Peru-Brazil Bioceanic Railway brings too much risk to the Amazon, experts warn
The idea of a railway line stretching across the width of South America — from Peru on the Pacific coast to Brazil on the Atlantic — has gained steam since…
Peru News
In Peru, Indigenous women work to save an ancestral potato from disappearance
Kashiri, the Moon, saw the young woman through a window. The celestial body descended from the sky and found her eating soil molded into the shape of a tubercle. “What…
As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum
HONORIA, Peru — Jacqueline Flores sits cross-legged on a wooden platform inside a dim Asháninka maloca, the Indigenous longhouse where her dress, painted with geometric patterns, seems to merge with…
China’s Pacific squid fishery rife with labor, fishing abuses: Report
Labor abuses including violence, debt bondage and withheld wages and medical care, overfishing, shark finning, marine mammal killings: A new report exposes bad practices and a weak regulatory framework governing…
How cockfighting imperils Peru’s critically endangered sawfish
MANCORA, Peru — The largetooth sawfish is a critically endangered fish distinguished by its long, blade-like snout edged with tooth-like projections. In the waters off Peru, it’s become an unlikely…
Big cats get the press, but small wildcats are being poached and trafficked in silence
Jaguars are increasingly targeted across Latin America for their roseate-patterned pelts and canine teeth, following decades of relatively little poaching. When researchers in Colombia investigated the jaguar trade within the…
In Peru’s Andes, Quechua women turn human-wildcat conflict into coexistence
AYACUCHO, Peru — High in the Peruvian Andes, a group of Indigenous Quechua women is transforming long-standing conflict with wildcats into a model of coexistence, conservation and cultural revival. A…
Peru to invest $7.6 billion to continue critical minerals extraction
Peru plans to reinforce its mining sector this year with billions of dollars in investment across several ongoing projects, some of them with a history of environmental damage. The Ministry…
Drone-mounted eDNA hints at richness of life in the rainforest canopy
What’s lurking in and around the rainforest canopy? That’s a hard question to answer, especially in tall and dense forests. Traditional tracking methods, like camera traps, often miss out on…
Turning the Amazon’s toxic gold mine waste liability into economic opportunity (analysis)
The wildcat gold mining boom that swept across the Amazon beginning in the 1970s left behind an environmental catastrophe of staggering proportions. At least 350,000 hectares (almost 865,000 acres) of…
Photos: Kew Gardens’ top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025
Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns…
Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?
In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown…
‘I’m proud to be the first published Asháninka researcher’: Richar Antonio Demetrio on bees
In Indigenous Asháninka belief, bees were once spirits in human form. Stories tell of a woman who enjoyed making masato, a traditional Amazonian fermented beverage. Every day, she would boil…
Mercury, dredges and crime: Illegal mining ravages Peru’s Nanay River
On a small airplane, José Manuyama, a professor, frowns and shakes his head with anguish while thousands of feet below, five dredges operated by illegal miners excavate the Nanay River…
A new frog species emerges from Peru’s cloud forests — and it’s already at risk
Deep within the cloud forests of the San Martín region of Peru lie two places so high, cold and remote that they remained virtually unexplored for decades. In 2022, and…
Photos: Top new species from 2025
The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean's twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the…
The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
Project sees long-term success restoring forests in the high Andes: Study
High in the Andes, Polylepis trees, with their stunted gnarled trunks and twisted limbs, cling to steep mountain slopes, boulder fields and sheltered ravines. Growing at altitudes of up to…
The Amazon in 2026: A challenging year ahead, now off the center stage
As Belém's COP30 ended in compromise, political forces moved swiftly to accelerate destruction far from the global spotlight.
In Peru, community-led camera trapping boosts conservation and ecotourism
The Tingana Conservation Concession sits in the center of a unique wetland in the Alto Mayo Basin, the highest swamp in Peru with Amazonian characteristics. In its flooded forest, native…
Stricter rules adopted to protect sloths from pet trade and selfie tourism
Known for their peaceful appearance and the impression that they're always smiling, sloths now have extra protection to prevent their exploitation by a cruel and illegal pet trade. CITES, the…
Across Latin America populist regimes challenge nature conservation goals
The election of populist politicians seldom bodes well for the people of the Amazon or the conservation of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most are just stylistic versions of the…
The Indigenous women changing the course of their communities
Indigenous women leaders don’t only sustain life in their territories; they are also active defenders of water, seeds, ancestral knowledge and biodiversity. Together, they lead environmental restoration processes and care…
Respecting uncontacted peoples can protect biodiversity and our humanity (commentary)
Deep within the remaining tropical forests of the world, the last uncontacted peoples live in near-total isolation. Their very presence carries unintended yet powerful implications for all of us. Studies…
Peru’s Río Abiseo park yields new marsupial, hinting at more undiscovered species
In 2018, Brazilian biologist Silvia Pavan traveled to Río Abiseo National Park, in Peru’s San Martín region, following the trail of a squirrel species first described from there in the…
The valuable peatlands of Peru’s Pastaza River Fan: one of the world’s largest carbon reservoirs
On the banks of the Pastaza River, in Peru’s northern Datem del Marañón province, Kietre Gonzales remembers just how close his childhood home was to the aguajales, the swampy palm…
Mongabay Latam wins the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Few newsrooms venture far into the darker corners of the Amazon. Fewer still…
Top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin’s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)
Having studied the healing plants and peoples of tropical South America for well over four decades, I am often asked, “What is the conservation status of the Amazon Rainforest? Is…
Sloth selfies are feeding a booming wildlife trafficking trade
It’s not easy to find a sloth in the middle of the forest. They spend most of their time in the tree canopy and are masters of camouflage, thanks to…
Peru Indigenous patrols see success & struggles in combating illegal miners
For several years, illegal gold mining, loggers and other invaders have impacted the territory of the Indigenous Wampís people (or Huambisa) of the northern Peruvian Amazon. To combat these threats…
Amid systemic corruption, Amazon countries struggle to fight environmental crime
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…
Report urges full protection of world’s 196 uncontacted Indigenous peoples
“My children died. My mother died. My husband died. My brothers, my sisters, my aunts and uncles. I saw the bones sticking out of their rotting corpses inside the longhouse.…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
Oceans
- Talks to reduce funding for overfishing remain stalled at WTO meeting
- New strategy to reverse Kenya’s shark decline tries to bring fishers on board
- Mongabay shark meat exposé wins national journalism education award in Brazil
- Indigenous concerns surface as U.S. agency considers seabed mining in Alaskan waters
Amazon Conservation
- Researchers eye jaguar conservation wins under Brazil Indigenous stewardship project
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
Land rights and extractives
- As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum
- What’s happening with the global treaty to trace critical minerals?
- In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests are on the frontline
- Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)
Endangered Environmentalists
- José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous territories, aged 44
- A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Flores’ geothermal ambitions collide with justice, culture & local resistance
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
