By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer2 September 2015 (Common Dreams) – Demanding reparations for industrial pollution and adequate compensation for use of native lands, Indigenous activists in Peru shut down 11 wells in an Amazonian oil block on Tuesday. According to the Spanish EFE news agency, native protesters led by the Federation of the Achuar and […]
By Michael E. Miller 27 August 2015 (Washington Post) – The killers came from the forest, the very same forest Raimundo Santos Rodrigues so loved. The environmentalist had spent years defending one of the last pristine swathes of the eastern Amazon rain forest from loggers, miners and farmers. But his activism had earned him enemies […]
By Vincent Bevins10 July 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Carrying guns and wearing jungle fatigues, the three men don’t look like scientists as they push their way through the thick foliage of the Amazon. They’re trying to reach a clearing they’ve seen on satellite images. When they finally get there, they discover that the largest […]
28 July 2015 (Institute of Physics) – A global “gold rush” has led to a significant increase of deforestation in the tropical forests of South America. This is according to a study published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, which has highlighted the growing environmental impact of gold mining in some of the […]
By Adam Voiland28 July 2015 (NASA) – A new analysis of 35 years of meteorological data confirms fire seasons have become longer. Fire season, which varies in timing and duration based on location, is defined as the time of year when wildfires are most likely to ignite, spread, and affect resources. In the map above, […]
By Antônio Fonseca, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo May 2015 (Imazon) – In May 2015, SAD detected 389 square kilometers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon with a cloud cover of 39% over the territory. That represented an increase of 110% in relation to May 2014 when deforestation totaled 185 square kilometers and the […]
By Marguerite Ward 1 July 2015 (NBC News) – One of the world’s most populous cities is running out of water. São Paulo, Brazil, is in the grips of the city’s worst drought in the last half-century. The city’s main water supply—called the Cantareira system—is running on emergency reserves. Normally this time of year, the […]
By Leila Carvalho26 June 2015 (The Conversation) – Exceptional drought, extreme temperatures, unprecedented drops in reservoir levels, and threatening water shortages for millions of people have dominated headlines in California in recent years. Unfortunately, Californians are not the only people being stressed with the “water crisis.” Citizens of one of the most densely populated areas […]
GENEVA, June 18 (UNHCR) – Wars, conflict, and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere, according to a new report from the UN refugee agency. UNHCR’s annual Global Trends Report: World at War [pdf], released on Thursday (June 18), […]
São Paulo, 16 June 2015 (Associated Press) – Construction of a massive hydroelectric dam is endangering the livelihoods of at least 2,000 families in Brazil’s Amazon jungle state of Pará, according to federal prosecutors who recommend that efforts to move the residents be suspended. The federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement Monday that the […]
