location: Amazon

location: Amazon

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Amazon deforestation may rise 30% as major traders exit historic soy pact
- Major soy traders like Cargill, ADM and Bunge announced their withdrawal from the Amazon soy moratorium, a move that could increase deforestation in the biome by 30% by 2045.
- Behind the exodus are farmers and ranchers’ associations and local politicians linked to agribusiness.
- Their abandonment of the agreement signals a “green light” for land speculators to clear rainforest for new soy crops, observers warn.
- Advancing deforestation may lead companies to lose market share and intensify agricultural failures due to the lack of rain.

The spider that builds a fake of itself: Decoy-weaving spider
In the Peruvian Amazon, there’s a tiny spider that builds a fake version of itself. And the wildest part? The decoy moves like the real spider. Using leaves, dead insects and silk, this Cyclosa spider creates a lifelike double to distract predators. Survival isn’t always about strength — sometimes it’s about creativity. This is Episode […]
In the Brazilian Amazon, community conservation success comes with a cost: Study
- In Brazil’s western Amazon, community-led efforts to protect the pirarucu, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, bring conservation benefits that extend into upland ecosystems.
- A study in Nature Sustainability found that by patrolling oxbow lakes along the Juruá River, communities effectively protect a mean area 86 times larger than the lakes they directly monitor, making this the largest community-based conservation initiative in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Local families bear the full economic burden of conservation efforts; surveillance represents 32% of total costs and reduces community income by 21%. Researchers say that using payments for environmental services would help ease pressure on communities.

Drone-mounted eDNA hints at richness of life in the rainforest canopy
- Scientists have used a combination of drone technology and environmental DNA analysis to detect animals that live in the rainforest canopy in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Using the technology, researchers were able to draw a contrast between species detected from canopy samples and water samples.
- They found that water samples indicated the presence of more species, while canopy samples detected taxonomic groups not found in water samples, highlighting the need to use both methods complementarily.

Brazil sets out its strategy for nature
Brazil is the world’s most biodiverse country, and the title is not closely contested in absolute numbers: between 10% and 15% of all known species live within its borders. The country contains nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest and supplies about a tenth of the world’s food. That combination of ecological wealth and economic […]
Seminarian-turned-fire-agent preaches new tactics to fight Amazon’s burn crisis
- Lacking trucks and gear, a civil servant once destined for the priesthood now uses WhatsApp groups to direct volunteers who must manually carry river water through dense forest to tackle record blazes deep in an Amazonian town five times the size of New York City.
- Once rare, record-breaking wildfires destroyed millions of hectares across the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, leaving surviving forests increasingly fragile and susceptible to recurring blazes.
- Only 16% of Amazonian municipalities in Brazil have operational military fire brigades, forcing rural towns to rely on underfunded local offices and unpaid volunteers to defend the rainforest.

Many Amazon climate disasters are missing from official records, study finds
More than 12,500 extreme climate events were registered in the Amazon biome between 2013 and 2023, according to a recent study. But many more events were never recorded, as some Amazonian countries provided no or limited information, Gonzalo Ortuño López reported for Mongabay Latam. The study aggregated available national data but found that the national […]
What it will take to protect the Amazon, according to Virgilio Viana
The first time Virgilio Viana saw the Amazon, he was a 16-year-old traveling with two school friends, moving along dirt roads, then continuing by boat as the forest rose around them. The trip set something in motion. It stayed with him through a forestry degree, a Ph.D. on the region, and later a professorship in […]
Interpol-backed police make nearly 200 arrests in Amazon region gold mining sweep
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Police and prosecutors from Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname have arrested nearly 200 people in their first-ever joint cross-border operation targeting illegal gold mining in the Amazon region, authorities said Thursday. The operation was backed by Interpol — the international police cooperation agency that helps law enforcement agencies in different countries […]
Brazil bets reducing poverty can protect the Amazon
In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, in Brazil’s western Amazon, daily life still depends on the forest. Families tap rubber, collect Brazil nuts, and manage small plots without clearing large areas. The reserve is named after Chico Mendes, the rubber tapper and labor leader murdered in 1988 for defending that way of life. More than […]
Turning the Amazon’s toxic gold mine waste liability into economic opportunity (analysis)
- The toxic legacy of gold mining in the Amazon Rainforest could finance its own remediation while creating more than 200,000 jobs that transform illegal extraction into a regulated industry, a new analysis explains.
- Across the Amazon Basin, informal and illegal gold mines degrade forests and rivers while using mercury to extract the ore in an outdated, toxic and inefficient process.
- If the leftover “tailings” of these outdated operations were treated with modern methods via formalized processing facilities, thousands of jobs could be created and watersheds could be saved from ongoing destruction.
- This post is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cowboy boots made from pirarucu leather fund Amazon’s sustainable fishery
- Sustainable pirarucu fisheries in Brazil’s Amazonas are restoring once-depleted populations of this freshwater giant, thanks to community-led management systems and sales to brands overseas.
- Selling pirarucu skin to the fashion industry, especially for Texas-bound cowboy boots, is key to financing the fishery, helping maintain fair prices for fishers and cover part of the high costs of transport, storage and community monitoring.
- The system depends on heavy collective labor and constant protection against illegal fishing, with communities traveling long distances, patrolling lakes and facing armed threats — all while receiving limited recognition or policy support from authorities.

Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?
- Silvopastoral systems, which combine trees and pasture, are still not widely used across Latin America, mainly because of prohibitive costs and lack of technical knowledge, experts say.
- In the Peruvian Amazon, ranchers are being trained to practice rotational grazing, setting up silvopasture pilots, in particular over degraded areas. Research has shown that when done correctly, silvopasture can provide extensive carbon sequestration and forage for cattle; however, the system is not fit for all ecosystems.
- Ranchers need extensive financial support with silvopasture; experts say that payments for ecosystem services or tax breaks could prevent people from switching back to more lucrative monocultures that harm the environment.
- Some experts are worried that promoting more efficient animal husbandry could further promote carbon-intensive meat consumption and overshadow efforts to promote plant-based diets.

When Indigenous knowledge enters the scientific record
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For most of Peru’s scientific history, Indigenous knowledge has existed outside the formal record. It shaped how forests were used, how species were managed, and how risk was understood, but rarely appeared in journals or policy. The boundary […]
Soy giants drop Amazon no-deforestation pledge as subsidies come under threat
The world’s largest buyers of Brazilian soy have announced a plan to exit from a landmark antideforestation agreement, the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The voluntary agreement between soy agribusinesses and industry associations prevented most soy linked to deforestation from entering global supply chains for nearly two decades. The decision was communicated on Dec. 25, just before […]
The bird that builds tree skyscrapers: The oropendola
High in the Amazon canopy, oropendolas build some of the rainforest’s most incredible architecture: huge hanging pouch nests woven from fibers, vines and leaves. Hundreds of these nests form entire “tree cities” suspended 30 meters above the ground. But the design isn’t just impressive — it’s strategic. Toucans constantly try to raid the nests, so […]
Amazon entrepreneur spreads seeds of growth with recycled paper
- In the Brazilian city of Altamira, a small business transforms recycled paper into seed-embedded sheets that grow into flowers, herbs and even local plants, merging creativity and sustainability.
- Founder Alessandra Moreira turned personal adversity into purpose, building a backyard business that inspires sustainable entrepreneurship.
- Experts say initiatives like Ecoplante embody the future of the Amazon’s bioeconomy, where innovation, inclusion and forest conservation can grow hand in hand.

Cultural changes shift an Indigenous community’s relationship with the Amazon forest
- In the southeastern Colombian department of Vaupés, members of the Indigenous Macaquiño community have maintained a healthy territory through rituals and prayers that govern the use of natural resources and their deep respect for the spirits that guard sacred sites.
- A series of cultural transformations that began with the arrival of rubber tappers, missionaries and other non-Indigenous outsiders since the 19th century has led to a decline in many spiritual and cultural traditions, undermining the area’s sacred sites and the communities’ relationship with their territory.
- More recent changes, such as government education policies and laws that hand more power to Indigenous peoples to manage their territories, have also impacted the generational transfer of spiritual and cultural knowledge.
- Members Mongabay spoke to said they welcome some of the changes that have come with these cultural transformations, such as the opportunity to obtain a formal education and return with knowledge that can complement their Indigenous knowledge.

Massive Amazon conservation program pledges to put communities first
- The Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) is a massive conservation program that has helped reduce deforestation across 120 conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon and avoided 104 million metric tons of CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2020.
- A new phase of the program, called ARPA Comunidades, will now focus on supporting the communities who live in and protect the forest, by helping them increase their revenue through the bioeconomy or sale of sustainable forest products.
- Backed by a $120 million donor fund, ARPA Comunidades aims to increase protections across 60 sustainable-use reserves in the Brazilian Amazon spanning an area nearly the size of the U.K., directly impacting 130,000 people and helping raise 100,000 out of poverty.

The climate fight may not be won in the Amazon, but it can be lost there
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. After five decades studying the plants and peoples of the Amazon, Mark Plotkin, an ethnobotanist and co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team, is still asked whether the rainforest’s glass is half-full or half-empty. His answer is unchanged. “By […]
‘I’m proud to be the first published Asháninka researcher’: Richar Antonio Demetrio on bees
- Richar Antonio Demetrio is the first Indigenous Asháninka scientist to publish in a high-impact journal, combining traditional ecological knowledge with scientific methodology to study meliponiculture, the farming of stingless bees.
- His first paper, published in March 2025, reveals that Asháninka communities can identify more than 14 plant species used by stingless bees to build their nests, and apply sustainable practices in honey production.
- His second warns that more than 50% of the habitat of stingless bees in the Avireri-Vraem Biosphere Reserve overlaps with areas at high risk of deforestation.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Demetrio talks about the challenges he faced from both the scientific and Indigenous communities during his studies, and about the importance of balancing Western scientific methods with age-old traditional knowledge.

Mercury, dredges and crime: Illegal mining ravages Peru’s Nanay River
- Mongabay Latam flew over the basins of the Nanay and Napo rivers, in Peru’s Loreto region, and confirmed mining activity in this part of the Peruvian Amazon.
- Environmental prosecutors say that there may be even more boats and mining machinery hidden in the ravines of both rivers.
- During the flyover, authorities confirmed the use of not only dredges, but also of mining explosives, which they say destroy the riverbanks.
- Almost 15,140 liters (4,000 gallons) of fuel have been confiscated from illegal mining networks around the Nanay River in the last two years, but authorities’ efforts seem insufficient.

Fish deformities expose ‘collapse’ of Xingu River’s pulse after construction of Belo Monte Dam
- Independent monitoring has found a high prevalence of deformities in fish in the Volta Grande do Xingu area of the Brazilian Amazon, following the construction of the massive Belo Monte dam.
- Potential factors could include changes in the river’s flood pulse, water pollution, higher water temperatures, and food scarcity, all linked to the reduced flow in this section of the Xingu since the dam began operating in 2016.
- Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing the dam’s impact, alongside independent researchers, and at the recent COP30 climate summit warned of “ecosystem collapse.”
- Both scientists and affected communities say the prescribed rate at which the dam operator is releasing water into the river is far too low to simulate its natural cycle, leaving the region’s flooded forests dry and exacerbating the effects of drought.

Amazon fishers help scientists map dam harms to Madeira River stocks
- Having fishers as protagonists, a recent study disclosed unanswered details about the Amazon communities and fish species most affected by two Madeira River dams.
- The dams limited the natural flow of the Madeira, disrupting the currents that fish need and causing up to a 90% reduction in stocks in some locations; species like pirarucu and tambaqui have largely disappeared from traditional fishing communities.
- The research serves as evidence to support the decade-long legal battle by fishers in Humaitá who are seeking compensation for losses caused by power plants.

The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2025, with attention to how policy, markets, and climate stress increasingly interact rather than operate in isolation.
- Across major forest regions, deforestation slowed in some places but degradation, fire, conflict, and legacy damage continued to erode forest health, often in ways that standard metrics fail to capture.
- Global responses remained uneven: conservation finance shifted toward fiscal and market-based tools, climate diplomacy deferred hard decisions, and enforcement outcomes depended heavily on institutional capacity and credibility rather than formal commitments alone.
- Taken together, the year showed that forest outcomes now hinge less on single interventions than on whether governments and institutions can sustain continuity—of funding, governance, science, and oversight—under mounting environmental and political strain.

The Amazon in 2026: A challenging year ahead, now off the center stage
- As Belém’s COP30 ended in compromise, political forces moved swiftly to accelerate destruction far from the global spotlight.
- New infrastructure projects, critical minerals, fires and novel threats to the Amazon remain looming for 2026 after a year in the spotlight preparing for COP30.
- In 2025, the rainforest saw illegal miners finding new smuggling routes and an increasing backlog of families waiting for settlement in Brazil.
- As carbon credit schemes and violence against environmental defenders continue to loom, products made from Amazon raw materials renew hope for the value of a standing forest.

In the Amazon, law enforcement against environmental crime remains controversial
- In general terms, the reputation of police forces throughout Latin America lacks legitimacy and public trust. In the case of environmental conflicts, the issue takes on overtones of violence and corruption in areas where the state’s presence is scarce.
- In Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, it is almost tacitly understood that the police are, for the most part, colluding with organized crime. Meanwhile, in Brazil, their role as a shock force is excessive and, in rural areas, they may associate with private security forces to carry out evictions.
- The Catholic Church began monitoring these types of conflicts in the early 1990s, and since then, disputes have caused the deaths of 773 people.

Collapses of Amazon riverbanks threaten communities and shipping routes
- Extreme droughts, human interventions and growing boat traffic are contributing to riverbank collapses that endanger riverside communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Four public river ports in Amazonas state have been damaged by riverbank collapses in the past decade, prompting concerns about the safety of Amazon port infrastructure.
- Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry is investigating alleged failures to prevent collapses at regional ports that connect riverside communities and provide access to essential services.

The Amazon’s lakes are heating up at ‘alarming’ rate, research finds
Five out of 10 lakes in the central Amazon had daytime temperatures over 37° Celsius, (98.6° Fahrenheit) during the region’s 2023 extreme heat wave, a recent study found. One of the most well-known water bodies is Tefé Lake in Amazonas state, northern Brazil. In September and October 2023, 209 pink and grey river dolphins, roughly […]
Hope, solidarity & disappointment: A familiar mix for Indigenous delegates at COP30
- COP30, held in Brazil, was promoted as both the “Amazonian COP” and the “Indigenous COP,” where more than 900 Indigenous representatives from around the world formally took part in the negotiations.
- While Brazil announced the demarcation of new Indigenous territories and 11 signatories issued a joint commitment to strengthen land tenure for Indigenous peoples, wider frustrations overshadowed these measures.
- Indigenous delegates described a familiar pattern: They were invited into the venue but not into the center of decision-making; that divide was visible in the Global Mutirão, the main COP30 outcome, in which Indigenous peoples appear in the preamble but are absent from the operative paragraphs — the part of the text that directs how countries must act and report.

Stricter rules adopted to protect sloths from pet trade and selfie tourism
- CITES, the global wildlife trade regulation, has agreed to implement stricter rules for the trade in two sloth species increasingly targeted by the tourism industry.
- Thanks to its peaceful and friendly appearance, sloths are a prime target for tourists to take selfies with, and even for the pet trade, fueling trafficking in their range countries across South and Central America.
- The new trade restrictions were approved by the recent CITES summit and will come into force within 90 days.
- A dozen of the proposals presented at the summit covered wildlife species threatened by the illegal pet trade, highlighting what conservationists say is a concerning trend.

New financial tools boost traditional bioeconomy projects in the Amazon
- The Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Finance Coalition (BRB FC), an alliance of NGOs, funders and financial institutions, aims to mobilize $10 billion by 2030 to support Indigenous and traditional communities-led enterprises.
- By supporting these initiatives, BRB FC and other projects seek to help communities restore millions of hectares of degraded land in the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado savanna, the semiarid Caatinga, and the Atlantic Forest.
- Existing conventional financial systems often exclude grassroots initiatives due to rigid, centralized requirements that clash with local governance and realities.
- With the shift championed by BRB FC, proponents say low-bureaucracy funding models can effectively reach and empower forest-based communities while supporting the bioeconomy.

Brazil fast-tracks paving controversial highway in Amazon with new licensing rule
Brazil’s Senate approved an environmental licensing bill that could expedite major infrastructure projects, including paving a highway that cuts through one of the most intact parts of the Amazon Rainforest in northwestern Brazil. The BR-319 highway runs through 885 kilometers (550 miles) of rainforest, connecting Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, with Rondônia state farther […]
Brazilian Amazon’s most violent city tied to illegal gold mining on Indigenous land
Violence has escalated in the small Brazilian town of Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade as illegal gold mining on the nearby Sararé Indigenous Territory has exploded over the last two years, according to the 2025 Amazon Violence Atlas. Located in Mato Grosso state near the Bolivian border, Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade recorded the highest […]
Respecting uncontacted peoples can protect biodiversity and our humanity (commentary)
- Protecting regions inhabited by uncontacted Indigenous peoples is vital from both a human rights and environmental perspective; these territories represent some of the planet’s last intact ecosystems, and are also rich carbon sinks.
- But in recent years, these communities that choose to live in isolation have been seen and contacted more frequently by outsiders like illegal miners and loggers, and the results have at times been violent, with reports about these incidents going viral.
- “Some argue that isolation is no longer possible, that climate change, deforestation and economic pressure will make contact inevitable. I believe that argument is defeatist and ethically indefensible. It assumes that outsiders know what is best for these communities, repeating the same paternalism that has caused centuries of harm,” the writer of a new op-ed states.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The valuable peatlands of Peru’s Pastaza River Fan: one of the world’s largest carbon reservoirs
- In Peru’s Datem del Marañón province, local communities are combining ancestral knowledge with scientific expertise to protect the peatlands that thrive in this part of the Amazon.
- Peatlands cover only 3% of Earth’s surface, yet can store up to five times more carbon dioxide per hectare than other tropical ecosystems.
- Although research on Peru’s peatlands remains limited, their importance lies in both their role in mitigating climate change and their socioeconomic value for local communities.
- The area that’s the focus of scientists’ research and local communities’ conservation work is part of the Pastaza River Fan, Peru’s largest wetland and the third-deepest peatland in the world.

Amazon’s stingless bee propolis shows potent healing power, studies show
- Researchers in Brazil identified anti-inflammatory properties of a cream made with the propolis of Amazon stingless bees, with results similar to commercial healing ointments.
- Stingless bees (meliponines) are the primary pollinators for the açaí berry, making their conservation crucial for both the Amazon ecosystem and a billion-dollar global industry.
- For one Amazon family, swapping cattle ranching for beekeeping and cosmetics is a real-world example of a bioeconomy that experts say offers a powerful alternative to deforestation.

One small Indigenous territory emerges as illegal mining hotspot in Brazil’s Amazon
One small Indigenous territory is currently the site of roughly 70% of deforestation in Indigenous territories across the Brazilian Amazon due to illegal mining over the last two years, according to government data. The Sararé Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso state is home to about 200 Nambikwara people. From January 2024 to August 2025, illegal […]
New agreement aims to streamline Amazon Rainforest protection efforts
- A new agreement announced at the COP30 climate talks in Brazil intends to unify countries and institutions from around the world to monitor and protect the Amazon Rainforest.
- The Mamirauá Declaration aims to develop a streamlined framework that will unify various long-term efforts to streamline data gathering and analysis.
- The agreement focuses on the active participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in monitoring; it also calls for more capacity building in countries in the Amazon Basin.

What was achieved for Indigenous peoples at COP30?
- The two-week COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, saw the largest global participation of Indigenous leaders in the conference’s history.
- With the adoption of measures like the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, a $1.8 billion funding pledge, and the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), the summit resulted in historic commitments to secure land tenure rights for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant people.
- Yet despite these advances, sources say frustrations grew as negotiators failed to establish pathways for rapid climate finance for adaptation, loss and damage, or to create road maps for reversing deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels.
- While some pledges appear ambitious, Indigenous delegates say effective implementation of the pledges will depend on government transparency and accountable use of funds.

Brazil nut hauling effort gets easier with zip lines and ‘Amazon Waze’
- Researchers are developing solutions to help Brazil nut collectors in the Amazon Rainforest reduce the physical toll of the trade.
- These include zip lines to haul heavy sacks across difficult terrain, and ergonomic baskets to reduce back strain while picking up the nut pods.
- These new technologies could encourage Indigenous youths to continue the practice, a crucial step for sustaining local communities who keep the Amazon standing.
- These advances are part of Brazil’s national push for a bioeconomy, a model designed to generate economic growth and social inclusion while protecting the rainforest.

Brazil aims for alternative route to fossil fuel road map after COP30 failure
- Brazil will collaborate with the Colombian and Dutch delegations to develop the road map outside the formal U.N. process, with the goal of bringing it back for discussion at COP31.
- Experts say the Belém summit showed disappointing deals after ambitious promises, failing to address the environmental and economic needs of climate change.
- The turbulent final plenary exposed deeper diplomatic rifts, with one delegate accusing Colombian counterparts of behaving “like children” amid high tensions.

Brazil’s forest fund faces a slow takeoff at COP30 despite initial support
- The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) secured $6.7 billion in sponsor capital at COP30, representing less than a quarter of the $25 billion initially required for a full-scale rollout.
- Policy analysts warn that a smaller fund could likely lose the capacity to outpace deforestation drivers in tropical forests — key in the race to avoid climate disaster.
- Rich nations blamed operational rifts and budget constraints to hold off funding TFFF, a struggle that reflects a worldwide crisis in climate finance; nearly one-third of the funds raised by global forest mechanisms remain undisbursed.

Why are Amazonian trees getting ‘fatter’?
- A new study has found that the trunks of trees in the Amazon have become thicker in recent decades — an unexpected sign of the rainforest’s resilience in response to record-high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- Nearly 100 scientists involved in the study have stated that old-growth forests in the Amazon are sequestering more carbon than they did 30 years ago, contradicting predictions of immediate collapse due to climate change.
- But the warning still stands: Despite the trees’ capacity to adapt, scientists fear that the extreme droughts and advancing deforestation could invert the rainforest’s balance and threaten its vital role in global climate regulation.

Weather disasters are surging in the Amazon. Reporting isn’t.
The Amazon’s climate hazards are growing faster than governments can track.
Brazil’s governance style leads to controversial impacts
- Brazil’s complex governance system creates impacts at all levels across the country, including consequences for environmental policies.
- Although the Brazilian Congress is designed to be the counterweight to the executive branch, presidential power in Brazil is exceptionally strong. This translates into direct influence over budgetary control, the veto of specific items, and the power to initiate legislation by issuing temporary laws.
- Added to this is the role of political parties, which, in their own way, create a balance of power. However vote-buying is perhaps the one that has most characterized the corrupt practices of those in power.

A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon
The first time Virgilio Viana saw the Amazon up close, he was a 16-year-old with a backpack, two school friends and very little sense of what he was walking into. They arrived by land, drifting along dirt roads that had more potholes than surface, then continued by riverboat as the forest thickened around them. Something […]
Reporting from a land war
Mongabay investigative reporter Fernanda Wenzel tells us all about her reporting on the Amazon’s land war. She went to one of the most dangerous spots in the rainforest, a place where a battle between land grabbers, settlers and landless families are driving deforestation and claiming many lives. In 2024 alone, Brazil registered more than 1,700 […]
Amazon Indigenous groups fight soy waterway as Brazil fast-tracks dredging
- Brazil is pushing the Tapajós River waterway as one of the main Amazon shipping corridors and preparing it for privatization, which will enable regular dredging and maintenance to improve its capacity.
- Traditional communities and environmental groups warn that dredging and heavy vessel traffic threaten fish stocks, turtle nesting areas and other wildlife.
- The Tapajós waterway is a central component of the new Amazonian logistics plans to move commodities such as soy and beef, including the contested Ferrogrão railway.

Top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin’s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)
- The global battle to mitigate climate change cannot be won in the Amazon, but it can certainly be lost there, writes top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin in a new analysis for Mongabay. Though he’s well-known for investigating traditional uses of plants in the region, he’s also a keen observer of and advocate for Indigenous communities and conservation there.
- Compared to the 1970s, he writes, the Amazon enjoys far greater formal protection, understanding and attention, while advances in technology and ethnobotany have revealed new insights into tropical biodiversity, and Indigenous communities — long the guardians and stewards of this ecosystem — are increasingly recognized as central partners in conservation, and their shamans employ hallucinogens like biological scalpels to diagnose, treat and sometimes cure ailments, a technology that is increasingly and ever more widely appreciated.
- “The challenge now is to ensure that the forces of protection outpace the forces of destruction, which, of course, is one of the ultimate goals of the COP30 meeting in Belém,” he writes.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Sloth selfies are feeding a booming wildlife trafficking trade
- The apparent docility and friendliness of “smiling” sloths have made them tourist darlings, but have also put a target on their backs.
- The rise in trafficking of these animals led the governments of Brazil, Costa Rica and Panama to propose stricter rules for the international trade of two sloth species; the goal is to prevent them from becoming threatened with extinction.
- Cruel practices used by traders condemn most animals to death, with sloth babies separated from their mothers and subjected to unbearable levels of stress.
- In the Brazilian Amazon, tourism companies encourage customers to take photos with sloths, and the government fears the smuggling of animals to neighboring countries.

Strategic ignorance, climate change and Amazonia (commentary)
- With the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, essentially all of Brazil’s government outside of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is promoting actions that push us toward tipping points, both for the Amazon Rainforest and the global climate.
- Crossing any of these tipping points would result in global warming escaping from human control, with devastating consequences for Brazil that include mass mortalities.
- The question of whether Brazil’s leaders understand the consequences of their actions is relevant to how they will be judged by history, but the climatic consequences follow automatically, regardless of how these actions may be judged, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Peru Indigenous patrols see success & struggles in combating illegal miners
- In 2024, the Wampís Indigenous nation formed the territorial monitoring group Charip to combat the expansion of illegal gold mining, loggers and other invaders in their territory in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Charip combines traditional knowledge with monitoring technology but lacks the financial resources to expand its control posts and cover more ground.
- Members of the group are unpaid, which has led to a decline in the number of available guards.

How a ‘green gold rush’ in the Amazon led to dubious carbon deals on Indigenous lands
- A Mongabay investigation has found that companies without the financial or technical expertise signed deals with Indigenous communities in Brazil and Bolivia, covering millions of hectares of forest, for carbon and biodiversity credits.
- Many of the communities involved say they were rushed into signing, never had the chance to give consent, and didn’t understand what they were signing up to or even who with.
- Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency has warned of legal insecurity and lack of standards in carbon credit initiatives, and an inquiry is underway — even as the businessmen involved target more than 1.7 million hectares in the tri-border area between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.
- Two and a half years since the deals were made, Brazil’s Public Ministry has called for them to be annulled, following Mongabay’s repeated requests to the ministry for updates.

After 6 years, trial in Indigenous forest guardian killing pushed to 2026
- The trial of the two suspects charged in the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019 was pushed to 2026, triggering outrage among the Guajajara people and Indigenous rights advocates.
- The trial over the crimes will be a legal landmark as the first Indigenous cases to go before a federal jury in Maranhão; usually, killings are considered crimes against individuals and are tried by a state jury, but these crimes were escalated to the federal level because prosecutors made the case that they represented an aggression against the entire Guajajara community and Indigenous culture.
- A long-awaited anthropological report on the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes was concluded and attached to the court case in August, but the trial is very likely to only happen in early 2026, “given that there is not enough time for it to be held by the end of this year,” the judge’s advisory staff in the case said.
- Paulo’s father, José Maria Paulino Guajajara, said he is “really angry” at white people for killing his son for no reason — and inside the Arariboia territory, where their entrance is forbidden. “We Indians are dying, and the white man won’t stop killing us.”

Witch Hunt: Virulent fungal disease attacks South America’s cassava crop
- Witches’ Broom, a devastating fungal disease, has spread for the first time from Southeast Asia to Latin America, arriving in French Guiana in 2023 and has now infiltrated northern Brazil.
- Cassava is a vital crop for food security in South America and Africa, and a critical cash crop in Southeast Asia, where the fungal disease is spreading rapidly. More than 500 million people worldwide rely on cassava for their dietary needs.
- The pathogen has already caused massive cassava losses in Southeast Asia, with infection rates in some fields near 90%, and now it threatens food security in Latin America. Climate change is helping the fungus thrive and spread, as wetter conditions create an ideal environment for infection.
- Brazil has launched emergency measures, including funding research and farmer training, but scientists warn that without swift containment, cassava production across the tropics could face severe declines.

Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon
- Renata Piazzon, CEO of the Instituto Arapyaú, is one of Brazil’s leading voices for aligning conservation with economic development, arguing that protecting forests and improving livelihoods must go hand in hand.
- Under her leadership, Arapyaú has helped catalyze initiatives like MapBiomas and the Forest People Connection, which link data, finance, and connectivity to reduce deforestation and strengthen Amazonian communities.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30, Piazzon envisions the country shifting from negotiation to implementation—demonstrating global leadership through regenerative agriculture, forest restoration, and a low-carbon economy.
- Piazzon spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in November 2025.

These banks fund oil & gas in the Amazon amid climate crisis: Report
- Since 2016, banks have provided $15 billion in direct financing for oil and gas extraction in the Amazon, according to a Stand.earth analysis of transactions from 330 banks.
- Between January 2024 and June 2025, direct financing added up to $2 billion, with more than 80% benefiting just six oil and gas companies.
- Some banks have scaled back this type of financing, mostly due to the adoption of Amazon exclusion policies, but none have stopped completely.
- The continued financing of oil and gas extraction in the Amazon comes amid a wider rollback of banks’ sustainability pledges and an increase in fossil fuel financing globally.

Brazil charges 31 people in major carbon credit fraud investigation
Brazil’s Federal Police have indicted 31 suspects for fraud and land-grabbing in a massive criminal carbon credit scheme in the Brazilian Amazon, according to Brazilian national media outlet Folha de S.Paulo. It is the largest known criminal operation involving carbon credit fraud to date in the nation. The police probe, called Operation Greenwashing, was launched […]
Critical minerals drive legalization of mining on Amazon Indigenous lands
- Brazilian lawmakers are advancing controversial bills to legalize mining on Indigenous lands, where hundreds of mining bids have already been filed, as the nation positions itself as a key supplier for the energy transition.
- The proposed expansion of mining would intensify deforestation and mercury pollution, bringing violence to Indigenous communities and threatening the Amazon, reports show.
- The move raises concerns among Indigenous organizations and experts, who warn that the bills are unconstitutional and may be taken without properly consulting traditional communities.

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