SÃO PAULO — On Aug. 17, Maria Bernadete Pacífico, a 72-year-old Quilombola leader in Brazil, was brutally killed when two men wearing helmets entered her home and unloaded more than…
Yesterday, Ecuador voted to halt all future oil drilling in a sensitive protected area known for its fragile rainforest ecosystem and isolated Indigenous communities. Millions of people participated in a…
Some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions are helping to finance beef companies linked to the destruction of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco, according to a report published by…
SÃO PAULO—A new study published in Nature estimates that forests in Indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon have the potential to absorb over 7,000 tons of noxious fumes from forest fires…
MOCOA, Colombia — “We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon but throughout humanity,” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist who…
A new legislative proposal, criticized by opponents as a step backwards in recognizing the rights and protections of uncontacted and recently contacted Indigenous people, is currently under debate in Peru’s…
SÃO PAULO — Since the new Brazilian government under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1, its ministries have been working together to overcome a humanitarian…
TEHUACÁN-CUICATLÁN BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Mexico — The palenques, or local mezcal production sites, in the village of Santa María Ixcatlán stand unusually empty before the local Day of the Dead celebrations.…
“They bought new land and they are cutting wood where our ancestors were,” says a source in Meta, Colombia. “Us Mbya live from the forest, but here there’s barely anything…
Brazil’s use of pesticides has spiked in recent years, growing by over 300,000 tonnes since 2010, according to experts. A recent report, published by the NGO Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN)…
PARAÍBA VALLEY, Brazil — Under the frigid morning air of the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, honeybees begin leaving the hive. “When day breaks they are calmer,” says Mara Galvão,…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center. WAIKAS, Brazil — From up above, long, massive, yellowish stains tear apart…
Lucía lives in Peru, in one of more than 50 indigenous communities along the Putumayo, an Amazonian river that marks the border between Peru and Colombia. She has a banana…
Deep in Ecuador’s northern Amazon rainforest live the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous nations, the last two communities in the country who have never set foot outside of the jungle. They…
After a 19-year process, uncontacted and recently contacted Indigenous peoples living in the Napo-Tigre region of the Peruvian Amazon have had their existence officially recognized. With an extensive anthropological study…
ASUNCIÓN MITA, Guatemala – Cecilia López and Luz Elena González were in good spirits as they left, walking beneath blue and white plastic streamers strung across the school property in…
The European Parliament has approved a bill blocking the import of "dirty commodities" by members of the European Union, in an effort to combat global deforestation. Under the new bill,…
Funding for the research and writing of this series of articles was provided by Amazon Aid Foundation. “We’ve been fighting the government of Suriname for almost 25 years, for recognition…
(This report by La Cola de Rata is part of their series entitled Especial Tierra de Resistentes, which can be viewed here) Edith Lucía Taborda Guevara is an anxious…
NUEVO MEXICO, Mexico — Standing in her cornfield in Chiapas state, surrounded by mountains and dry tropical forests, Maria Luisa Gordillo Mendoza looks concerned. “They said we were pigs for…
INÍRIDA, Colombia –– Carolina Mora Gaitan takes one of the striking-looking flowers from the blue bucket lying at her feet and shakes off the excess water. Using a toothbrush, she…
As it sets, the sun lights up the waters of Lake Catemaco before disappearing behind the shoulder of a rainforest-covered volcano in Mexico’s Los Tuxtlas region. The waterfront is filled…
In La Playa, a fishing village of around 500 people in Santander, Colombia, well-kept houses and vibrant murals live in the shadow of el monstruo — the locals’ nickname for…
When feeling threatened, the Indigenous Achuar people of Peru perform a ritual war dance. Back in February, this dance came to light. Men and women gathered in the community of…
CUESTA DEL TERNERO, ARGENTINA – On a brisk spring day in September 2021, an Indigenous Mapuche community known as Lof Quemquemtrew announced it had reclaimed a piece of ancestral territory…
RINCON VITINA, Colombia — In this small Indigenous reserve, or resguardo, in the Colombian department of Guainía, people tend to their cassava, plantain and pineapple crops, raise ornamental fish, and…
In-person Indigenous plea leads to key Swiss gold refiners promising to stop import of gold illegally mined inside Brazilian Amazon Indigenous reserves — a pledge, if fulfilled, that may be a game changer. (Video)
On May 11 this year, dozens of activists with Greenpeace Netherland blocked a ship carrying 60,000 metric tons of soy from Brazil to the Netherlands. Among the protesters was Alberto…
SANTIAGO ATITLÁN, Mexico – Lucio Jimenez Ocampo is always surrounded by coffee. In the yard of his house in Santiago Atitlán nestled in the Oaxaca state’s Sierra Norte highlands, there…
It was over twenty years ago when locals in Bolivia’s northern plains told archaeologist Heiko Prümers, with the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn, about mysterious mounds of earth in the…
