Twenty brilliantly colored red-browed amazons took flight over a reserve holding one of the few remaining intact swaths of Atlantic Forest in Brazil. The green-and-red parrots had been missing from…
We all know that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” but in daily life, ignorance of the consequences of one’s actions is, indeed, an excuse that shields us from…
As the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) approaches its implementation, companies involved in supply chains for soy and other commodities reaching the EU market will soon have to prove that…
With increasing pressures from overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change, the health of the world’s oceans is imperiled. In response, Mongabay has launched a dedicated Oceans Desk composed of…
BARCELONA — In December 2022, one of Brazil’s largest Indigenous territories and one of the smallest would each sign a 118-page, 10-year contract they would soon come to regret —as…
As two coastal countries connected by the Atlantic Ocean and five centuries of shared history, Brazil and Portugal have long appreciated the value of “blue” or aquatic foods, including our…
A Chilean company with a history of pollution has begun building a new pulp and paper mill in Brazil, threatening to turn a highly biodiverse region into a “green desert”…
Climate change is the defining issue of our age. While nations search for complex technological solutions at this year’s high-stakes climate meeting in the Amazon city of Belém, a simpler…
The planet just crossed a grim milestone: last year’s global temperature averaged more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, shredding our margin for error under the Paris Agreement. That doesn’t doom…
Six years after the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in the Brazilian Amazon, the trial of the two…
Brazil and the Andean Republics all have constitutional provisions establishing special protocols for the prosecution of elected officials. These supposedly were conceived to ensure public servants are held accountable for…
Some 30 years ago, Apolo Heringer, a Brazilian public health doctor, was participating in a night fishing trip with residents of the community Raiz, in southeastern Brazil. That night, the…
As the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon draws near, pressure is mounting to get funding directly into the hands of Indigenous and local community organizations who are the frontline…
As smallholder farmers in French Guiana walked their fields in 2023, they noted a disturbing pattern. Their healthy cassava plants, once green and thriving, had begun to turn yellow. Leaves…
Brazil’s climate conversation has a habit of returning to the same question: how can a country that depends so much on its natural riches also protect them? Renata Piazzon, who…
Lawmakers in Brazil can scrap a 30-year-old protection to meet global demand for gold and other minerals.
The most powerful individuals in courtrooms are the judges. Their leadership is essential for bringing any type of reform to fruition, be it an anti-corruption campaign or an ‘all-of-government’ drive…
As the world’s attention turns toward COP30 in Belém next month, the story of Brazil’s Amazon is shifting—though not quite in a straightforward way. According to the government’s satellite-based monitoring…
Rocinha, in the south of Rio de Janeiro, is, according to official data, the largest of Brazil’s more than 12,000 favelas, or inner-city communities. It has a population of just…
Once a major river city, Belém turned its back on the water, leaving 40% of its urban area vulnerable to floods.
CURAÇÁ, Brazil — Under the scorching sun of Brazil’s semiarid Caatinga shrubland, squawks tear through the skies, signaling the arrival of one of the most threatened bird species in the…
“My children died. My mother died. My husband died. My brothers, my sisters, my aunts and uncles. I saw the bones sticking out of their rotting corpses inside the longhouse.…
SÃO PAULO AND RIO DE JANEIRO — Despite government efforts to halt violence in the Amazon region where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed three…
Prosecutors are lawyers employed by the state to investigate crimes and initiate judicial proceedings. Ensuring their integrity and competence is essential to judicial reform and the application of environmental law.…
When they closed their eyes, the Bakairi people of the Santana Indigenous Territory in Brazil heard a sound similar to rain in the forest. It was reminiscent of a summer…
On the morning of March 26, 2013, approximately 60,000 liters (16,000 gallons) of an oil byproduct used to produce asphalt spilled from a barge on the Negro River, near the…
Intact forests struggle to escape climate degradation, exposing new impacts coming from increasingly warming temperatures.
Agricultural producers in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna continue to clear land for soy, which puts them in breach of the European Union’s upcoming antideforestation law, or EUDR, a new investigation shows.…
The metal needed in electric cars and solar panels comes with a high cost for Amazonian communities.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia and SÃO PAULO, Brazil — On Oct. 7 in Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília, lawmakers, Indigenous leaders and civil society representatives gathered to present a global parliamentary investigation…
Hansen’s disease (also known as leprosy) has afflicted humans for thousands of years — it has been cited throughout history, even in passages of the Bible. Yet science has still…
Brazil’s environment minister bets on safeguards for the highway, but history shows similar plans have failed.
