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Editor's picks

KANUA: the first floating film festival to navigate the Ecuadorian Amazon

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Environmental Defenders
Kanua, the Amazonian Floating Film Festival, brought cinema to remote communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon on a solar-powered canoe.

Moira Millán: urgent situation of Indigenous people in Patagonia

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Environmental Defenders
Moira and Vilma had travelled from southern Patagonia to Europe to spread awareness of the urgent situation for Indigenous peoples in the south of Argentina, and to strengthen bonds of international solidarity. 

Women criminalized for resisting gas extraction in Bolivian nature reserve

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In Tariquía women are at the frontline of the fight against gas extraction which threatens their ways of living
Environmental Defenders
Campesina women in the Tariquía National Reserve stand up against impending gas extraction which will have detrimental impacts on the environment and local communities’ ways of life.

COP16 and biodiversity markets: Indigenous peoples meaningfully included?

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Environment
Today, 21 October 2024, in Cali Colombia, the COP16 conference begins. This will be a platform for promoting the concept of biodiversity credits and biodiversity markets. But what do these terms mean, and what is at stake, especially for Indigenous peoples and local communities? 

Suriname has 93 percent forest cover; we want to keep it...

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Environmental Defenders
Suriname is the most forested country on earth, with 93 percent forest cover. At COP-23 in Bonn, the Suriname government pledged to work towards keeping 93 percent forest cover, forever. The Forest93 campaign is leading the way.

Yuturi Warmi, Ecuador’s first Indigenous guard led by Kichwa women

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Environmental Defenders
In 2020, over 40 Kichwa women began to organise themselves in defence of their territory and to expel mining from the Ecuadorian Amazon. This is how Yuturi Warmi, the first Indigenous guard led by women in the region began.

Latin America is the most dangerous region in the world to be an environmental defender. But this doesn’t stop activists, territorial guards, Indigenous communities, and environmental associations from taking action.

LAB’s Environmental Defenders series aims to inspire, inform, and motivate an English-speaking public to connect with grassroots environmental activists’ work in Latin America and the Caribbean, influencing thinking in the Global North away from extractivism as part of a global struggle for environmental justice. It highlights both the dangers defenders face and their achievements in protecting their habitats and communities.

We are working in partnership with trusted Latin American independent outlets. Find a full list, as well as further details of the series, here.

Help us bring these stories to a wide audience by sharing them on social media and by donating to LAB.

Have you got a story for us?
We’re looking for stories which document the work and amplify the voices of grassroots environmental defenders in Latin America. We’d like to show a geographical diversity in our reporting. Tone: inspirational, motivational, accessible. See our full pitching guide here.

Latest articles

El Salvador: ‘No to Life, Yes to Mining’

Mining
Ka’apor and Quilombola Communities in Brazil

Ka’apor and Quilombola Communities in Brazil

Video posts

COP16: is biodiversity offsetting a false solution?

Environment

Uncontacted tribes are primary conservationists, they must be protected

Environmental Defenders

A summit for the future of Yasuní

Environmental Defenders

Honouring Indigenous resistance in Totonicapán: interview with Maya K’iché exile Lucía Ixchíu

Guatemala
San José de Uchupiamonas

Bolivia: ecotourism as an alternative to extractivism and extinction in the Amazon

Bolivia

Mexico’s Wixárika community vs the miners

Environmental Defenders
Amazon journalists

Journalism in Amazonia

The Amazon

Ecuador: using the Rights of Nature to resist mining

Environmental Defenders

Ecuador: Last chance to save the Amazon?

Environment

Indigenous community sues Colombian government

Climate change & carbon trading
Millaray Hichalaf in the river Pablo Piovano

Millaray Huichalaf: Mapuche woman’s 15-year defence of a sacred river

Environmental Defenders

Appeal for leading Brazilian environmental defender

Environment

‘Our environment and its defenders need the Escazú Agreement’

Environmental Defenders
The Future is in our Territories

FILM: The Future is in our Territories

Environmental Defenders

Paraguay: the Paĩ Tavyterã and the changing climate

Environmental Defenders

Bust of Berta Cáceres shows ‘lack of respect’

Environmental Defenders
The townspeople of Homún in Yucatán make their living from the natural pools found in the Anillo de Cenotes State Geohydrological Reserve. Photo: Benjamín Magaña.

Mexico: guardians of the cenotes

Environmental Defenders

Belo Sun Mining seeks to criminalise Amazon defenders

Environmental Defenders

Yasuní National Park under threat once again

Ecuador
All Articles

Mini-doc

Team

Marcela López Levy, editor and translator
Argentinian researcher, writer, and translator focused on social justice. Editor at LAB 1997-2004, current LAB Chair. Author of Argentina under the Kirchners: The legacy of left populism (2017) and We are Millions: neo-liberalism and new forms of political action in Argentina (2004). Terricide translator.

Linda Etchart, contributor and editor
Lecturer in Human Geography at Kingston University and Senior Co-Chair of the Environment Section of the Latin American Studies Association in Pittsburgh. Regular contributor to the EDs series, author of “Indigenous Peoples and the Rights of Nature” in ‘Voices of Latin America’ and ‘Global Governance of the Environment, the Rights of Nature and Indigenous Peoples: Extractive Industries in the Ecuadorian Amazon’. Ecuador specialist.

Ana Reyes-Hurt, contributor
Coordinator of the Peru Support Group, UK, an independent NGO that works with Peruvian groups and an international network to defend human rights, promote social inclusion and strengthen democracy. Peru specialist.

Fiona Watson, researcher
Field and research director at Survival International international NGO which works with tribal peoples to defend their lives, protect their lands, and determine their own futures. Expert in environmental impacts of deforestation in the northern Amazon state of Roraima in Brazil. Advisor on Amazon in the Times of War.

Leon Elliott, translator, editor
Leon is Policy and Research Coordinator for a UK-wide charity working on homelessness and refugee policy, and has previously worked in the environmental sector in the UK, focusing on deforestation, sustainable agriculture, and environmental policy. Leon is interested in human rights, poverty alleviation, and environmentalism, and provides Spanish>English translations for various organisations working across these fields.

Marilene Cardoso Ribeiro, photographer and artist
Award-winning photographer and ecologist whose works investigate the relationship between human beings and nature. MSc in Ecology and Wildlife Conservation and Management, PhD in photography. Ribeiro’s works focuses on Brazil as a window to discuss worldwide phenomena. Brazil specialist.

Marcos Colón, documentary-maker, academic, writer
Producer and director of two documentary films Beyond Fordlândia: An Environmental Account of Henry Ford’s Adventure in the Amazon (2018) and Zo’é (2018), based on experiences with the Zo’é Amazonian tribe, who have had little to no contact with the outside world. Editor and creator of Amazonia Latitude, a digital environmental magazine and LAB partner. Amazon in the Times of War author.

Moira Millán, Mapuche weychafe, land activist, writer
Indigenous Mapuche weychafe (‘protective warrior’), land activist and writer. Millán founded the Movement of Indigenous Women and Diversities for Good Living and is one of the leaders of the Indigenous ancestral lands recovery movement in Argentina. She is a novelist (El tren del olvido, 2019) and scriptwriter (La rebelión de las flores, 2022). Terricide author.

Sue Branford, editor
Journalist who has written for The FT, the Economist, the Observer, BBC World Service, The Times, the Guardian, and Mongabay. She specialises in environmental reporting, particularly on the Amazon. Sue has published five books, including The Last Frontier – Fighting over Land in the Amazon and Cutting the Wire – the Story of the Landless Movement in Brazil, which was awarded the Vladimir Herzog human rights prize. Amazon specialist.

Rebecca Wilson, editor, writer, translator
Rebecca Wilson is LAB’s part-time Managing Editor. A journalist and translator based in Colombia, she is interested in culture and the environment. Her work has been published by NACLA, Mongabay, The Times, LSE Blogs, Asymptote Journal, Ellipse Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, and Sounds and Colours, among others. 

Get involved

Be a part of this series: help fund our activities, become a media partner, or help us share stories of environmental defence. To get involved email us on contactlab@lab.org.uk

Have you got a story for us?
We’re looking for stories which document the work and amplify the voices of grassroots EDs in Latin America. We’d like to show a geographical diversity in our reporting. Tone: inspirational, motivational, accessible. See our full pitching guide here.

LAB is an independent charitable organisation based in London providing news, analysis and information on Latin America, its people, politics and society.

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