Despite confirmation this week that the deforestation rate in the Amazon rainforest is at its highest in more than a decade, far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro refuses to take the problem seriously. When confronted with findings from Brazil‘s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) that deforestation between August 2018 and July 2019 was at its […]
More than 1,000 miles of shoreline in Brazil are now contaminated by a mysterious oil spill. that has lasted for weeks as the country struggles to clean what may be its largest oil spill in history. The administration of industry-friendly President Jair Bolsonaro has failed to identify the source of the spill, and Bolsonaro has […]
By Jessica Corbett In an open letter to Brazilian society and right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, a group of experts warned that a “genocide is underway” against uncontacted tribes because of Bolsonaro’s efforts to strip away Indigenous peoples’ rights and lands and open up more of the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness and mining. The letter, released […]
Brazil’s main environmental agency said on Thursday the source of a sprawling oil spill along the northeast coast remains unknown, but that the crude oil was not produced in the country. The spill stretches over 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) of Brazil’s northeast coast, affecting 46 cities and around one hundred of the country’s nicest beaches […]
By Shreya Dasgupta The fires ravaging the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of Sept. 17, rendering them dead or homeless, say experts at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization. “The number of homeless or dead jaguars has undoubtedly increased […]
Today is the United Nations Climate Action Summit, a gathering called by UN Secretary General António Guterres to encourage climate action ahead of 2020, the year when countries are due to up their pledges under the Paris agreement. Guterres has asked countries to announce “concrete, realistic” steps that will reduce global emissions by 45 percent […]
Seven Amazon countries signed a pact Friday to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest in response to the record-breaking number of wildfires that have blazed through the Amazon rainforest this summer, Reuters reported. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname agreed to create a network to coordinate their responses to disasters like this summer’s […]
Norway has urged its companies that actively do business in Brazil to make sure that they are not contributing to destruction of the Amazon rainforest, as Reuters reported. Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen discussed the Amazon fires with representatives of the oil firm Equinor, fertilizer-producer Yara, and aluminum producer Norsk Hydro. The Norwegian […]
By Rhett Butler Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) resumed releasing deforestation data after nearly a month-long hiatus that followed the firing of the agency’s director on Aug. 2. The newly released data, which is based on short-term deforestation alerts, estimates that nearly 1,400 square kilometers of forest were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon between […]