The prediction came true: deforestation in Colombia increased in 2024 after two years of decline, just as the environment ministry had warned since April last year. The ministry announced that…
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 here. Shrouded in the lush…
Over the past few decades, the harvesting of the Cortez oyster in western Mexico’s Marismas Nacionales — or the Marshes Biosphere Reserve — in Nayarit state has shifted from suffering…
Dionicio Colque, 42, has fond memories of growing up on the edge of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. It’s the world’s largest salt flat, spanning about 10,500 square kilometers (4,050…
This is the first of a three-part series on underreported issues involving Canadian mining companies and Indigenous peoples or local communities. Read part two here. Seven years after an environmental…
"Everyone does it." That’s how the representative of a sawmill described the practice of selling fake documents to illegal timber from the Brazilian Amazon as legitimate, a fraud known as…
On Jan. 29, the sky above Mexico City’s Zócalo plaza was filled with the floating figures of giant balloon whales. Hundreds of people from the “Whales or Gas?” coalition protested…
Illegal gold miners have been moving into Amapá in the wake of federal raids on mining hotspots in other parts of the Brazilian Amazon, including the Yanomami and Munduruku Indigenous territories.
A Mongabay investigation that revealed an illegal cattle boom amid a record-high number of killings of Indigenous Guajajara has been cited by Brazilian authorities to remove thousands of head of cattle from the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Amazon Rainforest.
One unusual characteristic of Latin American nations is their proclivity to adopt new constitutions that reflect periodic swings in political philosophies. These documents are notable for their length and the…
The large leaves of the aguaje, a tropical palm tree that grows in the peatlands and other seasonal wetland areas in tropical South America, form a rounded crown on its…
TOCOA, Honduras - On a rainy November day in 2024, Storm Sara, a slow-moving tropical cyclone, struck Honduras, claiming at least six lives and displacing more than 6,000 people. Along the…
As REDD projects around the world face setbacks, restoration projects in the Amazon are flourishing as a means of reviving market confidence in forest-based carbon credits.
In the Mexican port city of Acapulco, in southwestern Guerrero state, human activities have put so much pressure on the most important lagoons that the mangrove areas in this city…
This is part three of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory. Read part one here and part two here. Part four…
BOGOTÁ — In June 2022, Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla member, was elected as Colombia’s first avowedly leftist president, promising to fight inequality, bring “total peace” to the country, and…
Brazil is facing an alarming surge in forest fires. Last year, the country registered 237,000 fires and over 30.8 million hectares of vegetation were consumed by flames—an area the size of Italy. This represented a 79% increase in…
Global demand for lithium is expected to increase by nearly 500% over the next few decades, as countries invest more in batteries and electric vehicles meant to reduce their carbon…
RISARALDA, Colombia — “Before, anyone who wanted to grow cacao at 1,200 or 1,500 meters [3,900 to 4,900 feet] altitude was considered crazy,” says Orlando Quintero Gonzales, an agronomist in…
Brazil's Supreme Court backed down and withdrew its proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution.
When markets fail to manage the supply of and demand for goods and services, the outcome is referred to as ‘market failure’. There are multiple causes for market failure, but…
In many parts of Brazil, rivers may be losing water to the ground instead of gaining from it. A recent study found that groundwater levels in several regions are lower…
PANCE, Colombia — Ofelia Opocué’s life has been shaped by loss, she says. Twenty-three years ago, the FARC gave her family an ultimatum: leave their fertile land in Toribío, in…
In the early hours of Dec. 22, 2024, fishermen working in the Talara Sea in northern Peru hauled in their nets. But instead of the day's catch, they found oil…
Brazil is home to the world’s greatest diversity of amphibians: Of the more than 8,000 species known worldwide, some 1,200 are found in the country, mainly in the Amazon and…
CHINCHINA, Colombia — “Before, the seasons seemed etched into the calendar, with well-defined periods of drought and rain. Today, the climate has gone completely mad!” says coffee grower Oscar Gomez from…
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…
In the green-fringed inlet of Bahía Málaga, tucked along Colombia’s Pacific coast in the department of Valle del Cauca, Marlin Valencia’s melodic voice drifts among the tangled roots of the…
Brazil’s plans to build ports and roads to help move grains, beef and iron ore from the rainforest echo a development vision that dates back to the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s.
Belize is widely regarded as a global leader in conservation, home to vast rainforests, diverse wildlife and the second-largest barrier reef in the world. The country has implemented protected areas,…
Hidden within the Amazon Rainforest are rare, carbon-rich ecosystems known as peatlands, a type of swamp forest that’s key to combatting climate change through its capacity to absorb and store…
In a part of the world where throughout history only the pure white of snow and ice could be seen, today green moss and grass are emerging. Fish and penguins…
