Amazon Monitoring

- The new book Seremos Jaguares (We Will Be Jaguars) by Indigenous leader Nemonte Nenquimo is the memoir of a woman who fought against large oil companies to preserve her people’s land and thousands of hectares of Amazon rainforest.- The book, written with her husband and executive director of the organization Amazon Frontlines, Mitch Anderson, is a story of hope and resistance from the Amazon in the fight against climate change and the protection of nature.- In this interview, Mongabay speaks with Nemonte Nenquimo about her work to defend the Amazon and what her new book symbolizes for Indigenous women around the world.

- Across the Amazon, archaeological remains indicate that the human presence in the rainforest is much older, larger and more widespread than previously thought.- Researchers in Brazil are lobbying to register archaeological sites as national monuments, which would confer a new layer of protection status to parts of the rainforest.- Earthen mounds known as geoglyphs, for instance, have been revealed to stretch from Acre state north into neighboring Amazonas; formally recognizing them under Brazil’s heritage law could protect this vast swath of rainforest.- “Today we know it’s highly likely that part of the forest has been changed by people,” said Dutch biologist Hans ter Steege, co-author of research that has shown there may be up to 24,000 earthworks hidden throughout the rainforest that could qualify for protection.

- The EU parliament and council is considering a 12-month delay to its deforestation-free products regulation, which will require exporters to prove that beef, soy, rubber and other harmful commodities aren’t sourced to deforested land.- The law was supposed to go into effect January 1, 2025, but faced mounting pressure from exporting countries and the industrial agricultural sector.- The 12-month delay could result in around 2,300 square kilometers (888 square miles) of deforestation and 49 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions, according to EU studies.

- Brazil has committed to dredge major Amazon rivers in response to record drought that has lowered water levels and made ship passage, a key transportation lifeline, difficult or impossible.- The dredging is aimed at supporting local communities, who rely on river navigation to get supplies in from outside, and producers, who need to ship their commodities out.- But experts question whether dredging is a sustainable solution, raising concerns about long-term ecological impacts and advocating for community involvement and innovative technology for better outcomes.- The environmental risks of dredging include ecosystem disruption, increased erosion, water contamination, and harm to aquatic species such as manatees and river dolphins.

- The Amazon rainforest, devastated by over 70,000 wildfires in 2019, is once again ablaze, threatening even greater destruction of wildlife, human health, and ecosystems.- Climate change is now a tangible global threat, with rising sea levels and extreme heat affecting entire regions, while indigenous communities, like the Kogi in Colombia, have long warned of these environmental dangers, argues Mark J. Plotkin, an ethnobotanist who co-founded the Amazon Conservation Team.- The Amazon, which stores one-fifth of the world’s terrestrial carbon, plays a crucial role in regulating global climate, but continued deforestation risks releasing this carbon and disrupting weather patterns far beyond the region.- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.