Chapter 5 - Indigenous peoples and the rights of nature

Black and Indigenous Brazilian protestors halted a joint panel at the COP28 climate conference, where the mining company Vale and government representatives were talking complacently about 'energy transition'.

The story of Miranha and Juri, two indigenous children kidnapped from their people by German scientists 200 years ago, told in novel form by award-winning Brazilian author Micheliny Berunschk

Yet another reason to protect the Amazon - 1000s of 'undiscovered earthworks', says David Hill. Researchers suggest hidden archaeological sites have role in Indigenous peoples’ land rights struggle

A moratorium on fishing the piracatinga catfish in the Brazilian Amazon was extended for the third time since its introduction in 2014. There’s now no expiry date for the ban, although the ministries of environment and fishing have a period of three years to reevaluate it. The moratorium was instituted to protect the pink river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), known locally as the boto.

LAB speaks to Natalia Greene, who was instrumental in bringing the Rights of Nature into Ecuador’s Constitution in 2008, about the environmental movement in Ecuador, the complexities of the current political situation and deteriorating security.

On the one-year anniversary of Amazon-centred news community, Sumaúma, co-founder Jonathan Watts shares some of his favourite images from a year of enormous – and mostly positive change

In the second of three articles, Dan Baron continues his review of the eco-cultural project he has been coordinating in the Brazilian Amazon with young people from Marabá, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon since 2009. He revisits the history of the Backyard Drums group as it becomes the collective pulse of the the over-arching Rios de Encontro project.

The Amazon Summit in Belém, Brazil, brought together 8 out of the 9 countries of the Amazon Basin. There were agreements, calls for western countries to share the burden of conserving the forest. But no explicit target on halting deforestation and no willingness to halt oil extraction.

Ecuadorians go to the polls on 20 August 2023, to elect both a new president and 137 legislators for the country's National Assembly. They will also be given the choice to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in a referendum, where a ‘Yes’ vote will shut down all oil extraction in Yasuní National Park.

When large mining companies such as TerraEarth withdrew from gold mining in Ecuador's Napo province, they paved the way for smaller scale illegal miners to move in in force, financed by cocaine money, with terrible consequences