location: Latin America

location: Latin America

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As Indonesia turns COP30 into carbon market showcase, critics warn of ‘hot air’
- Indonesia is using the COP30 climate summit to aggressively market its carbon credits, launching daily “Sellers Meet Buyers” sessions and seeking international commitments 6 despite unresolved integrity issues in its carbon market.
- Experts warn Indonesia’s credits risk being “hot air,” since its climate targets are rated “critically insufficient,” meaning many claimed reductions may not be real, additional or permanent — especially in forest-based projects.
- Forest and land-use credits, Indonesia’s biggest selling point, are among the riskiest, with high risks of overcrediting, leakage and nonpermanence; ongoing fires and deforestation further undermine credibility.
- Environmental groups say the carbon push distracts Indonesia from securing real climate finance, enabling wealthy nations to offset rather than cut emissions, while leaving Indonesia vulnerable to climate impacts and dependent on a fragile market.

Rare parrots return to Atlantic Forest fragment after decades of silence
- Twenty red-browed amazons were released in January 2025 in a forest reserve in Alagoas, Brazil, where only four wild individuals remained after the species was driven to near-extinction by illegal trade and deforestation.
- The ARCA project aims to restore ecological processes in the Atlantic Rainforest, which today covers just 3% of its historical range in Alagoas — the result, in part, of the loss of seed-dispersing animals.
- The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Alagoas shifted from reactive to preventive environmental protection in 2017, facilitating partnerships between scientists and private land owners to create a network of private reserves covering more than 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres).
- Between 2010 and 2020, Brazil’s Atlantic Forest lost an area the size of Washington, D.C., in mature trees each year, despite federal protection laws.

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

Ecuador freezes bank accounts of Indigenous leaders, land defenders
- Dozens of bank accounts that belong to Indigenous leaders and organizations, land rights activists and nonprofits in Ecuador have been reportedly frozen for weeks, by order of the state.
- Sources told Mongabay their accounts froze suddenly without warning or explanation. Some have gone over six weeks, unable to access their funds, saying it has drastically affected their mobility.
- The freezes come at a time of social protests and rising tensions in the country, and ahead of a controversial referendum in November that will ask citizens if they want to re-write the country’s constitution.
- The freeze on some bank accounts have been lifted with help from lawyers. However, dozens remain in place.

What’s at stake for the environment in Chile’s upcoming election?
- Chileans will go to the polls on Nov. 16 to vote for a new president, 23 Senate seats and all 155 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies.
- The elections could be a deciding factor in how the country addresses a number of ongoing environmental issues.
- Candidates range from the left-wing Jeannette Jara to conservatives José Antonio Kast, Johannes Kaiser and Evelyn Matthei.
- Whoever wins will have to address the clean energy transition, ongoing land disputes with Indigenous groups, and a controversial mining sector that has clashed with local communities.

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

Soy giants quietly prepare for EU deforestation law; impacts still uncertain
- With the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) nearing implementation, Mongabay reached out to five of the world’s largest traders to find out how ready the soy sector is. Responses ranged from “no comment” to no reply.
- Despite the silence, experts from trade associations and NGOs say that big soy traders are already operationally prepared to meet EUDR requirements.
- Certification bodies and verification networks, such as ProTerra and VISEC, appear to be playing a key role in helping the soy sector get ready for the EUDR.
- Although experts express optimism about the regulation’s potential positive impacts, they underscore its limitations, particularly the exclusion of non-forest ecosystems, and call for continued vigilance in its implementation and corporate commitments.

In the Amazon, political systems fail to prioritize the environment
- Few presidential candidates embrace the environment as a primary election issue, while parties with openly green agendas often fail to get seats in national legislative bodies.
- Increasingly fragmented electorates have made it difficult to elect a president from the first voting round; elected leaders might frequently not enjoy political majority in their respective parliaments.
- While coalitions provide a potential solution to this fragmentation, they can struggle with corruption and instability.

Mongabay launches dedicated Oceans Desk to expand global reporting on marine ecosystems
- Mongabay has launched a dedicated Oceans Desk composed of a global team of journalists specialized in reporting on oceans, fisheries and marine conservation.
- The desk, which includes editors, reporters and program directors from across Mongabay’s newsroom, marks a strategic shift to deepen our coverage of marine ecosystems.
- Mongabay’s ocean reporting has already led to real-world impacts, including exposing corruption in Chilean marine protected area management and informing international sanctions on a Chinese fishing company related to illegal shark finning and abusive labor practices.
- The Oceans Desk marks a milestone in Mongabay’s growth over more than two decades and strengthens the organization’s ability to inform, inspire and sustain effective action on marine conservation worldwide.

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

The price of gold: In Venezuela, mining threatens Indigenous Pemón
- Across southern Venezuela, Indigenous communities have been drawn into mining for gold as their traditional way of life has been disturbed and they lack other economic opportunities.
- Armed groups and a push for extractives have turned the Imataca Forest Reserve in the state of Bolivar into a mining hotspot, sources tell Mongabay, boosting deforestation and river pollution and destroying the livelihoods of Indigenous Pemón families.
- In Canaima National Park, the collapse of tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed communities into mining. Many operations in the park are run by Pemón, who own rafts, employ local workers and partner with external financiers providing machinery and fuel in exchange for a share of the gold.
- In theory, Venezuela legally guarantees land rights for Indigenous people and requires consultation on extractive projects, but communities denounce a lack of consultation, with both legal and illegal mining encroaching on their territories.

Chilean pulp giant Arauco’s history of pollution trails it to Brazil biodiversity site
- Chile-based Arauco has begun building a pulp and paper mill in a Brazilian region that’s been prioritized for conservation.
- The project overlaps with the Três Lagoas biodiversity conservation area, where it could potentially contaminate rivers, dry up groundwater, increase wildlife roadkill, and transform this region of Cerrado savanna into a “green desert” of eucalyptus monocultures.
- While Arauco has promised to implement monitoring and mitigation measures for the environmental impacts of its new project, its track record in Chile is rife with cases of pollution and environmental violations.

Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)
- Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute and of the Green Bridge Facility, argues that keeping global warming below 1.5 °C requires action on three simultaneous fronts: phasing out fossil fuels, ending deforestation, and scaling up natural carbon capture in forests and oceans.
- She contends that energy decarbonization alone is insufficient; protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves is essential for both emissions reduction and resilience, and must be backed by transparent finance and accountability.
- With COP30 approaching in Belém, her piece calls for an integrated, finance-backed plan that ties together clean-energy expansion, a time-bound zero-deforestation roadmap, and rigorous safeguards for community-led nature-based solutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

Across the Amazon, impunity among politicians remains chronic
- Special protocols for the prosecution of elected officials are used to protect them from trivial or politically motivated proceedings, but they can help them avoid accountability for illegal actions.
- Often, their trials are delayed until the charges are dismissed due to technicalities, to the statute of limitations, or because they have been acquitted by politically influenced judges.
- This type of constitutional impunity has been common in Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela, from the Lava Jato case to Hugo Chavez’s legal warfare on his political opponents.

Healthy rivers, healthy people: A Brazil project links human & ecosystem well-being
- A night fishing trip 30 years ago showed Brazilian public health doctor Apolo Heringer the meaning of health: a clean river full of fish — a notion that inspired the Manuelzão Project to restore the Velhas River Basin in southeastern Brazil.
- The basin includes Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region (BHMR), capital of Minas Gerais, the third-largest metropolitan region in Brazil and home to approximately 5.7 million people in 34 cities; here, the combination of high population density, inadequate urban planning and lack of infrastructure has damaged the rivers that cross the region.
- After sewage treatment plants began operating in the area, fish started returning to the waters; the dorado (Salminus franciscanus) was chosen as an indicator of good water quality since it needs a lot of oxygen to survive and polluted waters have low oxygen levels.
- Connections between the river, its health and people’s understanding are crucial to the Manuelzão Project and its goals for collective health.

In Honduras, local communities miss out on benefits of large-scale renewables
- About 1.4 million Hondurans still lack access to electricity, energy demand is increasing and climate change is intensifying, while the country continues to rely on fossil fuels. Yet, in southern Honduras, large-scale renewable energy projects have sparked sharp criticism from local communities.
- Community members complain of unbearable heat, water scarcity and deforestation. They say they feel the impacts of large renewable energy projects, but not the benefits, noting that they still lack access to the electricity grid and face some of the highest electricity prices in the region.
- Community leaders who resist renewable energy projects report being threatened. Experts, activists and community members say better protection for community leaders is urgently needed.
- Despite Honduras’s need for an energy transition, the government and companies involved in these projects have failed to secure community support. Instead, locals call for a “just transition” that ensures affordable energy.

Journalism is failing to report on environmental leaders’ fights (commentary)
- Environmental leaders in Latin America are facing out-of-control violence and deaths, with little accountability.
- Journalism is failing environmental leaders by focusing on statistics instead of their stories.
- Journalists must immerse themselves in the field, along with environmental leaders, to expose their fights and struggles.
- This commentary is part of Our Letters to the Future, a series produced by the Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as their final fellowship project. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Climate finance must reach Indigenous communities at COP30 & beyond (commentary)
- Indigenous and local communities protect 36% of the world’s intact tropical forests, yet receive less than 1% of international climate finance — a contradiction that threatens global climate goals and leaves the most effective forest guardians without the resources they need.
- As the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon draws near, pressure is mounting to get funding directly into the hands of Indigenous and local community organizations who are the frontline defenders of the world’s rainforests.
- “As billions of dollars in climate finance will be discussed or even decided upon at COP30 in Brazil, the priority must be to get resources directly to Indigenous and local communities who have safeguarded forests for generations,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

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

Indigenous communities protect Colombia’s uncontacted peoples
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For more than a decade, two Indigenous communities deep in Colombia’s Amazon have been safeguarding those who wish to remain unseen, reports contributor Pilar Puentes for Mongabay. The residents of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and the neighboring […]
Critical minerals drive legalization of mining on Amazon Indigenous lands
- Brazilian lawmakers are advancing controversial bills to legalize mining on Indigenous lands, where hundreds of mining bids have already been filed, as the nation positions itself as a key supplier for the energy transition.
- The proposed expansion of mining would intensify deforestation and mercury pollution, bringing violence to Indigenous communities and threatening the Amazon, reports show.
- The move raises concerns among Indigenous organizations and experts, who warn that the bills are unconstitutional and may be taken without properly consulting traditional communities.

Despite new land title, Bolivia’s Indigenous Tacana II still face invaders
- After a process lasting more than two decades, the Bolivian government has granted the Indigenous Tacana II people a formal title to their ancestral territory, encompassing more than 272,000 hectares of land.
- While this recognition grants them full ownership and legal security, leaders and researchers say it is not enough to protect them from the country’s political insecurity, the lack of enforcement of environmental regulations and invasions by illegal actors.
- The Tacana people have reported land encroachments and the illegal opening of roads, which impact the transit zone for uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
- ● Experts on Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) told Mongabay that the title may provide a territorial barrier for the isolated people, but specific territorial protection measures are still required to guarantee their full protection.

Heading into COP, Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate is falling. What about fires?
- Brazil’s official data show deforestation in the Amazon fell 11% in the 12 months to July 2025, with independent monitoring by Imazon confirming a similar trend—evidence that policies under President Lula da Silva are reversing the sharp rise seen during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- Even as land clearing slows, fires and forest degradation have become major drivers of loss. Exceptional drought in 2024, record heat, and the spread of roads and logging left large areas of the forest dry and flammable, causing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest loss—roughly 60% from fire.
- Burned areas have dropped by 45% over the past year, suggesting some recovery, yet scientists warn the Amazon is entering a more fragile state shaped by climate extremes and the lingering effects of past destruction.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, attention will center on sustaining recent gains and advancing initiatives like the proposed $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility, even as new roads, gold mining, and policy uncertainty—such as the wavering soy moratorium—continue to threaten progress.

In Rio’s largest favela, used oil becomes soap and social change
- In the heart of Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha favela, the largest in Brazil, a chance discovery led a resident creating a project to turn improperly discarded cooking oil into sustainable soaps and cleaning products.
- Founded in 2020, the Óleo no Ponto initiative acquainted favela residents with environmental stewardship by creating eco-friendly detergents such as soap bars and dishwashing paste.
- In addition to preventing used oil from being dumped into water and clogging sewage pipes, the project empowers vulnerable women from Rocinha, who have found new sources of income by producing and selling detergents under the Sabão do Morro (Favela Soap) brand.

Belém faces its social and natural demons as host to COP30
- Deforestation and the city’s historic shift from rivers to roads led to a massive influx of people into low-lying baixadas, where 57% of residents lack services, such as sewage, and are highly prone to flooding.
- The lack of trees in one of the Amazon’s most revered cities, especially in poor neighborhoods, contributes to projections that Belém will face 222 days of extreme heat by 2050.
- Experts argue that the infrastructure projects being implemented don’t offer sustainable solutions, reflecting a long-term failure to address Belém’s water and sewage crises.

Nuns, scientists & microchips: An alliance to save Mexico’s achoque salamanders
- Dominican nuns at a monastery in Mexico have become unlikely conservation heroes, maintaining the world’s largest captive population of critically endangered achoque salamanders, which number fewer than 150 in the wild.
- Scientists developed a microchipping technique to identify individual salamanders and found that the chips remained in place in 97.5% of animals for 175 days, with no negative health effects.
- The nuns’ 150-year tradition of breeding salamanders for the production of traditional cough syrup evolved into a critical conservation program after wild populations crashed in the 1980s due to lake pollution and overfishing.
- Lake Pátzcuaro, the salamanders’ only natural home, is shrinking and increasingly polluted due to sewage, fertilizer runoff, deforestation and climate change, making the captive breeding program and microchipping efforts essential for the species’ survival.

Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)
- Large-scale lithium mining may impact scarce and precious water resources and balance in Argentina’s arid ecosystems, says Clemente Flores, president of the El Angosto Indigenous community.
- Flores says Indigenous communities manage water communally and this regulates how much they can grow, how many animals they can have, and it shapes their way of life and customs.
- Companies are mining “to save the world from the impacts of climate change by using the minerals for renewable technologies,” he says in this opinion piece. “But we want to be included among those who will be saved — not sacrificed to save others.”
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Report urges full protection of world’s 196 uncontacted Indigenous peoples
- A comprehensive global report on uncontacted Indigenous peoples, published Oct. 27 by Survival International, estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Asia and the Pacific region.
- About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon — especially in Brazil, home to 124 groups. Survival International says that, unless governments and private companies act, half of the groups could be wiped out within 10 years.
- Nine out of 10 of these Indigenous groups face the threat of unsolicited contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups.
- After contact, Indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International says that, if these peoples are to survive, they must be fully protected, requiring serious noncontact commitments by governments, companies and missionaries.

Dom Phillips & Bruno Pereira ‘would be killed again,’ Indigenous leader says
- Three years after the killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, threats remain in the Javari Valley, in the Brazilian Amazon, despite government efforts to halt violence in the region, prominent Indigenous leader Beto Marubo said.
- “The factors that caused the killings remain the same: drug trafficking and the increase in invasions of Indigenous lands,” Marubo told Mongabay in an interview in São Paulo.
- Phillips and Pereira were killed while the British journalist was investigating illegal fishing in the region for his book; Marubo was one of the contributors who helped to finish the book, launched in May in the U.S., Brazil and the U.K.
- Aware of the importance of the book, Marubo made a commitment to help promote the book. to elevate the voice of those who lost their lives defending the Amazon: “Despite all these deaths — not only Dom and Bruno, but also Chico Mendes, Dorothy Stang and so many others who die for the protection of the environment — they are forgotten, they are relegated; they are just numbers, just records in our history.”

Researchers fear Chile copper project may threaten rare Andean cat population
- In Chile’s Valparaíso region, researchers say a proposed large-scale open-pit copper mine threatens a recently recorded Andean cat population and its habitat.
- The Vizcachitas project, owned by Los Andes Copper Ltd., is located on a rich copper deposit and has been presented by the company as a solution to help meet the demands of the global green energy transition.
- Government officials and courts have decided the project is compatible with the presence of the Andean cat, while community members and conservationists raise concerns about the potential impacts on this rare feline species.
- The Putaendo municipality and local organizations have requested that the Ministry of Environment in Chile declare the affected area a protected area to safeguard the Andean cat and other endemic species.

An Indigenous women-led revolution fights fires in Brazil’s Cerrado
- Brazil’s Cerrado savanna has experienced its worst fire season on record, but a tiny Indigenous territory here has for four years now kept the flames at bay.
- The volunteer brigade made up largely of Bakairi Indigenous women has been instrumental in preventing major fires from devastating the Santana Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso state.
- The initiative was born after fires in 2018 destroyed part of the territory and left the community vulnerable as a result of the authorities’ delay in providing help.
- While the Cerrado faces record devastation and public policies remain weak, the Bakairi experience points to a possible path forward that other Indigenous territories in the state also hope to emulate.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
- For generations, the Pakayaku community in Ecuador’s Amazon has successfully kept unsustainable mining, logging and oil extraction activities out of forests while preserving their cultural traditions and ecological knowledge.
- Mongabay visited the community to see their guardian program, made up of 45 women warriors who constantly patrol 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of rainforest to detect incursions — which few have been allowed to witness firsthand.
- The community created a “plan of life” map that details their vision, identity and economic alternatives to extraction.
- Leaders worry Ecuador’s concentration on courting international investment in sectors like mining and natural gas could threaten the forests.

Why is protecting this Honduran lagoon so dangerous?
LAGUNA DE LOS MICOS, Honduras — Tension swirls around the Laguna de los Micos in northern Honduras, which is a critical marine ecosystem surrounded by mangroves and serving as a home and nursery for many species of coral reef fish. The communities living around the lagoon have voluntarily agreed to suspend fishing for two months […]
In the heart of Bolivia, the mountain that financed an empire risks collapsing
- After nearly 500 years of mining, Cerro Rico, the Bolivian mountain whose silver financed the Spanish Empire, is experiencing increasingly frequent and severe cave-ins.
- With silver prices at decade highs, mining activity on Cerro Rico has surged in recent years.
- The collapses endanger the safety and livelihoods of communities living and working on the mountain, the majority of them Indigenous Quechua.
- Lacking both funding and alternative sites to relocate miners, efforts to preserve the mountain have been delayed and ineffective.

Deforestation and disease spread as Nicaragua ignores illegal cattle ranching
- Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry.
- The practice has led to a spike in cases of New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax), a parasitic fly that feeds on warm-blooded animals
- A new investigation by conservation group Re:wild found that years of industry reforms still haven’t prevented cattle ranchers from deforesting protected areas and Indigenous territories.

Heat surges put preserved Amazon areas at high risk, study says
- A new study conducted by a group of 53 scientists from Brazil and other nationalities revealed that preserved forest areas are increasingly harmed by climate change in the Amazon, largely due to the rapid increase in extreme temperatures.
- Between 1981 and 2023, extreme temperatures in the Amazon have risen at double the global average rate, increasing by 0.5° Celsius (0.9° Fahrenheit) per decade. The largely preserved north-central Amazon, home to conservation units and Indigenous territories, registered a rise of more than 3.3°C (5.9°F) in maximum extreme temperatures in the period.
- According to the study, the scenario provokes dry periods that lead to increasing forest fires and large-scale tree and fauna mortality, while bearing negative impacts on human access to services and health.
- Meanwhile, the fast temperature increase also demonstrates that high-emitting nations bear a strong responsibility for the changes in the Amazon, underscoring the urgent need for emission reductions and internal adaptation to save preserved areas of the tropical biome.

A closer look at Peru’s Amazon reveals new mining trends, deforestation
- A new analysis from the Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program shows differences in mining patterns in the central and northern departments of the country, compared with southern departments like Madre de Dios.
- The mapping analysis is one of the first visualizations of Peru’s mining problem on a nationwide scale.
- The organization called for a better gold traceability system and for small-scale and artisanal mining activities to be subject to stricter environmental oversight.

Deforestation for soy continues in Brazilian Cerrado despite EUDR looming
- Some agricultural producers in the Brazilian Cerrado who indirectly supply soy to the European market still haven’t complied with the forthcoming European Union’s antideforestation regulation, or EUDR, an investigation has found.
- Two companies, Mizote Group and Franciosi Agro, have cleared 986 hectares (2,436 acres) since May 2024, advocacy group Earthsight found, including forested areas — meaning any of the soy grown isn’t EUDR-compliant.
- The Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna, is the Brazilian biome most vulnerable to deforestation driven by agricultural expansion, losing more than 652,000 ha (1.6 million acres) of native vegetation in 2024.
- The EUDR and voluntary certification schemes like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) aim to root out deforestation from supply chains — but the latter has limitations, while implementation of the former risks being delayed by another year.

Indigenous monitoring project helps protect isolated peoples in Colombia’s Amazon
- Indigenous communities neighboring the peoples living in isolation in Colombian Amazon have spent more than a decade helping the latter remain separate from the outside world.
- Members of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and of the community of Manacaro use traditional knowledge and technology alike to monitor threats to their territory and to protect nearby communities living in isolation.
- In Manacaro, women take on traditionally masculine roles by patrolling the rivers, collecting data, and safeguarding their neighbors’ lives amid the advance of armed actors and illegal mining.
- Surveillance work has provided evidence of uncontacted peoples, such as the Yuri and Passé ethnic groups, which was fundamental in the federal government’s decision to formally recognize them.

State-NGO collaboration expands protection for Patagonia’s biodiversity hotspot
- A new provincial park in the province of Chubut aims to conserve one of Argentina’s most biodiverse stretches of coastline.
- The park is based on a conservation model that involves an NGO buying up private land and then donating it back to the provincial government in return for new legal protections.
- The park will complement existing legislation and the area’s existing status as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
- Sustainable, low-impact tourism and a no-take fishing zone, which will support the local shrimp industry, are both set to give the region an economic boost.

Legal actions to protect the Amazon produce mixed results across the region
- Amazon countries employ various civil procedures that empower people to seek legal redress for damage to the environment and its associated consequences.
- Several cases from Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, have set international legal precedents for punishing negligence by both extractive companies and the state.
- Civil lawsuits are not an effective approach when in the case of informal economies, which require more drastic mitigation measures.

Putumayo’s women guardians defend land and culture amid Colombia’s deforestation
- In Colombia southwest, Kamëntšá and Inga Indigenous women are at the forefront of the struggle to defend their territory, which provides water to the rest of the Putumayo. Through transmitting their language, cultivating traditional farms, sharing ayahuasca, and traveling the Sibundoy Valley, they keep their knowledge system alive: this is the basis of their defense of the territory.
- Although less than 30% of land in the region is suitable for cattle ranching, approximately 8,000 hectares (84%, 19,700 acres) are dedicated to this activity, impacting key ecosystems and water sources.
- At least 45 women have organized to resist the advance of monocultures and deforestation. They achieve this through their chagras, traditional growing spaces that contain hundreds of edible and medicinal plant species.
- Their knowledge and deep connection with the territory have enabled them to participate in the creation of Indigenous reserves and to oppose large-scale road-building projects on their land.

An invite to the tapir toilet buffet (cartoon)
The tapir’s role as a keystone species includes seed dispersal, ecosystem engineering, and … feeding the forest with its poop! Tapirs have been found to defecate regularly in shared toilet spaces called “communal latrines”, which become important feeding sites for a myriad species like squirrel, tinamou, thrushes and wood quails.
As the Andes’ glaciers melt, our values can help: Voices from the land (commentary)
- The snow-capped mountains in Colombia’s Andes range are rapidly melting due to climate change, says Yesid Achicue, an Indigenous mountain guide for local and international trekkers.
- He says this is extremely alarming, considering the role that snow-capped mountains play in various ecosystems and water sources, as well as the cultural and spiritual value nearby Indigenous communities have given them since time immemorial.
- “It is, in my opinion, our values, and how these belief systems manifest themselves in our societies and cultures, that help determine whether we can slow or cushion the impacts of these melting glaciers,” Achicue writes in this opinion piece. “Currently, treating the world and life as resources to be plundered is creating the climate crisis, and different values can change it.”
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Copper rush pushes Vale to ramp up mining near Amazonian protected areas
- Mining giant Vale has obtained a preliminary license for its Bacaba project, the first step toward doubling its copper production in the Brazilian Amazon over the next decade.
- Experts warn the expansion, near several conservation areas, will worsen deforestation, increase water stress and raise the risk of pollution.
- The global demand for copper is expected to rise by more than 40% by 2040, and almost all of Brazil’s known reserves are in the Amazon.

Biodiversity loss due to land use change could be highly underestimated: Study
- New research carried out in Colombia by the University of Cambridge suggests that local surveys assessing the effect of land clearances on biodiversity may be underestimating the impact by as much as 60%.
- To fully understand the effects of clearing forests for pastureland, much surveys of a much larger scale are required to reflect the different levels of biodiversity in regions and habitats and their resilience to change.
- More accurate species surveys, the authors say, could also support future programs such as biodiversity offsetting schemes as well as influencing farming policies.

Peru considers stripping protections for Indigenous people and their territories
- Several bills working their way through Peru’s Congress would loosen restrictions for oil and gas drilling, and make it harder for Indigenous people to obtain protected status for their land.
- One of the laws gives Congress the power to reevaluate the legal categorization and reserve status of Indigenous peoples living in isolation and initial contact, or PIACI.
- Some advocacy groups called for the suspension of international climate financing to several parts of the Peruvian government until they implement concrete PIACI protections.

IUCN downgrades guiña threat status, prompting conservation warning
- The guiña, a small wildcat, has been moved to least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Found only in Chile and Argentina, this small cat was previously listed as vulnerable.
- But the threat downgrade isn’t a sign of conservation success, researchers say. Rather, it reflects more in-depth knowledge of the species. Three out of six recognized subpopulations remain highly in danger of localized extinction and need special attention and urgent conservation action.
- Some conservationists see the downgrade in status as concerning (especially considering the daunting range of threats and number of imperiled populations) and they fear the improved listing may take attention away from the species and result in a decline in conservation funding.

Amazon countries use variety of legal tools to fight environmental crime
- When administrative and regulatory actions prove insufficient, civil and penal law provide mechanisms for addressing environmental damage through the judicial system.
- In Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, civil and criminal codes include environmental crimes, while other countries have created specific codes covering forests, water, contamination, etc.
- In Brazil, prosecutors have been able to use civil law to bring about changes in state and federal government environmental policies.

MPs across Latin America unite to stop fossil fuels in the Amazon
- On Oct. 7, a network of more than 900 lawmakers presented the results of a parliamentary investigation into the phaseout of fossil fuels in the Amazon at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasília.
- The report by Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future links fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon to deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation, pollution from spills and toxic waste, community displacement, health problems and violence from armed groups.
- MPs from five Amazonian countries — Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia — have presented law proposals in their national parliaments to halt the expansion of fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon region of their countries. But the level of ambition varies across nations, with countries still relying heavily on extractive industries.

Research aims to link Hansen’s disease & illegal armadillo hunting in Brazil
- There are more cases of Hansen’s disease reported in Brazil than any other nation besides India. Even though the disease is highly prevalent, scientists are developing new studies to map out its occurrence with greater precision.
- One of the main objectives of the new studies is to prove that Hansen’s disease is zoonotic and can be transmitted to humans who illegally hunt wild armadillos and handle their meat for consumption.
- A study carried out by Brazilian researchers and published in May revealed a strong association in Brazil between direct contact with armadillos and a high risk of contracting Hansen’s disease.
- The study led to a new multinational project financed by the Leprosy Research Initiative in the Netherlands. It also emphasizes the role that conservation plays in containing the dissemination of zoonotic diseases and calls for new environmental and sanitation policies in Brazil.

In Panama, poison dart frog move brings hope amid amphibians’ fight with fungus
- Twelve pairs of poison dart frogs were recently translocated in Panama in a bid to strengthen the species’ chances of survival and provide answers over a deadly fungal disease threatening amphibians worldwide.
- The effort hopes to boost the population of these frogs, which play a vital role in forest ecosystems and whose toxins could be important for human medicinal use.
- The amphibian chytrid fungus has affected hundreds of species of amphibians over the last decades, leading to the extinction in the wild of 90 species, estimates say.
- Apart from the fungal disease, amphibians are also at risk because of habitat loss driven by urban development and agriculture, experts warn.

Saving Mexico City’s ancient floating farms
This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Mongabay. MEXICO CITY, Mexico — After years of working abroad in marine conservation, Cassandra Garduño returned home to find the chinampas of her childhood, Mexico City’s ancient floating farms, choked with pollution and abandoned. Instead of walking away, she bought a piece of land and […]
New road in Peruvian Amazon sparks fear of invasion among Indigenous Shawi
- Peruvian authorities are backing a highway project that would cut through 5,400 hectares (more than 13,300 acres) of the largely preserved ancestral territory of the Shawi Nation.
- The road will connect the departments of Loreto and San Martín, threatening sensitive and biodiverse ecosystems, including unique white-sand forests and montane forests, and critical water sources.
- Indigenous leaders say the road will open up their territory not only to mining interests but also to an expansion of illegal coca cultivation, which is already growing in the region.

Women in Mexico step up to protect the island farms traditionally inherited by men
- In Mexico, traditionally women did not inherit chinampas, island farms first built by the Aztecs thousands of years ago. The farming on such islands, which sit in Mexico City, has also traditionally been done by men.
- Today, women are buying up chinampas and doing sustainable farming, along the way helping to maintain ecosystems that are threatened by urbanization and water pollution.
- This wetland system is the last remnant of what was once the great Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire built on the lakes that once filled the Valley of Mexico.
- What remains of Xochimilco today represents only 3% of the original extension of those lakes. However, the chinampas are still key to the stability of the city.

Amid Venezuela’s illegal gold heist are armed groups, gangs & elites, report says
- A new report by the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition says at least 86% of Venezuela’s gold is produced illegally and is often controlled by military elites, guerrilla groups and transnational gangs.
- Approximately 70% of what is produced, valued at more than $4.4 billion in 2021, is smuggled and laundered internationally through shell companies and opaque supply chains, including to the U.S.
- Illegal gold mining has led to several socioenvironmental impacts in Indigenous communities, such as mercury poisoning, sexual exploitation, forced labor and deforestation.
- The authors of the report propose several policy solutions the U.S. can implement to address the issue, including tightening oversight, closing legal loopholes and restoring enforcement capacity.

Illegal fishing threatens unique marine ecosystem in Peru
- Park rangers who patrol Illescas National Reserve often confront fishers who use chinchorros, a type of fishing net that is banned in Peru.
- The reserve is designated solely as a terrestrial protected area, which often limits the park rangers’ ability to act, as the marine area is outside their jurisdiction.
- Conservationists warn of the urgent need to safeguard this important marine area and its rich biodiversity.

Indigenous myths reveal Amazon’s past truths: Interview with Stéphen Rostain
- Recent archaeological findings, bolstered by laser-based lidar mapping and by archaeologist Stéphen Rostain, reveal that the Amazon supported vast and complex ancient urban societies.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Rostain says the ancient Upano Valley culture in Ecuador collapsed due to severe drought, offering a stark warning for the Amazon’s current climate vulnerability.
- Rostain says he’s hopeful that a new archaeological understanding of the Amazon will challenge centuries of prejudice against Indigenous people and offer answers for the future.

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