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…
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…
A new study has concluded that the decline in Grauer’s gorillas in a sector of their main stronghold in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the result of the impacts…
Policies designed to occupy and populate the Peruvian Amazon began about seventy years ago with the construction of a trunk highway connecting Pucallpa on the Ucayali River with Lima. Named…
In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Bolivian society was profoundly traumatized by the Chaco War and the loss of about thirty per cent of its national territory; before…
Because of their privileged status as a transnational religious institution and their allegiance to the pope, the Jesuits enjoyed considerable autonomy from both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. This status…
KATHMANDU — Scientists and government officials have embarked on the uphill task of coming up with a number, or even just a range, for the population of snow leopards in…
Most of the Pan Amazonian population consists of immigrants or their descendants. They arrived over centuries, motivated by historical events that moulded their self-identity. This diverse assemblage of people represents…
Rural-to-urban migration is a worldwide phenomenon and the Amazon is no exception. Nonetheless, a very large proportion of its immigrants are small farmers who originally came from the High Andes…
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Amazonian lowlands were home to several hundred ethnic groups living in tens of thousands of villages with a population estimated at between four…
One reason it is possible to be optimistic about the future of the Pan Amazon is that none of the countries must deal with an impending demographic explosion. This was…
Infrastructure investments, agricultural production systems, land speculation and the exploitation of mineral resources have all been identified as drivers of deforestation and hydrological degradation in the Pan Amazon. These forces…
With the climate crisis in full swing, world leaders have made pledges to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. In a new meta-analysis, researchers synthesized the findings of 320…
Hundreds of millions of people around the world live in spots considered critical for the protection of wildlife. More than three-quarters of these populations exist in less-industrialized countries, where poverty…
KATHMANDU — The B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Nepal’s central Bharatpur city, Chitwan District, bustles as patients, most of them from the country’s northern hilly areas, line up for…
Subsistence communities, those who live off the forest and lead largely sustainable lifestyles, can actually become drivers of forest loss and degradation under certain circumstances, according to a new study.…
JAKARTA — Indonesian academics have called out the government for banning five foreign scientists after they questioned official claims of an increase in the country’s orangutan population, warning that the…
With about 80% of its forests still untouched, Acre is one of Brazil’s least-deforested Amazonian states. Bordered by Peru on the west, it represents just 1.7% of Brazil’s huge land…
An analysis of bird sightings in Canada and the U.S. showed that many North American species, from mighty eagles to diminutive hummingbirds, gained ground during COVID-19 lockdowns as humans sheltered…
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), a holistic sustainable approach to water management, could give the world’s cities a viable means of dealing with the climatic shocks ahead. Cape Town and Singapore point the way.
MIAMI — Along the Miami shoreline, luxury high-rises and condominiums run parallel to Biscayne Bay, one of South Florida’s most biodiverse ecosystems, characterized by its once abundant coral reefs, seagrass…
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) contains the bulk of Africa’s humid rainforest. But forests that were once dense, impenetrable and continuous are increasingly fractured by deforestation. New satellite…
A new study that counted half a trillion coral colonies between Indonesia and French Polynesia found that most corals are not in imminent danger of being wiped off the planet. Desolate reefs…
David Attenborough’s latest nature documentary on Netflix may be his greatest yet. Apparently stung by criticism about the false impressions his documentaries have provided on the state of our natural…
While watching 2020 unfold has been like watching someone set themself on fire with a bucket of bacon grease and a firecracker, one morning I stumbled on something that made…
We have come to realize that the origins of the coronavirus pandemic are directly related to how we treat the environment. The harmful acts of eating wild animals, denuding forests,…
From high above, the blue sea looks like it’s speckled with tiny white dots. But a closer look reveals more: each dot is actually a sea turtle swimming toward the…
We’re not exactly treading lightly on planet Earth. A new study finds more than 20,000 land animal species are experiencing intense pressure from the global human footprint. Of those, 85…
KENDARI, Indonesia — Next year will mark the completion of a nearly mile-long bridge being built over this booming industrial city’s iconic bay, say government officials here. But researchers studying…
In September 2014, Nepali zoologist Madhu Chetri asked his professor Morten Odden a strange question during their fieldwork. "Are you tired?" he asked Odden as the duo from the Inland…
LA GLORIA, Guatemala — The sun was still rising when Ovidio Yat Sacul set out, machete in hand, in search of a waterfall near the top of the mountain overlooking…
Africa’s Congo Basin is home to the second-largest rainforest on the planet. But according to a new study, this may soon not be the case. It finds that at current…
