location: Amazon

location: Amazon

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Study finds deforestation accounts for major Amazon rainfall decline
- A study looking at land and atmosphere interactions in the Amazon Basin across four decades found that 52-72% of the rainfall decline in the southern Amazon is due to large-scale deforestation.
- Between 1980 and 2019, annual precipitation in the southern Amazon declined by 8-11%, with most of the region losing on average 7.7% of its forest cover over largely the same period.
- The research also indicates that climate models might underestimate the contribution of deforestation to precipitation reduction by as much as 50%, which could mean that rainfall thresholds in the Amazon could be crossed earlier than expected.

Why the Amazon can’t be saved by courts alone (commentary)
- The Amazon cannot be saved by legal recognition alone. Declaring the forest a subject of rights is historic, but without real authority for Indigenous governments, these rights risk remaining largely symbolic.
- Protecting the forest requires shared governance: national ministries, regional agencies, and local governments must coordinate decisions with Indigenous authorities who already govern vast Amazonian territories — and protect the knowledge systems that have sustained it for generations.
- The limited implementation of the ruling recognizing the Amazon as a subject of rights reflects the gap between judicial decisions and realities on the ground, as well as the political and social complexity of the Amazon across territorial, national, regional, and international scales.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Behind the scenes of the Amazon’s gold rush: Director Richard Ladkani on the making of ‘Yanuni’
- A new documentary film, “Yanuni,” highlights the journey of Juma Xipaia, an Indigenous chief from the Brazilian Amazon, as she moves between two worlds: Brazil’s capital, Brasília, and a remote village in the Xipaia Indigenous Territory.
- The film focuses on her ongoing battle to protect the Amazon, alongside her husband, Hugo Loss, the head of Special Operations at Brazil’s environmental protection agency (Ibama), who leads dangerous operations to crack down on illegal mining deep in the Amazon.
- In an interview with Mongabay, director Richard Ladkani shares behind-the-scenes insights into the filming process, important conversations and actions that helped shape the narrative and more details about some of the critical moments and events it covers.

325 Long-neglected migratory freshwater fish species need protection now: Report
- As national representatives gather at the UN COP15 Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) meeting this week in Brazil, a new global report has been released profiling a dangerously neglected category of migratory animal: the world’s freshwater fish.
- Migratory freshwater fish populations have fallen by 81% since 1970, says the report, with 325 species worldwide urgently needing coordinated international conservation action. However, only 23 migratory freshwater fish species are currently listed under CMS.
- More than half of the 325 at-risk freshwater migratory fish species documented by the report are in Asia, with the Mekong River of major concern. While international conservation cooperation is urgently needed, China and other Mekong basin nations are non-parties to CMS, as are the U.S. and Russia.
- What is needed now, conservationists say, are transnational migratory freshwater fish species conservation action plans that cover entire river systems, with those plans managed cooperatively by multiple nations within each river basin.

Indigenous groups demand halt to Belo Sun Amazon gold mine
More than 120 Indigenous protesters have occupied a federal building in Altamira in the Brazilian Amazon since Feb. 23. They are demanding that authorities block a Canadian mining company’s license to open one of the country’s largest open-air gold mines on the Xingu River. Led by a movement of Indigenous women, the protest follows a […]
Contested Amazon dam called to review water flow as river ecosystem fails
- A federal court and Brazil’s environmental agency ordered the Belo Monte hydropower plant to revise the Xingu River’s water-sharing plan, a decade after its debut, but a legal stay blocks enforcement of the ruling.
- The plant’s water flow has been subject to several complaints, as low water levels in the Volta Grande do Xingu have dried flooded forests and rock habitats, disrupting fish and turtle reproduction and threatening endemic species.
- “Increasing the amount of water is the only solution to restore this ecosystem,” says Josiel Juruna, coordinator of an Indigenous-led monitoring program documenting the impacts.

An ‘ethereal’ new-to-science poison dart frog from the Amazon: Photo of the week
Scientists in Brazil described a new-to-science species of poison dart frog last year. It was first found among the leaves of wild banana plants on a research expedition to the Juruá River Basin in the western Amazon in 2023. The frog, around the length of a paperclip (14–17 millimeters, or 0.5-0.7 inches), is reddish-brown and blue […]
Amazon waterway noise threatens unique social life of giant river turtles
- A planned shipping waterway on the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, may disrupt the sophisticated social communication systems used by the Amazon river turtle (Podocnemis expansa), a species likely to be endangered.
- Underwater noise from barges risks drowning out the vocalizations used by adult females to guide their young during collective migration in the species’ second-most important nesting area, scientists say.
- The waterway is a central piece of Brazil’s new push to ease the transport of soybean and corn for export.

Brazil is both the world’s environmental treasure and its most exposed victim (commentary)
- Brazil is one of the countries most exposed to climate breakdown and the one with the most power to slow it. Its failure to act on either front is becoming an economic and political emergency, argue Robert Muggah and Igor Oliveira of the Igarapé Institute.
- Brazil’s major biomes—the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal—function as an interconnected system that regulates rainfall, water supplies, and agricultural productivity across the country. Degrading one part of that system destabilizes the others, creating cascading economic and environmental risks.
- Despite mounting evidence of climate vulnerability—from floods and droughts to energy and food price shocks—Brazil’s political and economic institutions have yet to integrate climate risk into national planning at the scale required, leaving the country increasingly exposed to systemic disruption.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Brazil Supreme Court opens path to mining in Indigenous land for first time
- Last month, the Brazilian Supreme Court authorized the possibility of mining exploration and exploitation inside an Indigenous territory for the first time, at the request of an Indigenous Cinta Larga association in the southwestern Amazon.
- While the decision does not automatically authorize mining within Cinta Larga land, it has set a deadline for Congress to regulate mining in Indigenous lands and has established provisional rules in case mining authorization is approved by Congress, such as allowing mining on only 1% of the territory.
- A representative of the Cinta Larga Patjamaaj Association told Mongabay that the absence of such a law has prevented them from being able to benefit economically from mining on their land, leading to a lack of income for health, education and sustainability projects.
- Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), several public prosecutors and other Indigenous peoples and organizations have raised concerns about the precedent this could set, and say that by establishing these rules, it can be interpreted as opening the door to future exploration requests while on-site environmental compliance inspections in Brazil remain rare.

Mining rush for critical minerals threatens Amazon land reform settlements
- A survey of mining records found dozens of requests for copper, manganese and nickel targeting land reform settlements in northern Brazil’s Carajás region in the last five years.
- The rush for critical minerals is creating potential “sacrifice zones” of contaminated waterways and declining fish populations in the Amazonian settlements.
- These minerals are vital for cars, batteries and war industries, linking increasing global demand to local Amazon conflicts and poverty, despite a local tax boost.

Across South America, canopy bridges evolve as a lifeline for tree-dwelling wildlife
- In the Amazon and Atlantic forests, field research is seeking new ways to understand the behavior of mammals like monkeys and sloths that depend on the treetops to move around and survive in different types of vegetation.
- Using photographic equipment on artificial bridges — whose ropes, nets and platforms are intertwined with trees to protect wildlife — researchers are mapping fauna in both continuous forests and fragmented areas, providing new scientific insights.
- Experts working to reduce the risks of roadkill and species’ isolation in fragmented forest areas say studies are crucial to improving the installation of artificial crossings over highways.

Falling Amazon river flows trigger reality check at Belo Monte power plant
- Studies warn that climate change could slash hydropower generation across the Amazon by up to 40%, with controversial Belo Monte among the most exposed plants in Brazil.
- Researchers and regulators say relying on historical river flows is no longer viable as droughts intensify and rainfall patterns drop.
- Belo Monte’s operator argues the plant remains strategic for Brazil’s energy security, despite growing climate risks.

No grid, no problem: How Amazon communities built their own power systems
Near Brazil’s Belo Monte dam, one of the world’s largest hydropower projects, the promise of abundant electricity has proved uneven. A household survey of 500 families in Altamira found that 86.8% experienced higher electricity costs after the plant began operating in 2016. Many riverside residents still endure outages, pay steep tariffs or rely on diesel […]
Concern among Indigenous leaders, relief for a few, as Amazon Soy Moratorium falters
- Mongabay spoke with various stakeholders across Brazil’s political spectrum on what the possible unraveling of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a key zero-deforestation agreement, may mean for Indigenous peoples and their lands.
- Most Indigenous leaders say a weakening or end to the moratorium will increase deforestation, pollution and invasions of their lands — as satellite imagery points to advancing forest loss near one territory — while a few leaders see this as an economic opportunity that will allow them to sell soy farmed on their lands without any penalties.
- As cracks form in the 20-year-old moratorium, the environment ministry says existing deforestation policies still stand and that given potential impacts on Indigenous lands, environmental enforcement and control mechanisms remain active and strengthened.
- The government of the state of Mato Grosso says the moratorium created an unfair legal framework, while soy industry association Abiove said Brazil can still maintain high socioenvironmental standards without it. Both did not address whether there are potential impacts on Indigenous lands.

Birds are changing — and Indigenous memory is the longest record we have
- A global study drawing on Indigenous and local knowledge across three continents finds that bird communities have shifted toward smaller-bodied species over the past 80 years, suggesting a substantial loss of larger birds even in places with little formal monitoring.
- Traditional ecological knowledge, built through daily interaction with landscapes over generations, can reveal long-term environmental changes that scientific datasets — often only decades deep — fail to capture.
- Because larger species tend to be more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and environmental stress, a shift toward smaller birds may signal deeper ecological restructuring rather than a simple decline in numbers.
- Integrating lived experience with scientific methods offers a fuller picture of environmental change, highlighting that some of the earliest warnings come from people who depend most directly on the natural world.

Five Yanomami infants in Brazil die amid whooping cough outbreak
Five Indigenous Yanomami infants have reportedly died from a preventable respiratory illness called pertussis, or whooping cough. The outbreak began Jan. 7 in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Roraima state in northern Brazil. A representative of the Urihi Yanomami Association (UYA) told Mongabay that health authorities have been slow to respond. Three of the […]
Climate change drives uneven shifts in tree diversity across Amazon and Andes
- A team of researchers looked at changes in tree richness across the lowland and montane forests of the Andes and Amazon over the last four decades.
- While their results didn’t show an overall shift in any one direction, they found that tree richness changed significantly across the six subregions: forests in the central Andes, Guyana Shield and central-eastern Amazon have been losing species, while the northern Andes and western Amazon showed increased tree richness.
- Changes in the seasonality of precipitation, total rainfall, temperature, as well as the degree of forest fragmentation are key drivers for tree richness: forests that warmed more since 1971 lost species faster than those moderately warming; but regionally, precipitation plays a bigger role than temperature in richness changes.
- Forests with a higher number of trees and landscape integrity gain species, so limiting deforestation across the Andes–Amazon ecosystems can protect tree richness, in particular the northern Andes, which could serve as a key refuge for species that can no longer survive the warming Amazon.

Photos: In the Colombian Amazon, fishing binds a community to river and forest
- For members of the Macaquiño community in the southeastern Colombian department of Vaupés, fishing forms part of the deep cultural and spiritual connection they have with their waters and the species that inhabit it.
- The introduction of more intensive modern fishing gear, such as using longlines and mesh nets, has had an impact fish populations and has contributed to a decline in the use of some ancestral fishing practices, they said.
- Community elders told Mongabay that while some traditional fishing tools are still used today, few people know how to make them, raising concerns that fishers may eventually turn to other techniques that can damage habitats and reduce fish species.

Brazil revokes decree privatizing three Amazonian rivers after Indigenous protests
Brazil has revoked a presidential decree that placed sections of three Amazonian rivers — the Tapajós, Madeira and Tocantins — under a state-led privatization program. Indigenous groups had protested the plan for 33 days by blockading a Cargill grain port in Santarém in the western Brazilian Amazon. The decree was a part of a larger […]
Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains & farmer incomes (analysis)
- Since the 1970s, Brazil has cleared a large amount of Amazon Rainforest, and the consequences extend beyond biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and social disruption, because the forest generates its own weather.
- Continued deforestation could push the system past a tipping point where the Amazon can no longer sustain its rainfall regime, threatening the continent’s productive capacity and the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.
- The economic opportunity that can change this is agroforestry systems that reforest areas to produce global commodities that can also comply with Brazil’s Forest Code, which requires private properties in the Amazonian region to maintain native vegetation on 80% of their landholdings.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

In Brazil, a free platform uses government data to track EUDR compliance
- Developed by researchers at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Selo Verde platform provides a free, public tool to check a Brazilian producer’s compliance with environmental laws, including the upcoming EU deforestation regulation.
- The tool crosses data from state and federal governments on land use, deforestation, cattle transport and legal infractions, to monitor environmental compliance on rural properties.
- Selo Verde is run by state governments: First launched in the state of Pará in 2021, it has since been adopted in Minas Gerais, Acre and Espírito Santo, with other states interested in developing their own Selo Verde, and other countries encouraged to emulate their own.
- The adoption of the platform by businesses remains a challenge, however, with experts saying there’s no incentive to do so amid ongoing delays to the EUDR.

Amazon riverfolk warn blasting rocks for shipping route will kill fisheries
- As Brazil moves to explode the deep, rocky river territory of the Lourenção Rocks, locals on the Tocantins River say the government’s refusal to recognize them as “impacted” excludes thousands of fishers from protections.
- Scientists compare the 43-kilometer (26.7-mile) rocky stretch to an “underwater Galapagos,” warning that detonations will destroy the quiet water pockets and deep rocks where rare species breed.
- The industrial shipping route is designed to accelerate global exports of soy and minerals, a move critics say prioritizes corporate profit over the survival of traditional peoples.

A journey from student to Amazon “Junglekeeper”: Interview with Paul Rosolie
- Conservationist Paul Rosolie published a new book describing his journey from student to Amazon “Junglekeeper.”
- In a wide-ranging interview, Rosolie talks about uncontacted tribes, drug traffickers and the distance he still needs to go to achieve his goal of protecting the Las Piedras River.
- Rosolie also discusses the personal challenges and sacrifices of devoting his life to this slice of the Peruvian Amazon.

The cost of compliance with the EUDR will limit its impact on reducing deforestation (commentary)
- Many links in agri-commodity supply chains have very narrow profit margins, making them particularly sensitive to additional costs.
- The costs of implementing “zero deforestation” agri-commodity supply chain commitments requiring physical segregation are likely to cause positively engaged companies to avoid commodities grown in regions with active deforestation, leaving companies with no deforestation commitments in their place.
- Contrary to dominant beliefs in adding controls and costs, systemically linking markets and public policy in producer regions enables cheaper, more price-competitive and thus more effective forest-climate strategies; jurisdictional REDD+ is poised to provide such a bridge, argue Bjørn Rask Thomsen, Europe Director at Earth Innovation Institute and former food industry CEO and Daniel Nepstad, Executive Director and President at Earth Innovation Institute in this op-ed.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain
- Tropical forests actively generate rainfall by releasing moisture into the atmosphere, with each square meter producing hundreds of liters of rain annually across surrounding regions. Clearing even small portions can measurably reduce precipitation, especially during dry seasons.
- Much of the rain that falls far inland originates from forests through long-distance moisture transport known as “flying rivers,” meaning farms, cities, and reservoirs may depend on ecosystems located hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.
- Reduced rainfall from deforestation can undermine agriculture, river flows, and hydropower, revealing forests as a form of natural water infrastructure that supports food production, energy systems, and economic stability.
- By assigning a monetary value to forest-generated rainfall, researchers estimate the service in the Amazon alone is worth on the order of tens of billions of dollars annually, underscoring that forest loss threatens not only biodiversity and carbon storage but regional climate systems themselves.

Amazon villages build autonomous energy systems after mega-dam failed pledges
- A pilot project in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Reserve is providing 24-hour electricity through an integrated system of solar panels and river-based hydrokinetic turbines.
- The project’s hydrokinetic turbines use specialized filter systems and slow-rotation grids designed to generate electricity without harming local river fauna.
- Roughly 990,000 people in the Brazilian Amazon still lack access to electricity despite the region hosting some of the world’s largest hydropower facilities.

Banks must step in before the Amazon Soy Moratorium collapses (commentary)
- Finance is often portrayed as distant from environmental destruction, but in reality, it sits at the center: banks and investors decide which business models survive and which harms they will tolerate.
- Right now, a successful agreement called the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which has helped protect millions of hectares of forest by stopping major traders from buying soy grown on Amazon land deforested after 2008, is on the brink of collapse due to industry pressure — but banks can play a role in ensuring these traders stay in the pact and don’t let it unravel.
- “Financial institutions should make continued access to capital conditional on compliance with the moratorium’s core principles: no deforestation after 2008, full traceability, and zero tolerance for forest destruction in the Amazon biome,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Researchers eye jaguar conservation wins under Brazil Indigenous stewardship project
- The jaguar is listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List due to threats such as habitat loss and overhunting, but finds a safe haven in Brazil within protected areas and Indigenous lands.
- A pioneering new Brazilian initiative seeks to strengthen the protection of 15 Indigenous territories and their biodiversity through land sovereignty, environmental restoration and monitoring.
- The initiative may benefit jaguar conservation in one of the big cat’s last remaining strongholds.
- The initiative is still in its early stages, and so far there are little to no links between the project and jaguar conservation programs. But researchers say they hope conservation efforts, even if not explicitly aimed at jaguars, can have a ripple effect on protecting the species.

Amazon deforestation on pace to be the lowest on record, says Brazil
- Near-real-time satellite alerts show Amazon deforestation in Brazil continuing to decline into early 2026, with clearing from August through January falling to its lowest level for that period since 2014.
- Over the previous 12 months, detected forest loss also dropped to a 2014 low, reinforcing a broader downward trend that is corroborated by official annual data and independent monitoring. Clearing in the neighboring Cerrado savanna has also fallen
- Environment Minister Marina Silva attributed the decline to strengthened enforcement and municipal cooperation, saying Brazil could record the lowest Amazon deforestation rate since record-keeping began in 1988 if current efforts continue.
- While the data is positive for conservation advocates, short-term satellite data can fluctuate seasonally, and long-term outcomes will depend on economic pressures, infrastructure expansion, and climate-driven risks such as drought and fire.

Malaria outbreak among Indigenous Pirahã linked to forest loss, satellite data find
- According to data from Global Forest Watch, the Pirahã Indigenous Territory in Brazil lost 7,000 hectares of tree cover from 2002-24.
- A large spike occurred in 2024, when the territory lost 3,200 hectares of tree cover.
- Government officials told Mongabay that the recently contacted Pirahã people are facing a malaria outbreak, and the deforestation is the result of an effort by Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency to improve food security.
- The situation is complex, conservationists say, and although the clearings to plant crops may exacerbate the risk of malaria, the Pirahã people need food to improve their ability to fight the disease.

That “butterfly” you saw? It was probably a moth
Most people think moths are dull, nocturnal, and nothing like butterflies. That couldn’t be more wrong. In the Amazon rainforest, moths come in every color, shape, and size — and many are active during the day. In fact, while there are only about 18,000 species of butterflies worldwide, there are over 160,000 species of moths. […]
Fishers denounce plummeting fish stocks following Amazon hydroelectric dam
A hydroelectric dam impacting Brazil’s Amazonas and Rondônia states have slashed fished populations by as much as 90% in some locations, according to a new a study based on on-the-ground research in partnership with riverine communities. The 2008 construction of the Santo Antônio hydroelectric dam dramatically reduced the natural flow of the Madeira River, which […]
Brazil gov’t builds map to help exporters comply with EU anti-deforestation rule
- Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, created a new technology to generate deforestation data in polygons of a half-hectare threshold for the first time, following the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR.
- When it comes into effect at the end of 2026 (delayed for the second year in a row), the EUDR will require suppliers to provide geolocalized data and other documentation to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from areas illegally deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
- December is the start of the Amazon rainy season, which poses challenges to track deforestation due to the high incidence of clouds; to tackle this, INPE created the Brazil Data Cube, which captures all remote sensing images of a period and radar to get cloud-free images for that month.
- The map was built per request of the agriculture ministry, which made it available for rural producers in late December 2025 through a platform aimed at integrating information from public and private databases to generate compliance reports to be used by exporters.

Brazil mining boss sentenced for illegal gold operation on Indigenous land
A Brazilian federal court has sentenced a key financier to more than 22 years in prison. He was found guilty of leading an illegal mining operation in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, a huge protected area in the Amazon Rainforest that has been devastated by pollution, disease and deforestation. Rodrigo Martins de Mello, known as Rodrigo […]
Another controversial land deal in Suriname threatens the Amazon Rainforest
- Critics in Suriname are speaking out against plans to develop 113,465 hectares (280,378 acres) of rainforest for industrial agriculture in the district of Nickerie.
- The plans come from a 2024 public-private partnership between the agriculture ministry and Suriname Green Energy Agriculture N.V., a private company working in agriculture and bioenergy.
- The partnership was inherited from the previous government and allegedly went forward without environmental permits, causing frustration and confusion across several regulatory agencies.
- If the entire 113,465-hectare block is cleared, Suriname could lose its negative carbon emission status and fail to qualify for certain carbon credit programs, experts said.

Indigenous protests force Brazil to suspend Tapajós River dredging plan
Brazil has suspended a decree on dredging and privatizing the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, after protests shut down a grain terminal — but Indigenous groups are pressing for its full revocation. Hundreds of Indigenous protesters have since Jan. 22 blockaded the Cargill grain facility in the Amazonian city of Santarém over […]
‘We have to bring trust’ into funding talks: Valéria Paye on Indigenous-led funds
- Indigenous-led funds provide direct funding and support for Indigenous movements, including on the frontlines of environmental change.
- Mongabay speaks with Valéria Paye, executive director of the Podáali Fund (the Indigenous fund for the Brazilian Amazon), about how their approach differs from mainstream philanthropy by prioritizing trust, reciprocity and Indigenous leadership, governance and management.
- She explains how supporting Indigenous peoples and their territories is a form of “climate policy” and highlights the strong presence of and global support for Indigenous peoples at U.N. climate conference COP30 in Brazil as the reason for tangible outcomes such as the legal recognition of several Indigenous territories.
- Paye shares key lessons from her experience to date with the Podáali Fund, why she thinks the Tropical Forests Forever Fund is “no different” from other state-established funds and her advice for non-Indigenous organizations that want to support Indigenous environmental stewardship.

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.

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.

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