Severe droughts in southern Brazil may be linked to deforestation and degradation of Earth's largest rainforest, argues a new report published by a Brazilian scientist.
The international community is failing to take advantage of a potent opportunity to counter climate change by strengthening local land tenure rights and laws worldwide, new data suggests.
Deforestation, especially in the Andean highlands of Bolivia and Peru, was the main driver of this year’s disastrous flooding in the Madeira river watershed in Bolivia’s Amazon rainforest and the drainage basin across the border, in Brazil.
Ricardo Vásquez Sánchez glances up at the dry thatched roof on the wood-framed platform that is his home in Peru’s sweltering Amazon lowlands.
“If a spark lands there, it’ll go up in flames,” he says.
Alex Lacerda and Paulo Mau drive a silver pickup to an outdoor sawmill near the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Carrying 12-gauge shotguns, they step out and approach a shack, knock and enter cautiously. They are agents for Brazil's environmental police.
The economic and political conditions in Peru favor an increase in deforestation, despite the country having set a target of zero net deforestation by 2021, a new study shows.
Water, food supplies and energy production are all in jeopardy as the Amazon forest is felled for profit. And as Paul Brown writes, the damage is spreading well beyond Amazonia itself.
A U.N. programme aimed at protecting Panama's forests has been reopened after it was suspended earlier this year due to disagreement between indigenous forest communities and the Central American nation's government over how the scheme was being managed.
Few willing to take responsibility for cleaning up waste as bitter 20 year fight over oil pollution heads for another legal judgement.
When an oil company makes a mess, who clears up, and who pays?
Preparations for a proposed international scheme to pay local users to cut greenhouse gas emissions through reduced deforestation are directing more attention to forest tenure problems — but they do not solve them, researchers have found.
The total deforestation of the Amazon may reduce rain and snowfall in the western US, resulting in water and food shortages, and a greater risk of forest fires.
Ecuador, the OPEC member with the smallest amount of proven oil reserves, has gained outsized attention in the debate over the future of oil extraction in recent days and may well play a decisive role in the outcome of
Leaders representing Panama’s seven indigenous groups have called for support in a fight to protect their land rights – a fight that has intensified in recent years with the rapid arrival of land speculators, drug traffickers and landless peasants.
Murders of tribesman in Ecuador highlight controversy over proposal to auction off section of Amazon rainforest to oil companies
A palm oil producer has leveled some 7,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon, highlighting the risks of oil palm expansion in the world's largest tropical forest, reports El Comercio.