The adage ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ is not legally true, but the concept reigns supreme on frontier landscapes in the Pan Amazon. Land grabbers and peasant pioneers share…
Humanity’s footprint in Ecuador now covers more than 30% of the country’s total area, at the expense of coastal ecosystems, the Andes, and forests across the country. But it’s the…
Occupying a plot of land is the first, and perhaps easiest, step in the process of creating a legally constituted private property. In all eight Amazonian nations, a title or…
New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions.…
After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According…
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, uncontrolled illegal fishing with agrochemicals and explosives is causing long-lasting damage to aquatic ecosystems, while representing a real danger to human health, a recent study has…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
The trade in shark fins is still underway in the United States, despite legislation making such activities illegal, an investigative report has found. Environmentalists say this indicates that officials need…
There is only limited potential for finance to change agricultural practices in the Andean Amazon, because landscapes are largely populated by smallholders who are notoriously risk-adverse in how they manage…
On Nov. 17, Ecuador’s highest court ruled in favor of Indigenous and local communities by rejecting a controversial decree that promised to shape how environmental consultations are carried out. Decree…
The agricultural producers of the Amazon have access to radically different levels of credit depending upon national policies, the willingness of each country’s financial services industry to engage rural populations…
Sustainability initiatives have been organised for most of the agricultural commodities of the Pan Amazon, including palm oil, soy and beef, but also for coffee and cacao. Several of these…
In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi), in the tropical montane forests on the Amazonian slope of the Andes in…
The most lucrative agricultural system in the Amazon is neither soy nor palm oil, but coca leaf, which is cultivated for both legal and illegal markets. There are two species,…
Many of our staple food products are highly dependent on industrial agriculture and global supply chains, but small farmers in the Amazon continue to produce foodstuffs for their families, local…
Imagine you’re leading an expedition in the depths of a forest. You discover a species of frog that piques your interest. Conventional rules of taxonomy dictate that you capture the…
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is native to the Amazon rainforest and has been cultivated and consumed throughout the Americas since before Columbus. Cacao can be broadly segregated into to contrasting types…
There are two major cultivated species of coffee: arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), each with a multitude of varieties adapted to a broad range of ecological conditions. Arabica…
Coffee and cacao have much in common. Both are descended from understory trees adapted to the low-light conditions of the forest floor. Each have multiple cultivated varieties that differ with…
The spikes in commodity prices in the first decade of the twenty-first century coincided with a global boom in biofuels. The interest in biofuels was motivated allegedly by a concern…
The Pacific Forest of Ecuador holds a unique conflagration of ecosystems: Verdant cloud and mossy evergreen forests transition into semideciduous and dry forests closer to the coast that exist in…
In his May 2022 state of the nation address, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso laid out his vision for the South American country’s hydrocarbon industry. “Now that the global trend is…
Palm oil is different from most agricultural commodities because the raw harvested product, fresh fruit bunches, must be processed within 48 hours or it will spoil. This fact dictates that…
Colombia Colombia is Latin America’s largest producer of palm oil, with nearly 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of oil palm plantations in 2020, with another 100,000 immature plantings that will…
Oil palm is highly suited to cultivation in the ecological and climatic conditions of the tropics and its cultivation in South America has expanded steadily over the last three decades.…
The cultivation of soy and maize has brought additional benefits to the farm economy in Mato Grosso because it has increased the supply and affordability of feed rations for livestock…
A team of international researchers recently discovered sprawling cold-water coral reefs in the deep waters around the Galápagos Islands. They found the corals after identifying marine areas with high wave…
Indigenous Shuar communities and local mayors in southern Ecuador have demanded immediate help in light of the “imminent” potential collapse of a massive dam holding mining waste, set in the…
ORELLANA, Ecuador — "There's a pool here," says Ermel Chávez, a representative of the Amazon Defense Front in Ecuador. Chávez plucks a long branch from a tree, crouches down, and…
The soy/maize supply chain is dependent on the existence of privately owned logistical facilities that are essential for receiving, drying and storing soy and feed grains post-harvest. Without silos, the…
Because soybeans are annuals, soybean prices can vary sharply over relatively short periods of time. Farmers can choose to expand soy cultivation when prices are ‘good’, which eventually leads to…
The most important production system in the Pan Amazon when measured by GDP is the cultivation of annual crops: particularly soy, but also maize, rice, sorghum, wheat and cotton. In…
