A Guatemalan town fights to bar gold mining and save its waters

In 1997, people in Asunción Mita, a municipality in eastern Guatemala, weren’t really thinking that mining could arrive close to home. But that same year, the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines granted mining company Entre Mares S.A. a permit to start exploration on a little more than 100 square kilometres (39 square miles) in […]

Read More

Water as Part of the Climate Solution

The intersection of freshwater and climate is a frequently ignored but critical element of the climate problem, according to a new study from Sweden that explores the link and offers solutions that will help lower emissions.  Two years in the making, the study, “The Essential Drop to Reach Net-Zero: Unpacking Freshwater’s Role in Climate Change […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Avocado farming is threatening Colombia’s natural water factory

paramos“We always grew native products that come from here, like corn, beans, potatoes or lulos,” says Don Danilo, a longtime farmer near Sonsón, a small municipality in the Colombian state of Antioquia. But since losing the land he was cultivating, he has switched to beekeeping and fish farming. Don Danilo is just one of the […]

Read More

A new method assesses health of Chile’s headwaters, and it’s not good news

Follow any river to its upper reaches and you will encounter the headwaters, the flowing streams that join to carry water, nutrients and life to downstream ecosystems and economies. Troubles here, at the river’s origins, quite literally trickle down. Headwaters are complex and notoriously difficult to study, but given their vital role, understanding where and […]

Read More