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.…
Reporting for this story was supported by the Dom Phillips Grant of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center. IQUITOS, Peru — On the Peruvian side of…
Drenched up to his thighs, while crouching at the end of our small boat as it cuts through a dizzying collection of waves, our boat captain lifts his hands and…
Mining giant Glencore’s operations in Peru and Colombia continue to threaten Indigenous communities and cause extensive environmental damage despite the company’s public pledges to mitigate harms, according to three new…
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…
In August 2020, Peru introduced a regulation requiring foreign ships using the country's ports to carry an extra satellite device so authorities could more closely track the route and movements…
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 the afternoon of November 29, Quinto Inuma Alvarado, Indigenous Kichwa leader and chief of the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered in front of his family with three…
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…
This year’s COP28 kicked off in Dubai on Nov. 30 and saw Amazonian countries arriving with a string of environmental triumphs since the last climate summit hosted in Egypt. While…
Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, president the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered last Wednesday, November 29, in the San Martín region of the Peruvian Amazon. The crime took…
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,…
“Our wildest dreams never included what we are doing now,” says conservationist Paul Rosolie in a new podcast interview with Mongabay. What began as a grassroots initiative of his and…
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…
Between 2019 and 2020, the Peruvian government cracked down on illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios, its southeastern Amazon region, through an unprecedented initiative dubbed “Operation Mercury.” But according…
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…
When a glacier melts, all it leaves in its wake is untouched ground. These craggy, lifeless rocks begin to feel sun and rain for the first time in millennia. They…
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…
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…
AYACUCHO, Peru — From the sky, cleared areas periodically interrupted the green grasslands and steep mountains of the Asháninka Communal Reserve and Otishi National Park in Peru. Wide expanses of…
CERRO DE PASCO, Peru — The open-cast crater seems ready to swallow the city whole. Mud-brick houses with corrugated iron roofs teeter on the edge of the massive Raúl Rojas…
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…