Norway gives billions to Brazil to save the rainforest. At the same time, Norsk Hydro’s operations lead to large emissions of greenhouse gases and the destruction of rainforests.
NRK-2, TV Channel NRK-2 of the (government-owned) Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published this article on 6 January 2019 about Norway’s double standards with respect to rainforests. You can read the...
It is not only in the Amazon and remote rural areas that indigenous lands are coming under increased pressure as the new Bolsonaro government extends carte blanche to land-thieves and developers. As CIMI (the Conselho Indigenista Missionário - Indigenous Missionary Council) has denounced, indigenous residents of a Guarani community near Porto Alegre are being threatened by security guards hired...
Brazil’s 1988 constitution and other laws established the right of landless peasants to claim unused and underutilized lands. Thousands, with the support of the landless movement, occupied tracts. At times, they even succeeded in getting authorities to set up agrarian reform settlements.
Big landowners always opposed giving large tracts of land to the landless but, until roads began...
President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen Ricardo Salles as Brazil’s environment minister. The former São Paulo state government environment secretary is under investigation for allegedly redrawing maps allowing protected lands to be developed for mining and factories. His statements are heavily pro-agribusiness and sometimes espouse violence.
The selection of ruralist Tereza Cristina as agriculture minister, and Ernesto Araújo as...
From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan to turn the region into a major commodities export corridor.
Branford and Torres wrote a 15-part investigative series (published in partnership with The Intercept Brazil) based on what...
Rios de Encontro (Rivers of Meeting), is an eco-cultural and socio-educational project based in the community of Cabelo Seco, Pará, Brazil. The project spent the last two weeks of November in national and international activities to celebrate the role of young arts-educators who, in the midst of worrying and uncertain times, are searching for creative ways to promote social...
In a book released by the Comissão Pró-Índio de São Paulo this week, the affected population reveals the socio-environmental consequences of 40 years of bauxite extraction in Oriximiná, Brazil.
The book “Antes a Água era Cristalina, Pura e Sadia – Percepções quilombolas e ribeirinhas dos impactos e riscos da mineração em Oriximiná, Pará” discusses the consequences of bauxite extraction from...
São Paulo, 3 December: During the election campaign, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro boasted he would pare the number of cabinet ministers down from its present total of 29 to a mere 15, but he has been overtaken by reality and the number is 22 and counting. The new government includes generals (and an admiral), Cold War warriors, climate deniers and...
The recent death of the 24-year-old Mapuche activist and leader Camilo Catrillanca has sparked widespread condemnation and protests throughout Chile.
On Wednesday November 14, a newly created special ‘anti-terrorist’ unit of Carabineros, the Chilean police, known as Comando Jungla entered the Mapuche traditional community of Temukuikui near the town of Ercilla in the Araucanía region, approximately 370 miles south of...
The Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, is renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity and the vitality of its indigenous and riverine communities. But it is gradually being carved up by highways, hydroelectric dams and railways, built to allow agribusiness, the new powerhouse of the Brazilian economy, to export soya and other products though the Amazon River.
Amazon Besieged...