This is the last of three interviews with Indigenous representatives at the United Nations about the latest issues in their country's Amazon forests. Read the interview about the Peruvian Amazon…
In the space of six months, Xamã the jaguar had crisscrossed more than 14,000 hectares of the Amazon Rainforest, or about 35,000 acres — an area a tenth the size…
A new report by the Mining Observatory finds key mining states in Brazil, including Pará, the host state of the upcoming 2025 U.N. climate summit (COP30), are highly exposed to…
Across the Pan-Amazon region, communities who developed the bioeconomy concept centuries ago and practice it today still have a hard time accessing its benefits.
Nearly two-thirds of all primates are in danger of disappearing, including 100 that have only been described by science in the last 25 years. To spotlight their plight, leading conservation…
BOGOTÁ — Logs float downstream in long lines on the murky waters of the Atrato River in the depths of the Pacific rainforests of Colombia’s Chocó department. With few roads,…
Named after a river in the state of Goiás, Corumbá the puma was named after a river in the central Brazilian state of Goiás. Between 2022 and 2023, as much…
The Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon, has been losing water flow over the last 20 years while facing severe droughts.
Administrative law is based on legislation that creates, organizes and defines the responsibilities of government agencies. As such, the regulatory apparatus of the modern state is the product of laws…
This is the second of three interviews with Indigenous representatives at the United Nations about the latest issues in their country's Amazon forests. Read the interview about the Peruvian Amazon…
This is the first of three interviews with Indigenous representatives at the United Nations about the latest issues in their country's Amazon forests. Read the interview about the Colombian Amazon…
A new report adds to the already overwhelming case that protected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest serve as a critical carbon sink. The report, based on satellite…
ARAÇUAÍ, Brazil — It’s a sunny, cloudless morning in the Poço Dantas when a sudden loud blow shakes the ground of Maria Aparecida’s* house. A few kilometers away, a cloud…
Alto Jequitinhonha, Brazil — No photographs remain of João Gomes de Azevedo's village before eucalyptus plantations radically transformed it. Instead, fragments of its past live on in a song that…
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues — the world’s largest convening of Indigenous peoples — Indigenous leaders from…
In the heart of the Colombian Amazon, the towering mountains of the Serranía del Chiribiquete harbor secrets including South America’s oldest rock art. The remote site was off-limits and poorly…
Historically, most countries regulated their biological resources via the agriculture ministry, using laws specific for managing forests, wildlife and fish. Many were inspired by commitments made via United Nations treaties,…
Mongabay followed the steps of Adriano Aguiar de Castro, who, according to authorities, jumped from one gold laundering scheme to another and now is also involved with gold smuggling into Venezuela.
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…
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…
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.
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…
