Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon

- In November 2024, the Brazilian government launched an operation to oust illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in the Amazon Rainforest.- However, there was little government action to address health issues in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by gold mining, Indigenous leaders and experts say.- A wide range of diseases linked to mercury contamination and other environmental destruction derived from illegal gold mining spread in Munduruku lands, including diarrhea, itchiness, flu, fever, childhood paralysis and brain problems.- Munduruku leaders sent a letter to the federal government requiring actions to provide health assistance to their people, detailing a list of required actions, including measures to combat mercury contamination, malaria, food insecurity and lack of drinking water.

- Brazilian and Chinese authorities — including Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Xi Jinping — recently discussed a proposed railway that would connect Brazil’s Atlantic coast to Peru’s new Pacific-facing Chancay Port, cutting through the Amazon.- From Lucas do Rio Verde, a major agricultural hub in the state of Mato Grosso, the railway would be built from scratch, advancing into the Amazon’s Arc of Deforestation.- Planners intend to build the Amazonian section of the railway alongside existing highways, a strategy aimed at minimizing environmental impacts and streamlining the licensing process.- However, environmental activists warn that the Bioceanic Corridor, together with newly planned roads, waterways and ports, could accelerate deforestation and degradation in the rainforest.

Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès earned an honorable mention in the 2025 Trace Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced May 28, for her investigation into how Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were misled into handing over their rights to millions of hectares of forest. The January 2024 investigation, “False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous

- The European Union’s demand for electric vehicles may lead to the deforestation of 118,000 hectares (291,584 acres) in critical minerals-supplying countries, according to a new report.- Brazil, which accounts for large reserves of nickel, graphite, rare earths, lithium and niobium, would be one of the most affected countries.- Despite the mining project’s socioenvironmental impacts, the Brazilian federal government has backed companies with financing and political support.- Experts warn that the new minerals rush increases pressure on Indigenous communities already suffering from mining companies’ violations.

- While oil prospects in the Amazon north shore attract international attention, the offer of exploration blocks around Indigenous territories goes unnoticed in Mato Grosso state.- Brazil will auction 21 blocks in the Parecis Basin, an area with dense Indigenous activity, yet none of these communities have been consulted, as leaders struggle to handle existing threats such as ranchers and miners.- Impacts on Indigenous territories include the influx of workers and machinery during research and the risk of toxic gas emissions and water pollution if projects move forward.- The rainforest is the most promising frontier for the oil industry, with one-fifth of the world’s newly discovered reserves from 2022-24.

- Mongabay interviewed Antenor Vaz, an international expert on recognition methodologies and protection policies for Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact (PIACI), about the importance of confirming and recognizing the existence of isolated peoples.- Vaz is a regional adviser for GTI-PIACI, an international working group committed to the protection, defense and promotion of the rights of PIACI, which recently launched a report to help governments, Indigenous organizations and NGOs prove the existence of Indigenous peoples living in isolation.- In this interview, Vaz highlights strategies states can use to confirm and recognize the existence of isolated peoples while maintaining the no-contact principle.

Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest in 2024, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, which is larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual average between 2014 and 2023, according to data released last month by

- The Brazilian environmental agency, IBAMA, approved a license to blast a natural rock barrier on the Tocantins River in Pará state to enable boats to pass during the dry season, as part of wider efforts to build a massive waterway for commodities.- Federal prosecutors requested the suspension of the license due to missing studies and other issues.- A federal court stated that the proposed blasting will have a limited and controlled impact, asserting there are no Indigenous, Quilombola (Afro-Brazilian) or riverine communities living in that section of the Tocantins River — a claim that advocates say is inaccurate.- Rock removal will impact endangered fish, Amazon turtles and the Araguaia river dolphin, which is found only in this region and feeds on fish that spawn in Pedral do Lourenço.

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At the close of SF Climate Week, María Isabel Torres, program director of Mongabay Latam, shared how local journalism is driving environmental change across Latin America. Speaking as a Peruvian journalist based in Lima, María Isabel detailed investigations

- On June 5, 2022, British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were brutally killed in the Javari Valley region, in the Brazilian Amazon; Phillips was investigating illegal fishing in the region for his book.- Three years later, the book How to save the Amazon — A journalist’s fatal quest for answers, by Phillips with contributors, will be launched beginning May 31 in the United Kingdom, the United States and Brazil, accompanied by dedicated events in the three countries.- “Emotionally, it has several meanings for me. Firstly, because it’s like realizing Dom’s death, because he was still writing, he was still alive,” Phillips’ widow Alessandra Sampaio tells Mongabay.- Anthropologist Beatriz Matos, Pereira’s widow, says the book is also intertwined with Pereira’s work and also with everyone who works to defend the Amazon and the Indigenous peoples. “It’s very important that this work is not interrupted. It’s very important that the stories he was telling are told.”