One of the main social and economic challenges facing Amazonian countries is inequality. Although the standard of living of the lower economic strata is better now than at any time…
Conservation groups in Panama are trying to halt the construction of a new port in the Pacific province of Chiriquí that they say could destroy breeding grounds and nurseries for…
It’s been one year after Mexico’s government announced the creation of 20 new protected areas, covering roughly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres). But the country’s environment ministry, Secretariat of…
Nestled in the thorny shrubs of the dry forests of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico, a small bird lights a spark for a promising future. After flying under scientists’…
GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS — Marco Andres Vizcaino Garcia is probably the most qualified naturalist guide a person could hire during their visit to Galápagos National Park and its adjacent marine reserve.…
Intense protests flared up last December in communities opposed to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s plans to build two maximum-security prisons in sensitive ecosystems and Indigenous territories without consulting local populations.…
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…
Several years ago, I took a solo trip to the Huánuco region of the central Peruvian Amazon. After traveling five hours from the nearest town by car, boat and tuk-tuk,…
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.…
Lawmakers in El Salvador have voted to reintroduce industrial mining in the country, ending a landmark ban that was meant to protect freshwater and public health. The law, pushed through…
South America recorded the highest number of fire outbreaks in 14 years in 2024, with Brazil at the epicenter of the crisis.
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…
Throughout a year in which Latin America saw elections in six countries and prepared for the biodiversity COP16 in Colombia, the region continued its struggle with extreme weather events, criminal…
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.
The jaguar moves between patches of forest in the Mesoamerican Corridor across Central America. Meanwhile, the majestic Colombian Massif still serves as a refuge for the oncilla, while the puma…
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…
The EU Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, will require companies importing certain products into the European Union to trace the origins of these products all the way back up the supply…
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…
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…
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…
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…
When David Borbón first arrived in the village of El Delgadito in 1980, it was a paradise with seemingly unlimited natural resources. He continued to return seasonally to fish for…
A giant anaconda, a vampire hedgehog, a dwarf squirrel, and a tiger cat were among the new species named by science in 2024. Found from the depths of the Pacific…
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,…
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…
