Venezuela is close to passing a law to update the country’s mining regulations and attract private investment in gold, silver, coltan and other minerals. But advocacy groups say the law…
Reports on the health and vitality of the Amazon — often dubbed as Earth’s lungs — have been grim for years. Record drought has stressed large swaths of the world’s…
With evidence that the giant river otter is in an increasingly perilous state, delegates to the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) listed it as an…
In an isolated valley within Alerce Costero National Park in southern Chile, one tree towers above all others. At 30 meters (100 feet) high, this alerce abuelo or grandpa alerce,…
Environmental crimes rarely occur in isolation. A road cut into a forest may appear first as a faint line in satellite imagery. Months later it becomes a corridor for timber,…
Conserving the dwindling jaguar population in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest won’t be possible without protecting its prey. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which found that the absence of deer,…
SHIPYARD, Belize — Mennonite families in Belize are preparing to move to Suriname to establish massive farming communities in a heavily forested area, multiple sources told Mongabay, raising concerns that…
Dozens of migratory animals, including 33 marine species, gained new protections during the recent summit for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The 15th Conference…
In recent years, we have seen clear signs that the global market for forest and nature-based carbon credits is gaining momentum. More and more companies and governments are turning to forests as…
The University of São Paulo Medical School Hospital said it would cancel a plan to buy more than 17 metric tons of shark meat as part of a 2026 procurement,…
In the southern tip of Colombia’s Cauca department, known as the “boot” for its shoe-like shape, volunteer members of an Indigenous guard patrol their territories in the Andean foothills to…
A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it…
In 2025, botanists Rodrigo Cámara-Leret and Juan Carlos Copete embarked on a two-hour boat ride down the Vaupés River in the Colombian Amazon, followed by a two-hour hike to the…
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…
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…
In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from…
In October 2025, environmental officers arrived unannounced at the Parangaba Fair that takes place every Sunday in Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil. The market, also known as the Bird Fair, had…
Forest loss, along with climate change, is changing the resilience of the Amazon Rainforest. By disrupting the movement of moisture through the atmosphere, deforestation is reducing rainfall and extending the…
In October 2023, a delegation of La Gente de Centro — the Andoke (Pɵɵsiɵhɵ), Nonuya (Nonova), Muinane (Féénemɨnaa) and Uitoto (Nɨpode) peoples of the Middle Caquetá River Basin — traveled…
Austrian director and cinematographer Richard Ladkani knew little about the Amazon Rainforest before he decided to make a film about it. It was 2019. Fires raged across the Amazon. Ladkani…
Scientists have updated the conservation status of hundreds of mammals in Argentina, adding previously unassessed species and revising biodiversity threat levels. The assessment evaluated 417 native mammal species across the…
Since the U.S. ousted Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this year, officials in Caracas have been looking for ways to increase oil production, including by attracting foreign private investment. In…
Locals warned Belo Monte would kill the river, and now the plant faces a turning point as prophecies become real.
New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and…
SINOP, Brazil — In Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, the country’s agricultural heartland, vast stretches of lush Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna give way to seemingly endless fields of soy. Located…
Hatchlings talk inside their shells to time their birth, but the roar of massive barges may soon drown out their sound.
In May 2024, floodwaters submerged much of Porto Alegre. Brazil's fourth-largest city lost bridges, hospitals, and months of economic output. Hundreds died. The images briefly commanded global attention. Then the…
MONTERÍA, Colombia — In the suburb of La Palma, in the city of Montería, Córdoba, two boys stand knee-deep in water. A shimmering film of dirt spreads across its opaque…
On Feb. 3, at the request of an association of the Indigenous Cinta Larga people in the Amazon, the Brazilian Supreme Court authorized the possibility of mining exploration and exploitation…
Ecuador has announced the creation of a new biological corridor designed to connect the eastern ranges of the Andes with the Amazon Rainforest, part of a larger initiative to strengthen…
Families awaiting land reform in the Amazon now face a surge in mining that can destroy their chance at a decent life.
The Brazilian Cerrado, recognized as one of the world’s most species-diverse and threatened ecodomains on the planet, faces increasing pressure from large-scale agriculture and land conversion. “Ecodomains” are large areas…
