Brazil: tread gently on the earth
Director Marcos Colón has made a remarkable film about the Amazon, charting how in three countries, Brazil, Peru and Colombia, 'modernity' means exploitation and destruction. He interviews indigenous leaders with a very different vision.
Peru: Women in film
Karoline Pelikan sketches out the current landscape for women in film in Peru, and interviews three women from the board of directors at NUNA, the country's first association of women directors.
Peru: Landmark climate change lawsuit moves forward
Indigenous Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya is suing German energy company RWE AG for the costs of preventing the glacial Lake Palcacocha from flooding his hometown of Huaraz.
Cross-border traffic in coca and labour
Peruvian coca farmers are actively recruiting Brazilian indigenous workers from the Alto Salimöes region to harvest and transport coca. Violence and exploitation are rife.
Amazon: crime without punishment
At least 58 indigenous people were killed in the Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian Amazon between 2016 and 2021. In this article, Mongabay outlines the patterns, the involvement of state actors and the cloud of impunity surrounding these crimes
Peru: environmental defenders still dying
Murders of indigenous leaders in Peru continue, despite government promises to improve protections. Those who seek to defend their land and protect the local environment are targeted by illegal loggers, miners and drug traffickers.
Two men missing in The Amazon ‘wild-west’
The Javari reserve in Amazonas, where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, is a wild-west border region with multiple problems of drug trafficking, smuggling and land grabbing.
Tomasa Tito Condemayta depicted in new film
Whilst Túpac Amaru II is hailed as the hero of the 1780 Andean Rebellion against the Spanish in Peru, little is known about Tomasa Tito Condemayta. Maria Herrera Badell's new short film is a ‘false’ documentary with truth at its heart.
Ecuador: Intag stands up to mining
Intag communities in Ecuador are resisting development of a copper mine at Llurimagua, proposed by Enami and Codelco. In Peru, residents of Aquia, Ancásh, accuse the Antamina mine of encroaching on their land without consultation.
Mining: democracy comes from the street
Protests at Chubut in Argentina highlight the importance of pressure from the streets to force local officials to hold the line against destructive mine development. In Brazil, meanwhile, it is the trans-Brazil FIOL railway project that is mobilising communities to defend their land and livelihoods.