Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon

Brazil’s antitrust regulator suspended a key mechanism for rainforest protection, the Amazon Soy Moratorium, on Aug. 18, less than three months before the nation hosts the COP30 climate summit. The Amazon Soy Moratorium is a 19-year-old voluntary private-sector agreement to not source soybeans from areas deforested after 2008 in the Brazilian Amazon. It is estimated

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon are urging South American presidents meeting in Bogota this week to turn promises to protect the region’s rainforest into concrete action, and to give Indigenous groups more say in the region’s future. The Fifth Presidential Summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, officially opening Tuesday in the

- Besides being a star in Amazonian cuisine, new research confirms jambu’s spilanthol compound as a temporary pain reliever, circulation enhancer and anti-inflammatory.- Promoting forest-sourced products like jambu, grown in home gardens and small farms, provides new revenue and a pathway for a development model that prioritizes Amazon conservation.- Projections suggest the bioeconomy could expand 30-fold into a multi-billion-dollar market by 2040, while supporting small-scale, sustainable farmers.

- Bolivians will go to the polls on Aug. 17 to vote for a new president, vice president and 166 combined members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.- Polls suggest that conservative candidates Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga and Samuel Doria Medina have the best chance of winning, with a focus on economic recovery rather than the environment.- Their policies will determine the future of the lithium industry, illegal gold mining and forest loss in the Amazon and Chiquitania.

- Across the Amazon, governments have tackled deforestation by creating protected areas, formalizing the rights of Indigenous People and by expanding control over how land is used.- Most Amazon countries have also created policies incentivizing landholders to engage in sustainable forestry and agroforestry practices.- When these policies fail, coercive measures can be used to tackle deforestation, including law enforcement and police interventions.

- Between June 23 and July 6, 2025, police forces from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru joined forces in a cross-border law enforcement initiative targeting environmental crimes like illegal mining, wildlife trafficking and illegal logging.- Coordinated by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior, Operation Green Shield led to more than 90 arrests and the seizure of assets worth more than $64 million. Authorities also rescued more than 2,100 live animals and recovered 6,350 dead specimens.- Reactions among local communities were mixed. While some locals were involved in illicit activities, others condemned the environmental destruction and feared reprisals from armed criminal groups operating in their territories.- Although the operation disrupted environmental crimes, experts warn the offenses may shift to other areas. They stress the urgent need for sustainable development alternatives to address the root causes driving illegal activities in the Amazon.

- For nearly six decades, Lúcio Flávio Pinto has reported fearlessly from the Brazilian Amazon, chronicling land grabs, illegal logging, and environmental destruction while refusing to be silenced or swayed by power or money.- After leaving Pará’s dominant newspaper in 1987, he launched Jornal Pessoal, a fiercely independent, ad-free newsletter funded solely by subscriptions, modeled after I.F. Stone’s Weekly.- Pinto has faced physical assaults, death threats, 33 lawsuits, and judicial harassment—including a criminal conviction—yet has remained rooted in Belém, documenting the Amazon’s unraveling when others fled or fell silent.- Now in his seventies, Pinto’s memoir Como me tornei um amazônida reflects a life devoted not to advocacy, but to truth as a form of reverence—undaunted by the odds, still trying to write a different ending for the forest he loves.

Illegal invasions in the Karipuna Indigenous Territory in the northwest of the Brazilian Amazon have started to advance again, Karipuna leaders told Mongabay following an alert by global nonprofit Survival International. “This year has been very difficult because there are a lot of people on our territory,” André Karipuna, the chief of the Karipuna people,

- The transition from deforestation to reforestation will rely on local resource ownership, because this ownership is an unavoidable prerequisite for the financing of carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services provided by forests, the authors of a new op-ed argue.- “From Himalayan foothills to reforested cattle ranches in Central America, individuals and communities that own tree-covered land are being paid to safeguard forest ecosystem services. But even where conservation payments are not on the table, property rights, alone, make environmental improvement more rewarding for those individuals and communities,” they write.- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

- Remarkable discoveries in an Amazon cave rewrote human history, but it remains largely unknown as farmers advance closely.- Boasting hundreds of ancient rock paintings, Monte Alegre State Park (PEMA) in northern Brazil is a natural and cultural marvel, yet it barely attracts 4,000 visitors a year.- Deforestation is accelerating around Monte Alegre, with 11,000 hectares (27,180 acres) of forest lost in 2024, largely to soy farming.- A new report revealed a worrying pattern: By 2023, more than half of Brazil’s archaeological sites were located close to recent human activity, largely due to the expansion of farming.