In Latin America, environmentalists are an endangered species – ‘There is an increase in pressure to exploit resources that have not been exploited yet’

By Lindsay Fendt11 August 2016 (mongabay.com) – On a Tuesday in March, indigenous activist Nelson García was shot in the face in northwest Honduras. The next day, in Guatemala, unknown attackers found environmentalist Walter Méndez outside his home and filled his chest with bullets. Two weeks earlier gunmen killed Berta Cáceres, an internationally renowned environmental […]

Amazon rainforest degradation up 185 percent over last year

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo22 August 2016 (Imazon) – In July 2016, SAD detected 539 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon, with a cloud cover of 7% of the territory. This represented a decrease of 1% compared to July 2015 when deforestation totaled 542 […]

Australia government about-face on climate science is the least it could do – ‘It doesn’t do anything to improve Australia’s climate science so much as not ruin it as much’

[cf. Australia climate science to be gutted as CSIRO swings jobs axe – ‘It’s a catastrophic reduction in our capacity to assess present and future climate change’, CSIRO cuts to climate science are against the public good, and An open letter to the Australian Government from more than 2800 climate scientists.] By Andrew P Street […]

Amazon forest degradation increased by 5,785 percent over May 2015 estimate

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo16 June 2016 (Imazon) – In May 2016, 34% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, less coverage than May 2015 (39%). States with larger cloud coverage were Amapá (70%) and Roraima (61%). In the analyzed […]

Ulba river in Siberia poisoned by mining city Ridder in Kazakhstan, 1100 km upstream – ‘It is a real ecological disaster’

31 May 2016 (Siberian Times) – Alert as dump including cyanide at zinc plant leaks into Ulba Rover and pollution flows towards Omsk. An acidic smell causes breathing difficulties as far as 700 metres from the river, according to worried locals on the bank of the Ulba. Omsk residents, around 1,100 kilometres from the source […]

2015 was the worst year on record for murders of land and environmental defenders – ‘We get threatened, vilified, and killed for standing up to the mining companies on our land and the paramilitaries that protect them’

20 June 2016 (Global Witness) – Para la versión española, clique aquí. More than three people were killed a week in 2015 defending their land, forests and rivers against destructive industries. For our new report On Dangerous Ground we documented 185 killings across 16 countries – by far the highest annual death toll on record […]

Tibetans believe mass fish kill in Lichu River caused by lithium mine waste – Protests ignored by China mining company

By Tenzin Palden4 June 2016 (Tibet Policy Institute) – On 4 May 2016, a sudden mass death of fish in the Lichu River in Minyak Lhagang, Dartsedo County in Karze Prefecture brought hundreds of local Tibetans out on the street, protesting against a lithium mining company (Ronda Lithium Co Ltd) that released mine waste into […]

Amazon deforestation increases by one third over 2015 – Forest degradation up 733 percent

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo31 May 2016 (Imazon) – In April 2016, 42% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, a lower coverage than April 2015 (55%). States with larger cloud coverage were Roraima (86%) and Amapá (84%). In the […]

One in five of world’s plant species at risk of extinction – ‘We are facing some devastating realities if we do not take stock and re-examine our priorities and efforts’

[Follow #SOTWP on Twitter for live updates during the State of the World’s Plants Symposium (11-12 May 2016).] By Damian Carrington9 May 2016 (The Guardian) – One in five of the world’s plant species is threatened with extinction, according to the first global assessment of flora, putting supplies of food and medicines at risk. But […]

Gold mining ramps up, pushes deeper into Peruvian Amazon rainforest

By Morgan Erickson-Davis22 April 2016 (mongabay.com) – The quest for gold has been stripping rainforest from around rivers in the Amazon Basin, with not even protected areas immune from mining. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the Peruvian government launched an intervention in January, destroying a slew of mining equipment and more […]

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