In the late 1990s, the Kichwa community of Sani Isla, in northern Ecuador's Amazon region, learned that the oil company Occidental (Oxy) had plans to conduct exploration on their communal…
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…
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant. YURIMAGUAS, Alto Amazonas, Peru — The boat sets sail early in the morning. The plan is to…
Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Ecuadorian authorities pursued a geopolitical strategy that reflected a long-held conviction that they were cheated out of large territories in the Western Amazon.…
As we've watched the biodiversity COP in Colombia and then the climate COP negotiations in recent weeks, the urgency of addressing the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss…
In the sunbaked Galápagos Islands, a male finch perches on a branch, hearing what sounds like another bird's song. But something's not quite right. The song is slower and simpler,…
Because of their privileged status as a transnational religious institution and their allegiance to the pope, the Jesuits enjoyed considerable autonomy from both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. This status…
Most of the Pan Amazonian population consists of immigrants or their descendants. They arrived over centuries, motivated by historical events that moulded their self-identity. This diverse assemblage of people represents…
Ryan Killackey, who passed away on October 4, 2024 at the age of 46, was a tireless defender of the natural world, a voice for Indigenous peoples, and a documentarian…
At just six years old, Nemonte Nenquimo understood that there were two worlds. The first one was where her oko (a big house where she lived in the rainforest) existed.…
About a quarter of Ecuador’s gold exports from small-scale mining in 2023 originated from just three companies: Rockgolden, Rocadorada and Soul Metals. Their exports of $268 million in gold just…
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, the federal government of the United States issued landmark decisions affecting two controversial projects to exploit mineral resources on public lands. One was an industrial-scale copper mine,…
With the past 10 years, the hottest on record, and four days in July the hottest ever recorded, the climate emergency is coming ever more into focus. Directly linked to…
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 year since Ecuador citizens voted on Aug. 20, 2023, to halt all future oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, the government is nowhere near close to meeting its deadline.…
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…
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.…
Scientists have uncovered a surprising find from the Amazon Basin: three new species of plants closely related to Theobroma cacao, the tree that gives us chocolate. This finding, made by…
The Amazon’s most fertile, productive forests, which are critical for supplying Brazil’s agricultural region with rainfall, are also the most vulnerable to drought, according to recent research that has mapped…
At the end of the 1980s, the Indigenous Cofán community of Zábalo, inside Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, was alarmed by what was happening on the banks of the Aguarico River.…
The mineral resources that characterize the High Andes of Peru are conspicuously absent north of the Huancabamba Gap, the altitudinal low point in the Andes linked to the deflection zone…
A larger portion of the Amazonian region might be under protection or potentially conserved than official records indicate, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. A…
"Very exciting here!" exclaims botanist John L. Clark in an Instagram video posted during the summer of 2022. He and his team have just spotted a tiny, new-to-science plant species…
Vale SA Brazil’s second most valuable company is also the fifth largest global mining corporation. In 2022, it was as ranked by the Refinitiv ESG framework as best in its…
There are now very few global corporations that deny climate change. Senior executives have finally realized their future as profit-making enterprises depend on their ability to make money on a…
There are hundreds of oil and gas operations across the Amazon Rainforest. And while critics have gone after them for reckless environmental damage, those companies also don’t work alone. They…
Although new mines use state-of-the-art technology, the industry also has a legacy of ageing containment dams at older mines, particularly shuttered mines that no longer generate revenues to finance improvements…
When lost or assumed-extinct species are rediscovered, they often face a long rocky road to population recovery — especially if they’re an amphibian.
The Escazú Agreement was seen as a real breakthrough when it came into force in April 2021, and is the only binding treaty to have emerged from the Earth Summit…
The road leading to Podocarpus National Park winds around lush, forested mountains that seem to stretch endlessly on the horizon. Covering 1,463 square kilometers (565 square miles), the park stretches…
Investment capital flows when prices are high, but companies scale back investments when they fall. Nonetheless, companies do not often abandon projects once underway; in part, this is a natural…
