Foreign land developers have spent the past several years working to bring Mennonite farming communities from across Latin America to Suriname with the plan of starting a series of agriculture…
The Achuar Indigenous people in the Peruvian community of José Olaya grew tired of seeing oil traveling through their creeks as they awaited the arrival of authorities. This is why…
MEXICO CITY — Canada has become a major force in Latin America. It’s spent the last 30 years beefing up its portfolio with investments in mining, oil and natural gas.…
TEKOA PINDÓ MIRIM, Brazil — “If we hadn’t come here, someone non-Indigenous would probably already have occupied this space,” says Neusa Poty. The 35-year-old Guarani Indigenous leader speaks in a…
PANAMA CITY — Panama has been gripped by mass protests against a government deal with Central America’s largest copper mine amid claims it sacrifices national sovereignty and will damage the…
Latin America is far and away the most dangerous place for people fighting to protect the environment. From activists and community leaders to journalists and politicians, standing up against deforestation,…
Back in December 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador had been Mexico’s president for only a few days when he promised the public that not a single tree would be cut…
Peru signed a deal last week that will redirect millions of dollars of international debt to environmental efforts in the Amazon rainforest, a move that could help it meet long-term…
More than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) of pipelines run through the Amazon and along the coasts of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. These hundreds of pipelines transport millions of liters…
Global food giant Cargill has been tied to the destruction of thousands of hectares of dry tropical forest, which were cleared in eastern Bolivia to make room for soy production.…
South America has suffered through an intense and often record-breaking heatwave this year. Chile saw temperatures surpass 35°C (95°F) in August despite it being winter. In Bolivia it was 45°C…
HOLBOX, Mexico — The tour I’d arranged in Holbox wasn’t one of the usual packages. It isn’t advertised on social media or sold at the dozens of stalls along the…
The world’s largest limpet, Scutellastra mexicana, is making its last stand on a group of islands off Mexico, with experts warning that it may slip into extinction without urgent conservation…
Mangroves’ capacity to store carbon — up to five times more than upland tropical forests — makes them a powerful natural solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate…
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, a region marked by half a century of extractive industries, mainly oil, deforestation is a constant. In recent years, a new threat to the conservation of…
Conservationist George Georgiadis vividly remembers the first time he saw Kaempfer's woodpecker, a species once thought to be on the brink of extinction. He heard its drumming, then the bird…
The Tsáchila Indigenous communities of the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Ecuador, have spent more than two decades speaking out against the air and water pollution caused by…
The arrest of five environmental activists fighting water pollution and mining in El Salvador is drawing international criticism following questionable developments in court proceedings that suggest the case against them…
Decades of oil spills have polluted rivers and streams throughout the Amazon Rainforest, affecting wildlife and destroying the homes of Indigenous peoples. But the oil and gas industry doesn’t act…
On April 19, the European Parliament approved a law aimed at curbing deforestation. This legislation bans imports of coffee, cocoa, beef, soybeans, palm oil (and a series of its derivatives),…
International demand for soybeans and corn has turned the South American plains into an economic pillar for countries like Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. But all of that activity also…
For the last several years, soldiers have been entering the Colombian Amazon armed to the teeth to fight deforestation, surging ever since the 2016 peace accord between rebel group FARC…
The Amazon Rainforest is the largest in the world and a key player in regulating global water and carbon cycles. It also happens to be home to sophisticated criminal networks…
In early April, 35-year-old Indigenous health worker Angelita Prororita Yanomami went missing near Boa Vista, the capital city of the northernmost Brazilian state of Roraima. Two months later, her remains…
The first encounter between the biologist and the primates was like a movie scene. The monkeys moved through the thick fog covering the montane forest (or cloud forest), where she…
The soybean industry is one of the largest drivers of deforestation today, with over 75.5 million hectares (186.5 million acres) cultivated across the globe, according to the FAO. An overwhelming…
When Mauricio Velasco Castro graduated from culinary school in Bogotá, he didn’t look for a job in one of Colombia’s fine dining restaurants or for an internship abroad. Instead, he…
Colombia has nearly 60 million hectares (147.5 million acres) of natural forest covering over half its territory, much of it in the Amazon basin. As a “megadiverse” country, possessing around…
Last year, the Amazon saw some of the highest rates of deforestation in over a decade, due to a combination of cattle ranching, agriculture, mining and road projects that cleared…
Climate change impacts could cost countries in Central America up to $314 billion per year by 2100 if ecosystem services provided by the region’s forests are affected, a recent study…
