location: Brazil

location: Brazil

Social media activity version | Lean version

Brazil’s illegal gold miners carve out new Amazon hotspots in conservation units
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration reduced the expansion of illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, but miners keep finding new sites.
- In 15 conservation units, illegal gold miners destroyed 330 hectares (815 acres) in only two months.
- According to experts, gold miners expelled from Indigenous territories may be migrating to conservation units.
- Alliances with narco mafias and the rise in gold prices are obstacles to fighting illegal mining.

Unlike: Brazil Facebook groups give poachers safe space to flex their kills
- A new study shows how openly poachers in Brazil are sharing content of dead wildlife, including threatened and protected species, on Facebook.
- It found 2,000 records of poaching on Brazilian Facebook groups between 2018 and 2020, amounting to 4,658 animals from 157 species from all over the country.
- Data suggest there were trophy hunts, meant only to show off hunting hauls rather than being done for subsistence or a consequence of human-wildlife conflict.
- The study highlights the impunity for environmental crimes and the easy dissemination of content related to illegal practices on social media networks in Brazil.

New frog species show how geology shapes Amazon’s biodiversity
- DNA testing of two new-to-science frog species has shown they share a common ancestor — a species that lived 55 million years ago in the mountains of what is today Brazil’s Amazonas state.
- The multidisciplinary study drew together biologists and geologists to map how geological changes in the mountain range shaped not just its geography but also the diversity of species in the region.
- The two endemic species were collected on two separate peaks — Neblina and Imeri — and their discovery has led to further understanding of the origins and evolution of biodiversity in the Amazon.
- Another expedition to the Tulu-Tuloi Range, located 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Imeri, is scheduled for 2025.

Brazil paper and pulp industry invests in blockchain to comply with EUDR
- Brazil’s paper and pulp industry says the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR), which will come into effect in late 2025, won’t affect the sector’s operations, which has already traced its supply chains “from farm to factory” for more than two decades and doesn’t source from illegal deforested areas.
- The EUDR will require suppliers to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from illegally deforested areas; in Brazil, experts say it will help halt illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- To fulfill some specific EUDR requirements, companies need to invest in blockchain and other technologies, which could increase the cost per ton of pulp by up to $230, according to the Brazilian Tree Industry (Ibá).
- The EUDR postponement was received differently by the industry and experts: While Ibá says it would allow “a smoother and more effective implementation,” given some aspects that need improvement from the EU Commission, deforestation experts say there is no time to wait, as deforestation continues and the climate crisis gets worse.

Illegal timber from Amazon carbon credit projects reached Europe, U.S.
- Amazon timber from carbon credit projects targeted by the Brazilian Federal Police was sold to companies in Europe and the United States.
- The group is suspected of land-grabbing and laundering timber from Indigenous territories and protected areas.
- Most of the exported timber belongs to the almost-extinct ipê species and was sent to a company in Portugal.
- The group is also suspected of using fake documents to launder cattle raised in illegally deforested areas.

Recycling gold can tackle illegal mining in the Amazon, but is no silver bullet
- Artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Brazil’s Tapajós River Basin emits 16 metric tons of CO2 per kilo of gold produced, and 2.5 metric tons of mercury annually, a study has found.
- Researchers suggest that recycling gold could dramatically reduce harmful emissions, along with other solutions such as formalizing mining, adopting clean technologies, and improving gold supply chain transparency.
- Economic dependence, mercury accessibility, and a demand for gold sustain small-scale gold mining, while enforcement risks pushing miners into ecologically sensitive areas.
- In November, Brazil launched a federal operation in the Tapajós Basin to expel illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, imposing millions of reais in fines to curb the damage caused by gold mining.

Communities warn of threat to ecosystems from Brazil bridge project
- Islanders and experts have warned of widespread environmental and social impacts from the construction of a bridge linking the Brazilian city of Salvador with the island of Itaparica in Todos os Santos Bay.
- Critics say the project will devastate mangrove forests and coral reefs, leading to environmental imbalance, compromising fishing communities and threatening the survival of many marine species including humpback whales and sea turtles.
- Proponents say the bridge will boost development in the region, in particular transporting agricultural produce, but islanders say the anticipated population surge on Itaparica will create unsustainable pressure on public services as well as drastically change the dynamics of the community living there.
- Experts say the best solution for improving transportation links between Salvador and Itaparica is to invest in the existing ferry system, but this option wasn’t considered by planners.

Brazil natural landscape degradation drives toxic metal buildup in bats
- Bats play a crucial role in tropical regions as pollinators, seed dispersers and agricultural pest controllers. But they are exposed to a wide range of threats, pollution among them.
- Two recent papers show how natural landscape transformation and degradation, due to pasture and crop monoculture creation and mining in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, can increase bioaccumulation of toxins and heavy metals in bat populations, leading to potential health impacts.
- Over time, this toxic accumulation could increase the likelihood of local bat extinctions and the loss of vital ecosystem services. The toxic contamination of these landscapes also poses a concern for human health, researchers say.
- These findings are likely applicable to bats living in other highly disturbed tropical habitats around the world, researchers say.

Loggers and carbon projects forge odd partnerships in the Brazilian Amazon
- Mongabay examined four REDD+ projects in Pará state and found that all were developed in partnership with sawmill owners with a long history of environmental fines.
- The projects were developed by Brazil’s largest carbon credit generator, Carbonext, a company linked to a major fraud involving REDD+ projects and illegal loggers in Amazonas state.
- According to experts, REDD+ projects may have become a new business opportunity for individuals who have profited from deforestation for decades.

The uncertain future of Amazon river dolphins amid historic drought
- This year, the drought in Amazon rivers is already worse than in 2023, when 209 pink and grey river dolphins were found dead in Lake Tefé, in Amazonas state, largely due to overheating of the waters.
- To avoid a new tragedy, local organizations have taken action in advance, establishing emergency operations with stronger monitoring, staff training and equipment acquisition.
- However, no dolphin deaths due to heat stress have been recorded this year; instead, dozens of carcasses of aquatic mammals have appeared in Amazon lakes as a result of another sinister effect of drought: increased interactions with humans.

Pesticide exposure drives up rural women’s cancer risk in Brazil farming belt
- A study has found that women exposed to pesticides during farm work in Brazil’s Paraná state have a 60% higher risk of developing breast cancer, and a 220% higher risk of metastasis.
- While they don’t typically spray the pesticides, these women are responsible for cleaning the equipment and clothing used to do it, during which they rarely wear personal protective equipment.
- The study found glyphosate, atrazine and 2,4-D in urine samples from rural women; health and regulatory agencies consider these three pesticides as possibly or probably carcinogenic.
- Brazil has one of the most permissive pesticide markets in the world, where levels of exposure to chemicals like glyphosate are several times higher than in more strictly regulated jurisdictions such as the European Union.

Certified ethanol produced in Brazil for global airlines linked to slave labor
- Fuel produced from sugarcane in Brazil has become a strategic option for decarbonizing the aviation sector.
- But companies operating in this business have been linked to recent reports of labor abuses on sugarcane farms, a new report from Repórter Brasil shows. The rise in reports of labor abuses is partly attributed to the growing outsourcing of labor for planting.
- Workers hired via subcontractors lived in poor conditions without basic amenities, traveled long hours to reach the sugarcarne fields, and paid for their safety equipment.
- While certifications needed to access the fuel market are meant to protect workers, experts says certifiers are not doing enough to ensure fair working conditions and pay.

‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
- In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury.
- In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

In Brazil’s ‘water tank’, communities resist mining to preserve their water and livelihoods
- For more than fifteen years, traditional communities in Serro, Minas Gerais, have resisted the entry of iron ore mining on their territories.
- Serro is located in a region where several major rivers meet; the integrity of ecosystems is vital for people’s water resources and food security.
- Activists fear that, if approved, iron ore projects will not only cause irreversible socioenvironmental impacts but set a precedent for a dangerous iron ore race in Serro. Besides iron ore, the area concentrates deposits of bauxite, manganese, quartzite, and other minerals – many located next to traditional communities.
- The two companies pursuing mining in the area have had their licensing processes suspended in October 2023 after a community appeal to the Federal Court of Minas Gerais. The entities are required to carry out consultations with communities, respecting the principle of free, prior and informed consent.

Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
- Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory in Brazil cover an area larger than Belgium.
- The Indigenous territories are still largely covered in primary forest, and a haven for wildlife in a region considered an agricultural powerhouse.
- Satellite data show Xingu Indigenous Park lost 15% of its primary forest cover, and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory lost 8.3% of its forest cover, between 2002 and 2023.
- Indigenous groups fear proposed transportation projects will bring a fresh wave of deforestation and open up their territories to invaders.

Brazil plans new reserves to curb deforestation near contested Amazon roads
- Unallocated public areas account for 28% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, and the destruction of these lands keeps rising even as rates plummet across other parts of the rainforest.
- To tackle the problem, Brazil’s federal government plans to convert lands around controversial Amazonian highways into protected areas.
- One of the priority areas is along the BR-319 highway, where experts warn deforestation may increase fourfold under another government plan to pave the highway.
- Despite the advances in comparison with former President Jair Bolsonaro, Indigenous and land reform movements are unhappy with the pace of land designation under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Migration opens up new territories in the Brazilian Amazon in the 20th century
- Internal migration in Panamazonia was driven by the gold rush, improved infrastructure, land grabbing and job opportunities in large-scale infrastructure projects such as industrial mines and hydroelectric plants.
- Rondônia’s population grew from 100,000 in 1972 to more than 400,000 in 1982, when it became one of Brazil’s states. By 1990, it had surpassed one million inhabitants.
- Migration within the Brazilian Amazon is now largely internal, as Amazonian residents move to cities. Internal migration is motivated by lack of opportunity in rural communities and the creation of temporary jobs linked to construction sites

Researchers find high levels of mercury in Amazon’s Madeira River water & fish
- In a groundbreaking expedition, researchers from Harvard and Amazonas State University began monitoring water quality and mercury contamination in the Amazon Basin’s largest tributary.
- The Madeira River Basin has been heavily impacted by human actions, such as hydropower plants, deforestation and illegal gold mining, which degrade its ecosystems.
- Initial results from Harvard reveal high levels of mercury in the Madeira, although still below the limit recommended by Brazil’s authorities.
- Predatory fish species showed mercury levels above the recommended limit, while scalefish traditionally consumed by riverine populations were below.

Reserve in Brazilian Amazon struggles as ‘aggressive’ deforestation spreads
- Triunfo Do Xingu Environmental Protected Area was created to protect rich Amazonian forest and shield adjacent reserves.
- But deforestation has been rampant within the reserve and is spreading to nearby areas
- From 2006 to 2023, the reserve lost 41% of its primary forest cover.
- Preliminary satellite data for 2024 from show deforestation picking up even further, and spreading into nearby areas including Terra do Meio Ecological Station and Serra do Pardo National Park

Brazil beef industry still struggling with deforestation from indirect suppliers, survey finds
- Surveys of Brazil’s beef industry found there is still a serious lack of transparency throughout the supply chain, including from slaughterhouses and retailers. If better regulations aren’t implemented, they could be exposed to 109 million hectares (270 million acres) of deforestation by 2025.
- The survey was conducted by Radar Verde, a cattle monitoring initiative made up of several climate groups. It reviewed the regulations and exposure to deforestation of dozens of companies in Brazil.
- Indirect suppliers of beef are the most difficult to track, the survey found, with none of the 132 companies or 67 retailers competently able to demonstrate whether cattle had been raised on illegally deforested land.
- Struggles to monitor indirect suppliers could pose a challenge for companies trying to meet the EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR), which will require suppliers to prove beef and other commodities exported to the EU aren’t sourced to illegally deforested land.

Researcher discovers new role played by manatees, ‘the gardeners of the Amazon’
- According to a new study, the Amazonian manatee is a seed disperser; a researcher found germinating grasses in its feces.
- The discovery was made in Lake Amanã, in the Amazon, where 96 samples of manatee feces were collected; surprisingly, they contained 556 intact seeds.
- Manatees eat 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of aquatic plants a day and migrate long distances. This finding shows that the manatee is a crucial vector for dispersing seeds between fertile areas such as floodplains and nutrient-poor areas such as the swamp forests known as igapós; this activity enhances biodiversity in Amazonian environments, especially in times of climate change and environmental degradation.
- Despite its vital ecological function, the manatee is listed as vulnerable to extinction; Illegal hunting, facilitated by periods of extreme drought, is one of the main threats, along with climate change, which affects both their diet and their migratory routes.

The effects of mass migration in Brazil in the second half of the twentieth century
- The latest wave of migration to the Amazon countries was sustained by a new process of colonization. In Brazil, Operação Amazônia used land grants, tax exemptions and a progressive land tax that encouraged forest to cropland or pasture conversion in order to occupy areas bordering neighboring countries.
- In 1972, the federal government launched POLAMAZÔNIA, which designated fifteen landscapes as priority areas for expanding mineral, livestock and agro-industrial production.
- In 1981 the POLONOROESTE programme – which included infrastructure development, agricultural extension, land title administration and healthcare – has been criticized for unleashing deforestation and harming Indigenous communities.

Experts welcome Brazil’s revived reforestation plan as much-needed boost
- By 2030, Brazil aims to restore 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of degraded land through the Planaveg initiative, revised and launched by the government at the recent COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia.
- Experts have welcomed the move amid growing international commitments to protect biodiversity and stabilize the climate, but point to challenges such as securing resources and social mobilization.
- As ambitious as the target is, it still falls short of the 20.7 million hectares (51.2 million acres) of native vegetation that have been illegally degraded just on private rural plots.

Organizations tackle droughts, floods in Brazil by planting forests
- Many areas of Brazil have been hit with severe droughts and floods in recent years; scientists say climate change is increasing the incidence of extreme weather events.
- Forests protect against erosion and pollution and help store water in soil and aquifers, buoying water security.
- Organizations across the country are leading efforts to reforest cleared areas — particularly along rivers and other water sources —to mitigate the damaging effects of droughts, floods and other effects of climate change, as well as safeguard and improve habitat for wildlife.
- Experts and stakeholders say broader support is needed at the federal level, while a representative of Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change says the government is rolling out conservation plans of its own.

Lithium mining brings sickness to Jequitinhonha Valley communities
- With annual output of 270,000 tons per year, Sigma Lithium has been increasing its lithium mining in the Jequitinhonha Valley; its pile of waste rock already covers 560,000 square meters (6 million square feet) of land and is encroaching on homes in the neighboring community.
- Dust produced by the mining operation has been causing respiratory problems in the local community, which is also suffering from psychiatric disturbances, silted-up rivers and cracks in their homes caused by detonations.
- Other traditional communities in Jequitinhonha Valley, including Quilombolas and Indigenous communities, are also being affected by the lithium mine; land ownership conflicts are occurring in some municipalities.

The calm before the storm: The first half of the 20th century in the Pan Amazon
- The progressive decline of the rubber boom gave way to new extractivist interests. In the case of Brazil, a new boom was led by the Brazilian nut commerce. However, rubber became again essential for tire manufacturing during World War II.
- While in 1941, the Vargas administration maintained neutrality, selling Amazon rubber to Nazi Germany, once it became a US ally in 1942, Brazil guaranteed Americans the provision of rubber, in part by subsidizing the recruitment of rubber tappers and financing infrastructure, including both airfields and road networks.
- After Peru’s rubber boom had passed, successive governments promoted European migration. In Pasco, European settlers from Germany and Austria established the first coffee production landscapes in the country.

‘Five years and no justice’ as trial over Indigenous forest guardian’s killing faces delays
- Nov. 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon; the suspects haven’t been tried yet.
- Between 1991 and 2023, 38 Indigenous Guajajara were killed in Arariboia; none of the perpetrators have been brought to trial.
- Paulo’s case will be a legal landmark as the first killing of an Indigenous leader to go before a federal jury; as Mongabay reported a year ago, the start of the trial was contingent on an anthropological report of the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes.
- However, the report has yet to be made, given several issues that delayed the trial, including the change of judge, the long time to choose the expert to prepare the report and get the expert’s quote, and the reluctance from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU) to pay for the report.

Genetically modified cotton was planted in a Mato Grosso exclusion zone
- For five years, a farmer in Brazil disregarded biosafety measures and advanced into areas that prevented contamination of native cotton.
- In May 2024, Embrapa, which owns patents for genetically modified cotton, managed to eliminate the exclusion zones in Mato Grosso state.
- Indigenous people fear that the authorization to plant genetically modified cotton throughout the state will lead to contamination of their native varieties, which are used for handicraft production and medicinal purposes.

Amazon deforestation in Brazil plunges 31% to lowest level in 9 years
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by 30.6% over the past year, reaching its lowest level since 2015, with 6,288 square kilometers cleared by July 31, 2024.
- Despite the drop in deforestation, fires surged nearly 18-fold in September due to severe drought, with fire hotspots up 70% from the previous year.
- Fires impacted ecosystems across South America, especially in Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado. But deforestation also dropped in the Cerrado, falling 25.7%.
- The Amazon faces increasing threats from climate change, deforestation, and degradation, raising concerns about destabilizing rainfall patterns and biodiversity loss.

The rubber boom and its legacy in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia
- In the Amazon, the rubber boom was facilitated by new technological developments, industrialization and political change.
- While in Brazil the rubber barons used a form of debt slavery with their workers, in Bolivia the rubber boom was dominated by pioneers from Santa Cruz who had established cattle ranches in the Beni during the nineteenth century.
- In Peru, the boom was based on the exploitation of Castilla species rather than Hevea, resulting into a much more destructive process, which developed a particularly cruel and exploitive slave-labor system.

Brazil calls for ambition at COP but struggles over its own climate policy
- Brazil is trying to resume its role as a protagonist in the environmental arena by hosting COP30 in 2025 and urging other countries to present ambitious targets to cut emissions.
- However, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration failed to openly discuss the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) and allocated small budgets for climate transition.
- Experts state that zeroing out deforestation, recovering thousands of hectares of native vegetation and stepping back from oil expansion plans are crucial to meeting Brazil’s commitments.
- UPDATE (11/11/2024): The Brazilian government released its NDC on the evening of Nov. 8, hours after the publication of this story.

New Canadian-backed potash mine under fire from Amazon Indigenous groups
- For more than a decade, Potássio do Brasil, a Canadian-backed mining company, has tried to exploit the Brazilian Amazon’s potash reserves, despite legal challenges.
- In April, the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute (IPAAM) granted the company several installation licenses, which authorized the project’s implementation as well as the construction of a road and shipping port.
- According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) and Funai, the issuance of these licenses by the Amazonas government was illegal, as the project overlaps with Indigenous lands and many communities were not consulted.
- Many Mura residents, most of whom are concerned about the impact the project will have on the environment and their livelihoods, say the company did not consult them and instead co-opted leaders and falsified documents.

Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
- There’s a planned start date to remove illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous territory, where they have long decimated the Munduruku people’s health and the Amazon ecosystem with mercury contamination, prosecutors share with Mongabay.
- The date and removal operation remains confidential, with government sources gathering data on the areas most affected in the region. The government may share more information during a press briefing in early November, while some news sites suggest the operation will begin in a few days and involve the defense ministry.
- The Supreme Court and Indigenous peoples have called for the removal of the miners from the region for years, to little avail. Meanwhile, other sources say the government had to prioritize crises in other Indigenous lands like the Yanomami territory.
- According to a researcher, the expulsion of gold miners from another Munduruku territory, the Sawré Muybu Indigenous land, cannot begin until the president recognizes the territory.

Brazil researchers boost timber traceability with new chemical analysis
- Brazilian researchers have opened a new front in the search for a reliable timber tracking system by using chemical analysis to determine where a tree was grown.
- The technique relies on identifying a wood sample’s chemical signature, which can then be matched against various known soil profiles to narrow down its origin.
- As the technology evolves, the researchers say they hope to combine it with stable isotope analysis to increase the precision of timber tracking.
- Most timber provenance inspections in Brazil rely on public documents whose information can easily be faked by illegal loggers.

Study warns that loosened legislation is driving deforestation in Bahia’s Cerrado
- Unlike Amazonia, where illegality is the rule, authorized deforestation is a greater concern for researchers and environmentalists in Bahia’s Cerrado.
- A new book shows how the appropriation of water by agribusiness is intensifying conflicts in western Bahia, where both deforestation and cattle farming are spreading rapidly.
- Researchers view Brazilian agribusiness operations as agrarian extraction—a model with high social and environmental impact which concentrates wealth, similar to mineral extraction.

Evolution of the Pan Amazon in the post-Jesuit era
- Once the economy fostered by the Jesuits withered away, the population, now much diminished, reverted to the subsistence livelihoods that had always been a mainstay of the region.
- The pace of colonization in the Portuguese Amazon accelerated following the Jesuits’ expulsion. The Companhia de Comércio do Grão-Pará e Maranhão’s primary business model was to accelerate the African slave trade in the coastal provinces of Maranhão, but it also radically changed the economics and demographics of the Amazon floodplain.
- In the case of Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, after the abolition of slavery, the countries imported labor from India (under the rule of the British Empire) and from the Dutch East Indies. Their shared history is more similar to that of the Caribbean than that of the Amazon.

JBS broke its own rules while buying cattle from deforested areas in Pantanal
- JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, has over the last five years been buying cattle from farms that were caught illegally deforesting Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands despite the company’s claims of environmental responsibility.
- An Unearthed investigation found that JBS suppliers cleared vast areas of the Pantanal wetlands in the past five years, with Fazenda Querência being the largest deforester, having cleared an area half the size of Paris.
- JBS has repeatedly violated its own zero-deforestation policies by continuing to purchase cattle from farms under embargo for illegal deforestation.
- The expansion of agribusiness, especially the demand for cattle and the introduction of invasive species like brachiaria grass, is threatening the Pantanal’s unique biodiversity and its ability to recover naturally from drought and wildfires.

NGOs ask to include Brazilian Cerrado in the EUDR at next review
- About 74% of the Brazilian Cerrado falls outside the scope of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
- Unless illegalities are found, such as breaches to national law, commodities from areas of the Cerrado that are excluded from the EUDR will be able to enter the EU.
- Deforestation rates in the Cerrado increased by 43% in 2023, with the greatest destruction concentrated in Brazil’s state of Bahia, where almost a quarter of its original 9 million hectares (22 million acres) of vegetation have been lost since 1985.
- NGOs are calling on EU authorities to review and expand the regulation at its one-year review period. However, the European Commission recently proposed a 12-month delay in the implementation of the EUDR, which could affect the date of the review.

Six months after its worst floods, Rio Grande do Sul works to bounce back
- A combination of wet El Niño weather and human-induced climate change were key drivers of the worst flooding event in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state earlier this year.
- The flooding affected 90% of the state and displaced more than half a million people.
- Poor land management is also responsible for the region’s vulnerability to floods, as current agricultural practices in the highlands favor runoff and reduce the soil’s ability to soak up water, with lowlands particularly exposed to high waters.
- While some scientists are still deciphering the causes and behavior of the floodwaters, other experts are working to rehabilitate farmland, tackle soil erosion, and source native seeds for ecological restoration.

Trial begins in U.K. for victims of Minas Gerais dam disaster
- A class action lawsuit in the U.K. will decide whether the Fundão tailings dam collapse was the fault of mining companies, Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) and Miners Vale, which together make up the joint venture Samarco.
- The companies could pay over $40 billion in compensation to 620,000 claimants, following the 2015 dam collapse that released arsenic-laced mud across several Brazilian communities.
- A recent study found that 15 metals, including iron, nickel, arsenic, cadmium and aluminum, were still present in fish, birds, turtles and porpoises at the mouth of the Doce river and on the coast of Espírito Santo and southern Bahia.
- The mining companies argue that the lawsuit doesn’t have jurisdiction in the U.K. and that claimants already received compensation through separate negotiations in Brazil.

Impacts and legacies of migration across the Pan Amazon
- Although represented by only a few thousand people across 150 years, the Jesuits left a major social and cultural impact on native communities across the Pan Amazon. Their aim was to create autonomous communities based on early Renaissance concepts of equality and a spiritual vision based on the Christian Gospels. But in practice, they worked closely for the political and military interests of the colonies.
- Jesuits settled in remote places and border areas after being invited by colonial authorities interested in taking advantage of the native population’s labor force. But their arrival triggered the collapse of the Indigenous populations of the Western Amazon. Only in the late 17th century, more than 140,000 people died because of diseases brought by the outsiders.
- The success of the Jesuits and the religious colonialism that characterized the Catholic Church in the 17th century motivated other religious orders to follow similar missionary programs.

Dam terrorism: How mining companies in Brazil scare residents into relocating
- Recent research shows how mining companies in Brazil are artificially inflating risk levels for some dams holding mining waste in an effort to scare residents into moving out of the area.
- This so-called dam terrorism began almost immediately after the deadly collapse in January 2019 of a tailings dam in Brumadinho municipality, Minas Gerais state, with several mining companies suddenly declaring their own dams were no longer certified safe.
- Residents living near these dams have been woken up by emergency sirens in the middle of the night, even though there was no evidence that the dams were about to collapse.
- Daniel Neri, the researcher behind the new study, says these scare tactics exploited “the terror of the tragedy in Brumadinho to make people leave everything behind.”

Studies identify microplastics contamination along entire Brazilian coastline
- Numerous projects are measuring the impacts of plastics in Brazilian seas; methods range from beach sampling to analysis of mollusk digestive tracts.
- Brazil discards 3.4 million tons of plastic every year, a third of which reaches the coast; it is estimated that between 86 million and 150 million tons of plastic residue have accumulated in the ocean here.
- A bill has been introduced in Brazil to promote plastic recycling. On the global level, the Global Plastics Treaty is being negotiated by 175 nations to diminish single-use plastic pollution.

Extreme drought wrecks rivers and daily life in Amazon’s most burnt Indigenous land
- Almost 20% of the Kayapó Indigenous Territory has burned in this year’s Amazon drought, the worst ever recorded in Brazil.
- The land has for years been subjected to illegal mining, cattle ranching and burning of forests, degrading both the soil and rivers and significantly disrupting the way of life for the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó people.
- The Indigenous inhabitants now confront a growing crisis as wildfires and drought threaten their lands, particularly along the Riozinho River.
- According to ecologist Rodolfo Salm, who has worked with the Kayapó since 1996, fire has now surpassed illegal logging as the greatest danger to the region.

Rural-urban migration across the Amazon Basin
- After 2000, migration from rural to urban areas across the Pan Amazon intensified, as people started moving to either main urban centers or cities in the highlands or on coastlines.
- In Brazil, already by 2000, about 70% of the population was in urban centers. Most of the small and medium-size cities developed alongside extractive or agricultural activities doubled their population between 2000-2010.
- From the early 1990s to early 2000s, in the Colombian Amazon, civil violence boosted the movement of millions of people into cities, while the country’s peace agreement slowed down migration. But land grabbing and incoming rural investors could kickstart another urban population boom.

Amazon voters elect environmental offenders and climate denialists in Brazil
- The Amazonian population elected climate change deniers and politicians with a history of environmental fines to govern some of the region’s major cities.
- Pará’s state capital, Belém, which will host COP30 in 2025, may elect a mayor unconcerned about climate change.
- According to experts, opposing illegal activities is political suicide in municipalities whose economies rely on deforestation, illegal mining and illegal logging.

Delay of EU Deforestation Regulation may ‘be excuse to gut law,’ activists fear
- In a surprise move, the European Commission has proposed a 12-month delay in implementation of the EU’s groundbreaking deforestation law, which was slated to go into effect in January 2025.
- The European Parliament still needs to approve the delay, but is expected to do so. The law is meant to regulate global deforestation caused by a range of commodities from soy to coffee, cattle, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and wood products, including industrial-scale wood pellets burned to make energy.
- Commodity companies, including those in the pellet industry, say the law’s certification requirements are onerous and the 2025 start date is too soon for compliance. The industries are supported by commodities-producing nations such as Brazil, Indonesia and the United States (a primary source of wood pellets).
- Forest campaigners, including those opposing tree harvests for wood pellets, fear that delay of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will offer commodity companies and exporting nations time to water down the law meant to protect native forests, carbon storage and biodiversity, and delay the worst climate change impacts.

Climate change and agrochemicals pose lethal combo for Amazonian fish
- A recent study evaluates the impacts on the Amazonian tambaqui fish from simultaneous exposure to a mix of pesticides and an extreme climate change scenario.
- Researchers subjected the fish to higher temperatures and higher atmospheric CO2 levels, as well as a cocktail of two pesticides, a herbicide and a fungicide, all of which are commonly used in farms throughout the Brazilian Amazon.
- The tambaqui’s capacity to metabolize the agrochemicals was found to be compromised in warmer water, and they suffered damage to their liver, nervous system and DNA.
- The study also points to the risks to food safety in the region, where fish are the main protein source: some 400 metric tons of tambaqui are eaten every year in the city of Manaus alone.

Brazil elects record-high number of Indigenous mayors, vice mayors & councilors
- In Brazil, 256 Indigenous people were elected mayors, vice mayors and city councilors, the highest in the country’s history and an 8% increase compared with 236 elected in the 2020 ballot.
- With 1,635,530 votes, Indigenous candidates were the only group that recorded growth in votes this year, compared with candidates who self-declared white, pardo (brown), Black and Asian, which saw a reduction of around 20% altogether, according to a survey from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country’s main Indigenous association, which used data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
- Increasing representation of Indigenous people elected in municipal ballots is a key move to ensure the fulfillment of Indigenous rights and should pave the way to increase the number of Indigenous people elected in the 2026 state and federal ballots, advocates and activists say.
- However, the municipal election results also showed a gender gap: Indigenous women accounted for just one mayor of a total of nine Indigenous mayors elected, four vice mayors of a total of nine, and 36 of a total of 234 councilors.

Act now or lose the Pantanal forever (commentary)
- This year, over two million hectares of the world’s largest wetland, the Pantanal in Brazil, have burned, as agribusiness drains it and climate change dries it, reducing river flows and allowing fires to spread.
- Many species rely on a healthy Pantanal to survive, including 2,000 species of plants, 580 bird species, 271 kinds of fish, and 174 mammal and 57 amphibian species, many of which are endangered or threatened.
- “To truly protect it, we need an immediate halt on further agricultural expansion, major restoration projects for the land which has already burned, and bold global action to slash carbon emissions,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Delays in land titling threaten the conservation success of quilombos in Brazil
- Titled quilombo territories — traditional Brazilian communities originally formed by runaway enslaved people — have significantly lower deforestation rates, making them crucial for conserving Brazil’s natural biomes.
- However, only 4.33% of all Quilombolas in Brazil have been granted proper land rights.
- Quilombola communities in Alcântara have fought for their land rights since the 1970s, facing displacement and government neglect, but the Brazilian Air Force is pushing for an expansion of the local space center, delaying the recognition of Quilombola land claims.
- Brazil has admitted to human rights violations against the Alcântara Quilombolas, but progress on land titling remains slow and uncertain.

Deforestation remains low, but fires surge in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon remains near a six-year low, with 561 square kilometers cleared in September, a 30% decline from the previous year.
- Fires in the Amazon have surged dramatically, with an 18-fold increase in the area affected by fires, from 4,700 to 39,983 square kilometers, driven by a historic drought.
- Fire hotspots detected by satellite in the Amazon increased by 70%, rising to 145,357 compared to 85,670 the previous year.
- Scientists warn that deforestation, forest degradation, and climate change could destabilize the Amazon, affecting rainfall patterns and biodiversity across South America.

‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- The Brazilian state of Pará has agreed to sell millions of carbon credits to multinational corporations, including Amazon, Bayer and Walmart Foundation, but many challenges loom.
- Experts are concerned the deal is overly ambitious and worry about the state’s long history of carbon credit project scams.
- Although Indigenous, Quilombola and extractive community entities support the arrangement, other community members state they have not been consulted about the project on their lands.

Indigenous communities in the Amazon fight for full recognition
- Before the arrival of European colonizers, rural societies in the Amazon Basin domesticated plants and developed agricultural practices and infrastructure which provided supplies of food and fiber and improved crop yields.
- As missionaries and the expansion of trade brought pathogens into communities which lacked immunity, the number of Indigenous people across the Amazon dropped drastically in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from an estimated 4 to 15 million people to about 400,000.
- In Brazil, a population census in the early 1990s showed an increase of Indigenous population, indicating higher birth rates and increased Indigenous self-identification. Boosting the latter across the Amazon Basin requires policies that prioritize the formalization of land rights of communities with specific ethnic heritage.

Prospect of mining is a bitter pill for Afro-Brazilian community known for its honey
- In northern Brazil’s Piauí state, the vast Afro-Brazilian enclave of Lagoas is home to 119 communities, making it the largest of its kind in the semiarid Caatinga biome and one of the region’s largest producers of organic honey.
- In 2019, the mining company SRN Mineração obtained a temporary permit to prospect for iron ore in the region, posing a threat to the communities’ beekeeping livelihoods as it could contaminate or destroy the bees’ food sources.
- Community leaders say they weren’t consulted by the mining company and that it continues to disrespect their presence and traditions by prospecting less than 100 meters (330 feet) from their most important shrine.

The people who make up the Pan-Amazonian melting pot: regional demographics
- Based on current trends, the Pan Amazon should have a total population of about sixty million by 2050 and stabilize at about 65 million by 2100.
- Currently, the Pan Amazon is home to approximately 43 million people. Of these, 80% are represented by immigrants or their descendants.
- Although there was a major population growth in the 1970s and 19880s, birth rates have been gradually decreasing and stabilzing.

New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Across the Amazon, archaeological remains indicate that the human presence in the rainforest is much older, larger and more widespread than previously thought.
- Researchers in Brazil are lobbying to register archaeological sites as national monuments, which would confer a new layer of protection status to parts of the rainforest.
- Earthen mounds known as geoglyphs, for instance, have been revealed to stretch from Acre state north into neighboring Amazonas; formally recognizing them under Brazil’s heritage law could protect this vast swath of rainforest.
- “Today we know it’s highly likely that part of the forest has been changed by people,” said Dutch biologist Hans ter Steege, co-author of research that has shown there may be up to 24,000 earthworks hidden throughout the rainforest that could qualify for protection.

Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- Brazil has committed to dredge major Amazon rivers in response to record drought that has lowered water levels and made ship passage, a key transportation lifeline, difficult or impossible.
- The dredging is aimed at supporting local communities, who rely on river navigation to get supplies in from outside, and producers, who need to ship their commodities out.
- But experts question whether dredging is a sustainable solution, raising concerns about long-term ecological impacts and advocating for community involvement and innovative technology for better outcomes.
- The environmental risks of dredging include ecosystem disruption, increased erosion, water contamination, and harm to aquatic species such as manatees and river dolphins.

The Amazon is ablaze again. What it means for us (commentary)
- The Amazon rainforest, devastated by over 70,000 wildfires in 2019, is once again ablaze, threatening even greater destruction of wildlife, human health, and ecosystems.
- Climate change is now a tangible global threat, with rising sea levels and extreme heat affecting entire regions, while indigenous communities, like the Kogi in Colombia, have long warned of these environmental dangers, argues Mark J. Plotkin, an ethnobotanist who co-founded the Amazon Conservation Team.
- The Amazon, which stores one-fifth of the world’s terrestrial carbon, plays a crucial role in regulating global climate, but continued deforestation risks releasing this carbon and disrupting weather patterns far beyond the region.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.

Brazil’s race to approve the end of the Amazon: The BR-319 highway needs a new environmental impact assessment (commentary)
- Brazil’s race to approve “reconstruction” of Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) is gaining ever more momentum, with President Lula declaring his support for the project on the 10th September, a moment that could not be more ironic amid the country’s dramatic fire crisis, argues researcher Philip M. Fearnside in this commentary.
- The impact of BR-319 extends far beyond the roadside strip to which the EIA and licensing discussion is limited. Planned side roads such as AM-366 would open the vast rainforest area west of the highway to the entry of deforesters, loggers and others. The rainforest in this area is also at risk of collapse from climate change, and this risk would be further increased by the deforestation and forest degradation provoked by the planned roads linked to BR-319. Loss of this forest would be catastrophic both for global climate and for water supply to other parts of Brazil, including São Paulo.
- The area at risk is both the most critical and the easiest to avoid deforesting. All that needs to be done is to not build the highways that would provide access, while in other parts of Amazonia stopping deforestation requires changing the behavior of hundreds of thousands of individual actors. A new EIA is needed that includes all areas receiving impacts from BR-319 in the northern and western parts of Brazilian Amazonia. The EIA cannot be a mere bureaucratic step after which the project is automatically approved – the rational decision is to reject the project, writes Fearnside.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.

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