Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. They pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, and touch every node in the web of life, filling endless niches across…
MOCOA, Colombia — A bonfire crackles in the center of an Indigenous open-air pavilion atop a hill in the Putumayo jungle, adding warmth to the already sweltering Amazonian heat. The…
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…
Nearly 100 underground tunnels, running a combined length of more than 84 kilometers, or 52 miles, crisscross and plunge into the depths of the mountain that hosts the Zijin gold…
SILVANIA, Colombia — On a warm but overcast afternoon, hundreds of Indigenous representatives and spiritual leaders gathered to witness a remarkable convergence of native nations from across the Americas. Serving…
The modern history of internal migration in Colombia began in a manner that was not unlike the processes organized by the governments in Brazil and the other Andean countries in…
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…
At last month’s COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, oil-trading giant Trafigura announced that it was injecting $100 million into the company’s Brújula Verde tree-planting project in Colombia. Working in…
EL VENADO, Colombia — Until recently, the rolling green hills surrounding the tiny Colombian community of El Venado were covered with illegal coca plantations. Deep in the southern state of…
In the Orinoco River Basin straddling Venezuela and Colombia, biodiversity and agriculture are at odds. Cattle ranching is one of the leading causes of deforestation in Colombia’s Orinoquía region and…
In the forest's fecund gloom, José Muchavisoy leads the guardians of the territory as they scan the undergrowth for trails left by their target. Strangely splayed paw prints, dung among…
The invention of vulcanized rubber (1839), followed by the popularization of bicycles (1870s) and the invention of the automobile (1886), led to exponential growth in the demand for rubber, which…
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — While music played in Bogotá's streets and a sense of victory filled the air after a long protest, Ana Graciela received a new appointment on her calendar: the…
Colombia President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022 with ambitious plans to combat climate change and lead a clean energy transition — a major challenge for a country that has…
Indigenous peoples in Colombia have been granted the authority to protect, manage and conserve biodiversity within their territories according to their knowledge. On Oct. 15, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued…
In December 2022, nearly 200 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, committing to protect 30% of Earth's lands and waters by 2030. Now, two years into this initiative, a…
As global leaders, experts, activists and Indigenous voices meet this October in the Colombian city of Cali at the U.N. Biodiversity Conference, COP16, missteps and successes within President Gustavo Petro’s environment agenda are watched closely.
It is time to recognize that the Western conservation model has serious historical flaws and cannot achieve global targets alone. We, Indigenous peoples, offer another way. It is just a…
The world’s leading conservationists will flock to Cali, Colombia, this October for the U.N. biodiversity conference, COP16. Within Cali’s bustling urban environment, it’s easy to forget that the city lies…
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…
Infrastructure investments, agricultural production systems, land speculation and the exploitation of mineral resources have all been identified as drivers of deforestation and hydrological degradation in the Pan Amazon. These forces…
Permits granted for the construction of an industrial mining project in northern Colombia are raising concerns among residents and conservationists, who say they might lose their food and drinking water…
It’s a sunny July day during an otherwise exceptionally rainy season in the lush green mountains of Huila, in Colombia’s eastern Andes. Adriana Corrales, her assistant and a local guide…
Cutting-edge machine-learning models have created one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps yet of aboveground carbon density in the Amazon Rainforest, revealing where the forest is most intact and what…
In January 2023, two men mysteriously disappear after speaking out against pollution from a controversial iron ore mine in Michoacán, Mexico. The following March, climate change protesters in Austria and…
Underlying parables of biblical metaphors are often only dimly remembered. The name Babel comes from the Hebrew “to confuse,” בָּלַל (bālal). The tower so ridiculed was an affront to Yahweh.…
Petroleum geologists explore for economically significant reservoirs of oil and gas using technologies that have evolved in sophistication as the industry grew to dominate the global economy in the twentieth…
One of the most remarkable placer gold fields in the world is found in the Andean piedmont in the department of Madre de Dios in southern Peru. Gold was discovered…
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a pillar of stability and opportunity for at least 16 million people worldwide, particularly in rural, impoverished communities. But with these pros also…
For Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Amazonian and Andean forests, coca is sacred. Many ancestral traditions, such as healing and shamanic practices, include the use and cultivation of the plant. But…
A series of recently published data is shining a new light on patterns of deforestation in the Amazon, revealing where crops, cattle ranching and mining are encroaching on the rainforest.…
