Voices

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

At least 177 environmental defenders were killed last year globally, according to a new report from Global Witness. At least 155 of them were in Latin America. Colombia topped the list with 60 murders, Brazil had 34, Honduras 14.

In the last of three articles, Dan Baron continues his reliving of the Backyard Drums as it evolves into the AfroRaiz Collective, coordinators of the Rios de Encontro community arts education project based in Cabelo Seco, the 'poor' founding village of Marabá, Pará, in the Brazilian Brazil. Tensions flare among the young people, as they ‘learn to listen: to learn, rather than to gossip and slash the wings of those who want to fly.’

First of a three-part series in which Dan Baron traces the evolution of the poor children from Cabelo Seco, Marabá, Pará, into a collective of recognized Amazonian artists and leaders of their community.

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 assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, one of the leading candidates in the 20 August presidential elections, has plunged Ecuador into deep uncertainty. The Correístas might benefit were some of them not suspected of complicity in the crime.

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.

Indigenous communities in Azuay, Ecuador, are fighting Canadian gold mining company Dundee Precious Metals, whose Loma Larga mine threatens to pollute the Kimsakocha moorlands and its rivers.

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.

The Women Resisting Violence project was successful in bringing women together, internationalizing the fight against VAWG, raising awareness of Latin Americans’ campaigns against violence, and reaching a wide audience engaged with social issues.