters comply with the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR. The country’s National Space Research Institute, INPE,…
Emotions were running high when Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the formal recognition of several Indigenous territories at COP30, the U.N. climate conference held in the Amazonian…
What’s lurking in and around the rainforest canopy? That’s a hard question to answer, especially in tall and dense forests. Traditional tracking methods, like camera traps, often miss out on…
Once destined for the priesthood, Edson Abreu dos Santos now shepherds volunteers to tackle Amazon’s fire crisis.
In Eunápolis, in the south of the Brazilian state of Bahia, the clearing of Atlantic Forest for agriculture started centuries ago, leaving a patchwork of cattle pastures, monocultures and degraded…
A massive Amazonian fish yields the unique and once overlooked leather prized by luxury brands and Texas cowboys.
In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown…
MITÚ, Colombia — Beneath the rising sun, people from nearby Indigenous communities navigate across the Vaupés River in traditional wooden canoes toward Mitú, a rapidly expanding town in the Colombian…
A burnout pushed one woman to build a new, nature-friendly career in one of the rainforest’s most deforested cities.
VAUPÉS, COLOMBIA – As a baby, Elisa Fernández Sánchez’ mother would place her into the bow of the canoe and glide across the murky waters of the Vaupés River in…
In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on…
In Indigenous Asháninka belief, bees were once spirits in human form. Stories tell of a woman who enjoyed making masato, a traditional Amazonian fermented beverage. Every day, she would boil…
Erosion is natural along Amazonian rivers, but increasing boat traffic can raise the risk of bank collapse.
Known for their peaceful appearance and the impression that they're always smiling, sloths now have extra protection to prevent their exploitation by a cruel and illegal pet trade. CITES, the…
When rigid loans fail to reach forest communities, they work in favor of invaders.
