Amazon rainforest degradation in Brazil up 224 percent in July 2018

By Stefania Costa 24 August 2018(Imazon) – SAD detected an increase of 39 percent deforestation and 224 percent degradation in one year in the Amazon rainforest (August 2017 to July 2018 compared to August 2016 and July 2017).In July 2018, SAD detected 778 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. In this bulletin, the […]

2017 was deadliest year on record for indigenous and environmental defenders – “Local activists are being murdered as governments and businesses value quick profit over human life”

24 July 2018 (Global Witness) – Global Witness today reveals that at least 207 land and environmental defenders were killed last year – indigenous leaders, community activists and environmentalists murdered trying to protect their homes and communities from mining, agribusiness and other destructive industries.Severe limits on the data available mean the global total is probably […]

In Mexico town with little water, Coca-Cola is everywhere. So is diabetes. “It doesn’t rain like it used to. Almost every day, day and night, it used to rain.”

By Oscar Lopez and Andrew Jacobs 14 July 2018 SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (The New York Times) – Maria del Carmen Abadía lives in one of Mexico’s rainiest regions, but she has running water only once every two days. When it does trickle from her tap, the water is so heavily chlorinated, she […]

Video: Footage of sole survivor of Amazon tribe emerges

By Dom Phillips 19 July 2018 Rio de Janeiro (The Guardian) – Remarkable footage has been released of an uncontacted indigenous man who has lived alone in an Amazon forest for at least 22 years. Semi-naked and swinging an axe vigorously as he fells a tree, the man, believed to be in his 50s, has […]

Graph of the Day: Journalists missing or killed globally, 1992-2018

7 July 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – Journalism has never been a safe profession, but in 2018, it’s more than three times as dangerous as it was 2001. According to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), murders and disappearances of reporters worldwide have increased from a low of 34 in 2002 to a […]

Pope warns climate change turning Earth into desert, garbage

By Nicole Winfield 6 July 2018 VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of “rubble, deserts, and refuse.” Francis made the appeal at […]

Indonesia to investigate death of journalist being held for defaming palm oil company

By Hans Nicholas Jong 21 June 2018 JAKARTA (Mongabay) – Indonesia’s national commission on human rights has vowed to investigate the death of a journalist who was being held on charges of defaming a palm oil company owned by a powerful tycoon.From November 2017 to March of this year, Muhammad Yusuf wrote at least 23 […]

Indonesia indigenous rights activist: “North Sumatran land mafia offered me $21m to win election — and then hand over control of government”

21 June 2018 (Mongabay) – In July last year, Abdon Nababan, one of Indonesia’s most prominent activists, announced his intention to run for governor in his home province of North Sumatra. During his decade-long tenure as head of AMAN, the country’s main advocacy group for indigenous rights, Abdon led the organization to a series of […]

Government raid fails to stop illegal gold mining, death threats on Amazon’s Tropas River

By Rosamaria Loures, Sue Branford, and Maurício Torres 31 May 2018 (Mongabay) – “The gold mining in our territory is bringing a lot of illness, a lot of malaria. It’s bringing alcohol into our communities. It’s bringing drugs into our territory,” said Maria Leusa, a Munduruku female warrior and a leading member of the Ipereg […]

Illegal loggers “cook the books” to harvest Amazon’s most valuable tree

By Jenny Gonzales 24 May 2018 (Mongabay) – Brazil’s Ipê tree is one of the most valuable tree species in the world, and a chief target for illicit deforestation, with primary export markets for its illegally harvested timber especially found in the U.S. and Europe.In the past, a weak licensing system, along with continued indiscriminate, […]

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