As forests continue to be cleared and forested landscapes degraded by human activity, their loss can significantly affect the trees left standing, potentially changing the structure of forests, a recent…
In the quiet Swiss town of Davos, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain unfolds as young Hans Castorp’s brief visit to a sanatorium turns into a seven-year exploration of ideas, intrigue,…
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…
Across South America, Indigenous communities have often considered territorial protection to be the main responsibility of men, while women typically assume roles as caretakers of the household, family, and community.…
Humanity achieved a fateful milestone last year. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has officially declared 2024 the hottest year on record, and the first year in history with…
South America recorded the highest number of fire outbreaks in 14 years in 2024, with Brazil at the epicenter of the crisis.
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…
Traditional people need more financing, better access to energy and improved roads to get their products into the market.
In Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, Paul Raad crouched in the undergrowth, scanning the ground for signs of jaguar activity. He wasn’t looking for the big cats themselves;…
The Amazon Rainforest, where next year’s COP30 climate summit will be hosted, is reeling from two consecutive years of severe drought, with major rivers at record lows, leading to water shortages and transportation disruptions for local communities.
Earlier this year, commodity-trading giant Cargill exported a shipment of soy from Brazil to Europe, aiming to test whether it would comply with the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free…
As 2025 dawns, here is a look at some of the storylines that could shape the fate of tropical forests this year. More reading: The year in tropical rainforests: 2024…
One of the main observers of the art of the Kadiwéu, an Indigenous people from South America, was French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. In the early 20th century, he visited Indigenous…
Over the last two decades, about 130,000 hectares, or 3,210,000 acres, of forest have been lost annually for coffee cultivation. Pressure on areas suitable for coffee growing, usually forest-rich habitats,…
The year 2024 saw significant developments in tropical rainforest conservation, deforestation, and degradation. While progress in some regions provided glimmers of hope, systemic challenges and emerging threats highlighted the fragility…
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…
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — When President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked up the ramp of the Presidential Palace arm in arm with Cacique Raoni, one of Brazil's most prominent…
Twelve countries, including Brazil, are currently discussing the Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF) framework, which is expected to be concluded by next January.
This year marks the second full year of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowships. Participants, selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants around the world, spend six months…
In 15 conservation units, illegal gold miners destroyed 330 hectares (815 acres) — an area close to the size of Central Park in New York City — in only two months.
Between 2018 and 2020, users of Facebook groups in Brazil shared more than 2,000 records of wildlife poaching, amounting to 4,658 dead animals: everything from pacas and armadillos to capybaras…
The frog’s loud croaking turned out to be a call to its own demise. The researchers walking along the steep muddy bank on a rainy November day in 2022 in…
The European Union's deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) won't affect the operations of Brazil's paper and pulp industry, which has already traced its supply chains "from farm to factory" for more…
Most of the exported timber belongs to the almost-extinct ipê species and was sent to a company in Portugal.
Researchers suggest that recycling gold could dramatically reduce harmful emissions, along with other solutions such as formalizing mining, adopting clean technologies, and improving gold supply chain transparency.
“It seems like they intentionally neglected the ferry system just to create enough discontent so that people would accept construction of this bridge,” says Maria José Pacheco, executive secretary of…
Bats play a key role in maintaining the health of forest ecosystems as pollinators, seed dispersers and insect pest controllers. But according to new research, bats and the ecosystem services…
Mongabay examined four REDD+ projects in Pará state and found that all were developed in partnership with sawmill owners with a long history of environmental fines.
TEFÉ, Amazonas — “I’ve lived on this floating home for 40 years, and this is the worst drought I’ve ever seen. You can see that the water dropped well below…
Women farmers living in Brazil’s Paraná state run a 60% chance of developing breast cancer and a 220% increase in the risk of metastasis, according to a new study. Breast…
As major global airlines embark on decarbonization plans, Brazil, the world's largest producer of sugarcane ethanol for fuel, could become a key supplier of sustainable aviation fuel. In January, LanzaJet, the first…
