Jungle Dispatch | The Brazilian government is moving ahead with construction of the third-largest dam in the world and one of the Amazon's most controversial "development" projects – the Belo Monte Dam.
Climate Change
Rio+20's Search for Green Solutions Hampered by Deep Divisions
Expectations for action are low despite UN assessment that the world's environment is declining rapidly
The Guardian | Twenty years after trying and failing to halt humanity's destruction of our planet, the governments of the world will gather again in Rio this month for a "once-in-a-generation" Earth Summit that will open with great fanfare but low expectations of success.
Indigenous Voices at Rio+20
While world leaders gear up for the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the Brazilian government's push to build the Belo Monte dam illustrates a frightening hypocrisy between a truly "green" economy and the human and environmental costs of schemes that destroy the Amazon and its peoples.
"What the New Forest Code in Brazil Means for Deforestation"
An Amazon Watch "Green-Bag Lunch" presentation
While Brazil prepares to host the Rio +20 Earth Summit and present itself as a leading model for sustainable development, it is undertaking measures that will put the Amazon in jeopardy.
Ecuador Asks World to Pay to Keep Yasuni Oil Underground
International climate funds might be one way for the world to convince Ecuador to not pump oil from underneath a biologically rich rainforest region
Scientific American | Ecuador is eyeing the international Green Climate Fund as a way to help pay for its plan to trade oil for forests.
Amazon Watch is building on more than 25 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
Colombia's Road to Extinction
Current Threats Facing Colombian Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous groups in Colombia continue to face unjust violence, colonization, dispossession of lands, displacement due to armed conflict and climate change, stunted recovery and development due to ethnic discrimination, forced assimilation, and cultural degradation.
Amazon Watch's 2012 Priorities
Learn more about the biggest issues facing the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous peoples in 2012 and how Amazon Watch is focusing on them.
Electronic Music Alliance Embraces Fight Against Belo Monte Dam
It's amazing how the universal language of music connects people from different believes, cultures, genders, and colors on one cause – in this case, against the Belo Monte dam.
UN Special Rapporteur: Who Will Protect Human Rights Defenders?
Indian Country Today | In her latest report she calls for swift action by States to "give full recognition to the important work carried out by defenders" and to "combat impunity for attacks and violations against these defenders."
Dilma Government Backsliding on Environment
As Rio+20 nears, Brazil’s Dilma shouts down critics and undermines her case
Are those of us concerned about the growing and dire threats to the Amazon and its peoples fantasizing about the president's dismal socio-environmental policies? She seems to think so.
A Tough-Oil World
Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank – and the Planet
TomDispatch | Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been, and the principal cause of higher prices cannot be reversed. In energy terms, we are now entering a world whose grim nature has yet to be fully grasped.
Climate Change Could Increase Fires, Logging, and Hunting in Rainforests
Mongabay.com | The combined impacts of deforestation and climate change will bring a host of new troubles for the world's tropical rainforests argues a new study in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
How Far Would You Go To Save It All?
The Understory | That's the tagline for a new documentary being made about the Yasuni national forest in Ecuador, which has been called "Earth's Eden" because of its stunning beauty and incredible biodiversity, and which the oil industry has been all to eager to despoil.
AIDESEP Visits Washington, DC
An Indigenous Organization's Fight for Community-Based Conservation
Roberto brings an analysis of why AIDESEP's community-based proposals will protect more forest (and reduce more carbon emissions), and Daysi speaks to the need for expanded indigenous land tenure as an integral part of any conservation effort.
The Fight for Amazonia: Raids in the Rainforest
Follow Brazil's youngest national park director as she declares war on drug gangs and the logging mafia
Al Jazeera | At the age of 27, Ana Rafaela D'Amico is the youngest national park director in Brazil. In order to save the rainforest, she has declared war on the drug gangs and logging mafia and on illegal fishing.
Stand4TheAmazon this Season
We are delighted to share a message from TV personality Layla Kayleigh who has teamed with Amazon Watch for a special campaign for "Stand for the Amazon Day" on December 28th.
Lesson from Durban
We are the climate changers we've been waiting for
Another global climate conference has come and gone, another heartbreaking missed opportunity for humanity to actually do something about impending climate chaos.
New Forest Code Will Condemn the Amazon Rainforest
Greenpeace Brazil | Last week senators in Brazil approved a text that condemns the Brazilian forests, a deal between government and agribusiness made in back rooms and secret meetings, and they rejected an amendment that calls for a ten-year moratorium on deforestation in the Amazon. This rejection revealed the true intentions behind the new Forest Code text and the...
Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples of the World at COP 17
Durban, South Africa – We, the Indigenous Peoples of the world, united in the face of the climate crisis and the lack of political will of the States, especially the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, demand the immediate adoption of legally binding agreements with shared but differentiated responsibilities, to halt global warming and to...
Oil Discovery in Ecuador Prompts Plan to Protect Indigenous Territories
Indian Country | Ecuador's Yasuní National Park is one of the richest places on earth, with a wealth of flora and fauna – some found nowhere else on the planet – in its forests, and an estimated 850 million barrels of petroleum beneath them. It is also home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane, tribes that continued to shun contact with the outside world.
The Last Song of Mario Guifarro
Earth Island Journal | "In some parts of the Amazon the deforestation rate has gone up by 50 percent within the last year," says Leila Salazar-Lopez, the program director of Amazon Watch. "That means increased levels of conflict as activists working with rural communities run up against big corporations and black market forces."
Fiddling While the Amazon Burns
Keeping the world's biggest forest standing depends on greens, Amerindians and enlightened farmers working together – if lawmakers let them
The Economist | Jaci-Paraná, Brazil – Drive out of Porto Velho, and you see the trouble the world's largest forest is in. Lorry after lorry trundles by laden with logs; charred tree-stumps show where ranchers burned what the loggers left behind; a few cattle roam sparsely through the scrubby fields. In places the acid subsoil shows through, sandy and bone...
Forest-Dependent Communities Lobby for End of REDD+
IPS | Durban, South Africa – Organizations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profits.
Ransom: Rainforest Held Hostage by Oil Interests Unless the World Pays
Financial Times | Time is running out for Yasuní, a world biosphere reserve that sits on top of a fifth of Ecuador's oil reserves.
An Assault on the Amazon
The New York Times | Like the attacks on abolitionists more than a century ago, the criticism of outside interference in Brazil’s affairs is today being cynically used to protect an immoral law.
The Privilege of Working with Indigenous Rainforest Guardians (III)
Part III
Today, I want to tell you about the work Amazon Watch is doing to steer Bolivia and the REDD movement in a wiser, more humane and more effective direction.
The Privilege of Working with Indigenous Rainforest Guardians (II)
Part II
An important example of Amazonian indigenous leadership with respect to the environment is its contribution to the Rights of Nature movement.
Investor's Eye on the Amazon - February 2011
This is the first issue of our Investor's Eye on the Amazon quarterly newsletter, an initiative that seeks to provide institutional investors, industry analysts and researchers with an informative and sophisticated analysis of the most pressing issues facing the Amazon rainforest.
The Privilege of Working with Indigenous Rainforest Guardians (I)
Part I
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, I'd like to tell you about the real rainforest guardians – the indigenous peoples who call the Amazon their home.
