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…
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.…
PAKAYAKU TERRITORY, Ecuador — Deep in the heart of Ecuador's Amazon, where the Bobonaza River winds through ancient forests in Pastaza province, Sacha Gayas spreads out a hand-drawn map across her…
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…
Now a leading archaeologist, Rostain was discouraged at first. “No one is interested in archaeology of the Amazon.”
In June 2025, Ecuadorian police were summoned to the municipal bus terminal in Tulcán, in the northern province of Carchi, to investigate a suspicious package. Someone had reported a strong…
Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have all signed the Glasgow Pact, a UNFCCC-linked agreement by which, among other commitments, countries agree to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. Bolivia, while…
Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun…
A solar-powered canoe initiative originally launched in Ecuador’s Amazon in 2017 has now expanded to Indigenous coastal communities in Brazil, Peru, Suriname and the Solomon Islands. Researchers say the effort…
Galápagos iguanas look like prehistoric animals: Their scaly skin resembles volcanic rock, their backs are ridged with a row of spikes, and they have extremely long, curved claws. They use…
On Rábida Island in the Galápagos, where red-tinged beaches meet ancient lava formations, Mares’s leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) is back. Once thought extinct on this island, a genetically distinct population…
When the sheep were removed, the páramo — high-altitude ecosystems in the Andes — started to heal. Without their waste, water quality improved. Without their hooves compacting the soil, plants…
MEXICO CITY – About two dozen police officers, government officials and a data specialist sat side by side in a command center in northern Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. For two weeks,…
Ecuador announced that it’s eliminating the Ministry of Environment and folding its responsibilities into the Ministry of Energy and Mines — a move that could prove disastrous for conservation efforts,…
Ecuador recently passed a landmark protected areas law aimed at restoring security in the country’s national parks and reserves. The law establishes new government agencies and funding mechanisms, and tries…
The Andean nations are unitary republics by history and constitution. Consequently, the push to devolve power to lower jurisdictions is less obvious and its degree of implementation variable. Over the…
This is Part 4 of a four-part series on Indigenous land rights in Ecuador. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Twenty months after a landmark court ruling in…
This is Part 3 of a four-part series on Indigenous land rights in Ecuador. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4. A landmark land title in an Amazon protected…
This is Part 2 of a four-part series on Indigenous land rights in Ecuador. Read Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4. In Ecuador’s Amazon, the use of agreements with…
This is Part 1 of a four-part series on Indigenous land rights in Ecuador. Read Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. In Ecuador, a 2023 court decision that recognizes…
In 2013, when Sandra Altherr, co-founder of the German NGO Pro Wildlife, began looking into the reptile trade in Europe, she wondered why people paid thousands of euros for little-known…
This story is published in partnership with the Ecuadorian independent media outlet GK. Sitting in a small gray motorboat, Rosa Aranda dips her fingers in the Villano River as she…
A Catholic priest, Pedro Porras, was the first to research and document the Amazon rainforest’s Upano Valley culture dating back 2,500 years.
When Leon Hohl and Alper Yelimlieş landed in the Galápagos in 2022 to volunteer in a decades-old nest survey project, they expected to look for Darwin finches and their babies.…
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues — the world’s largest convening of Indigenous peoples — Indigenous leaders from…
This is the second part of a three-part series on underreported issues involving Canadian mining companies and Indigenous peoples or local communities. Read part one and part three. Shrouded in…
For members of the Sani Warmi collective in Amazonian Ecuador, the day begins before sunrise. They tend to the chacra — their agroforestry garden — and harvest plantain, yuca, palm…
Plastic waste is increasingly causing problems for fishers. Fishnets bring up bottles, propellers get tangled in bags, water pumps get clogged with debris, and boats collide with bags of trash.…
In the last decade, the Pan Amazon has seen a substantial increase in the presence of Chinese companies, either as direct investors or as contractors building infrastructure for governments financed…
An international court published its ruling this month that the Ecuadorian government was responsible for a long list of human rights violations against uncontacted Indigenous communities in the Amazon Rainforest.…
The largest and most infamous corruption scandal of the last decade began with a criminal investigation into the operations of Brazil’s largest corporation: Petrobras. The scandal got its name because…
Aotearoa New Zealand spent years spearheading the introduction of a new set of rules governing bottom trawling in the South Pacific Ocean, which more than a dozen countries adopted by…
