Shipibo communities create Indigenous guard to protect Peruvian Amazon from deforestation

Drug trafficking, logging, oil palm plantations, oil spills, highways, illegal fishing, expanding Mennonite communities — in the Peruvian Amazon, there’s no shortage of threats against Indigenous peoples or their lands. But now the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people, living in the department of Ucayali, near the border with Brazil, have taken steps to protect themselves from the barrage […]

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Amazon Rainforest loss could reach new height in just 5 years, study says

Within just five years, the Amazon Rainforest could lose half the total forest cover that it lost in the first 20 years of this century, a recent study has shown, as deforestation rates continue to accelerate in almost all nine Amazonian countries. From 2001-20, the rainforest lost 542,581 square kilometers (209,492 square miles), an area […]

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Climate change lawsuits take aim at French bank BNP Paribas

One of Europe’s biggest banks is facing two ambitious new lawsuits that claim it finances some of the worst contributors to environmental destruction and climate change. French bank BNP Paribas is being sued by a group of environmental and human rights advocacy groups that allege it provides financial services to oil and gas companies as […]

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Historic EU law against deforestation-linked imports ignores Brazil’s Cerrado

Officials and NGOs have hailed the European Union’s agreement on a law banning the import of commodities associated with deforestation, but say it falls short of protecting areas typically not considered forests yet nevertheless of huge ecological importance. Among the responses to the law are that it’s a “landmark,” “groundbreaking,” “radical,” a “great opportunity” for […]

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Deforestation is pushing Amazon to ‘point of no return’: WWF report

river forestDeforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest dangerously close to its tipping point, and the effects could soon be felt across the globe. A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), called the Living Amazon Report, warns that threats to the Amazon have worsened in recent years, and could result in the disappearance of the […]

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Beef is still coming from protected areas in the Amazon, study shows

Some of the world’s largest beef exporters are still buying cattle that grazed in protected areas of the Amazon rainforest, despite commitments to stop this practice, according to a new study. The report, published today in the journal Conservation Letters found that millions of cattle grazed in protected areas (PAs) in the Brazilian states of Mato […]

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Big banks fund the heavy machinery used for Amazon deforestation, report says

The deforestation sweeping across the Brazilian Amazon is driven largely by industrial agriculture, mining and cattle ranching. But those activities wouldn’t be possible without heavy machinery like bulldozers and tractors, and the big banks that often finance their purchase. Questionable business practices, weak government oversight and a lack of transparency make buying heavy machinery in […]

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