Common ground on the prairie (commentary)
Mother Nature is the ultimate boss on the prairie — and the boss seems pretty agitated these days. Weather events are more frequent, more extreme, and harder to predict than…
Ranching News
Researchers are looking into the past to help ensure a future for tropical forests
At 1,200 to 3,200 meters above sea level, the montane cloud forests on the eastern Andean flank in Ecuador lie between the Andes’ high-elevation grasslands (known as páramo) and the…
Indigenous stewardship is critical to success of protected areas (commentary)
A recent article in Science reports that, while the portion of the world’s terrestrial surface allocated to protected areas has grown to around one-sixth of the area available, a significant…
Vine-like lianas alter the edges of fragmented forests: New study
Carving up rainforests to make room for farming, ranching and other uses induces a host of changes into the ecosystem, many of which scientists are only just beginning to understand.…
Cerrado: appreciation grows for Brazil’s savannah, even as it vanishes
Conservationists recently awoke to the extraordinary value of the Cerrado - a biodiverse biome long outshone by the Amazon and a key carbon sink; but agribusiness is fast destroying it.
Analysis: the Brazilian Supreme Court’s New Forest Code ruling
Most environmentalists expect more deforestation in the Amazon and elsewhere due to last week’s high court ruling upholding the constitutionality of much of the 2012 New Forest Code.
Amazon forest to savannah tipping point could be far closer than thought (commentary)
A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.
Drought-driven wildfires on rise in Amazon basin, upping CO2 release
Forest fires are no longer driven mainly by deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, with climate change induced drought now taking a major role.
Record Amazon fires, intensified by forest degradation, burn indigenous lands
Experts say 2017 Brazilian wildfires were caused not principally by drought, but mostly set by people, and worsened by human-caused forest degradation. Agency budget cuts worsened the crisis.
Brazil 2018: Amazon under attack, resistance grows, courts to act, elections
In 2018, expect more Amazon assaults by the Temer administration, as indigenous and environmental resistance builds, with court rulings and October elections adding uncertainty.
Top 20 forest stories of 2017
Mongabay published hundreds of stories on forests in 2017. Here are some of our favorites. 1. Rebel road expansion brings deforestation to remote Colombian Amazon With the demobilization of Colombia’s…
Brazil 2017: environmental and indigenous rollbacks, rising violence
President Temer, pressed by the ruralist lobby, attacked indigenous and traditional land rights, conserved lands, and Amazon forests this year, and retreated from Brazil's Paris climate goal – analysis.
EU-LatAm trade deal good for agribusiness; bad for Amazon, climate – analysis
Parts of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, leaked by Greenpeace, reveal incentives to radically push Latin American soy and beef production and exports, putting rainforests and global climate at risk.
Colombian community leader allegedly murdered for standing up to palm oil
Colombian community leader Hernan Bedoya, who defended collective land rights for Afro-Colombian farmers as well as local biodiversity in the face of palm oil and industrial agriculture expansion, was allegedly…
Latin America-Europe trade pact to include historic indigenous rights clause
A soon to be finalized Mercosur / European Union trade deal will contain indigenous human rights clauses that may be a last hope for indigenous groups under attack in Brazil.
Ferrogrão grain railway threatens Amazon indigenous groups, forest
Brazil is fast-tracking the Ferrogrão grain railway planned for the Tapajós Basin without prior environmental review, and despite protests from indigenous groups.
Culture keeps cattle ranching going in the Brazilian Amazon
Cattle ranching can be a scourge to forests, requiring vast tracts of cleared land to produce relatively small amounts of food. It is also the primary cause of deforestation in…
From carbon sink to source: Brazil puts Amazon, Paris goals at risk
With COP23 well underway, scientists warn that President Temer’s policies could doom the Amazon and Brazil’s Paris goals, while destabilizing the global climate.
As negotiators meet in Bonn, Brazil’s carbon emissions rise
In Paris, Brazil promised to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by 2025. But the country’s emissions grew by 8.9 percent in 2016, largely due to deforestation.
Indigenous lands at risk, as Amazon sellout by Brazil’s Temer continues (commentary)
To avoid impeachment on corruption charges, Brazil’s president has bought Congress and wealthy elite ruralists with a wave of decrees that will destroy the Amazon.
Temer offers amnesty, erasing up to $2.1 billion in environmental crime fines
Brazil’s Temer has forgiven 6o percent of $3.5 billion in fines for environmental crimes, so long as perpetrators pay other 40 percent. No new means of enforcement was announced.
Temer guts Brazil’s slavery law, to the applause of elite ruralists
The president has undermined Brazil’s slavery law, making it very difficult to prosecute the wealthy elites enslaving roughly 155,000 Brazilians, critics say.
Birdwatching poised to take flight in Colombia, study reveals
Colombia is home to more bird species than any other country on Earth. It’s also well-known for a long-simmering conflict that has only recently begun to cool. Now, a pair…
Brazil: a world champion in political and environmental devastation (commentary)
Brazilian politicians and economically dominant social classes have for centuries exploited nature as if it was infinite. It is not. The consequences are more than evident.
Zero tolerance of deforestation likely only way to save Amazon gateway
Conservationists call for total halt to deforestation and implementation of sustainable agroforestry in Brazilian state of Maranhão.
Intact forests crucial to Amazon ecosystem resilience, stable climate
Three South American studies find that severe deforestation in one region can impact faraway forests and continent-wide climate, while intact forests offer more resilience.
Indigenous groups win key land rights victory in Brazil’s Supreme Court
Court decides against claims of Mato Grosso state, which wanted compensation for land lost to Indian reserves set up in that Amazonian state by federal government.
Brazil’s Indians on the march in last ditch effort to stop land theft
Indians decry Temer’s backing of “marco temporal,” which could negate legal indigenous claims to millions of hectares in the Amazon and elsewhere, protestors say.
Brazil’s Temer threatens constitutional indigenous land rights
Brazil’s president approves new criteria for indigenous land demarcation to deny Indians their traditional lands; opens door to elite land thieves, agribusiness, opponents say.
Study links most Amazon deforestation to 128 slaughterhouses
Satellites are mechanical reporters of the Amazon deforestation process. By documenting the degradation and gaps created by the clear-cutting process over the years, they deliver the verdict: two-thirds of the…
Thylacine survey: Are we going to rediscover the ‘moonlight tiger’?
The 1980s rock band Cinderella had its biggest hit with the song, “Don’t Know What You Got (Till it’s Gone),” riffing off the age-old proverb. Of course, Cinderella’s song is…
Guatemala declares state of emergency as rainforest goes up in flames
The Guatemalan government declared a 30-day, nationwide state of emergency Tuesday to facilitate efforts to combat and control forest fires. The Maya Biosphere Reserve covering the northernmost fifth of the…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- In Brazil’s Amazon, land invasions — and fires — threaten a protected reserve
- A Guatemalan reserve turns from civil war refuge to deforestation hotspot
- Narco activity takes heavy toll on Colombia’s protected forests, satellite data show
- Photos confirm narcotraffickers operating in Peru’s Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve
Oceans
- Plan for close season rings alarm bells for Liberia’s artisanal fishers
- Lab-grown corals resisted bleaching during Caribbean’s worst marine heat wave
- Six months after first Houthi ship sinking, attacks slick Red Sea with oil
- $35m debt-for-nature deal aims to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
Amazon Conservation
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
- Extreme drought pushes Amazon’s main rivers to lowest-ever levels
Land rights and extractives
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
- In the DRC, a government commission is taking funds owed to people relocated by mines
- A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right?
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
- Mongabay video screening at Chile’s Supreme Court expected to help landmark verdict in Brazil
- Indonesian activist freed in hate speech case after flagging illegal shrimp farms
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
- 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
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
