Category Archives: Amazon rainforest

Human activity and drought ‘degrading more than a third of Amazon rainforest’

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Fires, land conversion, logging and water shortages have weakened resilience of 2.5m sq km of forest, says study

Human activity and drought may have degraded more than a third of the Amazon rainforest, double the previous estimate, according to a study that heightens concerns that the globally important ecosystem is slipping towards a point of no return.

Fires, land conversion, logging and water shortages, have weakened the resilience of up to 2.5m sq km of the forest, an area 10 times the size of the UK. This area is now drier, more flammable and more vulnerable than before, prompting the authors to warn of “megafires” in the future.

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Lula to visit Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous territory amid vow to tackle crisis

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Move comes after country’s minister for Indigenous people says issue is an ‘absolute priority’

Brazil’s first-ever minister for Indigenous peoples, Sônia Guajajara, has vowed to make tackling the humanitarian crisis plaguing the country’s largest Indigenous territory “an absolute priority”, as she prepared to fly into the region with the new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Under the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, thousands of illegal gold miners poured into the Yanomami enclave in the Amazon, bringing violence, pollution and a healthcare calamity captured in a recent series of photographs of severely malnourished children and adults.

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Lula names staunch Amazon defenders as ministers in Brazil

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Ministry for Indigenous peoples is created but new government faces huge challenges from Bolsonaro era

Two internationally celebrated Amazon defenders, Marina Silva and Sônia Guajajara, have been named as ministers in Brazil’s new government in an attempt to contain the intensifying assault on Indigenous territories and the environment.

The announcement was made by incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will take office on Sunday after the country’s four years of rainforest-wrecking under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Peru lawmakers propose bill to strip Indigenous people of protections

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Proposal to dismantle existing reserves for ‘uncontacted’ Indigenous groups quietly pushed amid ongoing political chaos

Amid the political chaos following the ousting of Peru’s President Pedro Castillo, lawmakers in the country’s congress are quietly trying to pass a bill into law that would strip “uncontacted” Indigenous people of protection and dismantle existing reserves created for them.

The bill proposes to modify a 2006 law protecting Indigenous peoples in “isolation” and “initial contact” – those living with little or no contact with the outside world – in order to halt the creation of new reserves and eliminate existing ones, of which there are seven in Peru’s Amazon.

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Sônia Guajajara hails Brazil’s Indigenous ministry after Bolsonaro ‘turmoil’

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The activist for native peoples says she will work to overturn the ‘catastrophic legacy’ from Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency

The activist tipped to become Brazil’s first-ever minister for native peoples has vowed to make the demarcation of Indigenous lands and the battle against environmental crime top priorities in an attempt to overcome Jair Bolsonaro’s “catastrophic legacy” of Amazon devastation and violence.

Sônia Guajajara, a key member of Brazil’s burgeoning Indigenous rights movement, is widely expected to be named head of the ministry, which president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised to create during his campaign.

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Lula faces stiff challenge to fulfil vow to reverse Amazon deforestation in Brazil

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President’s predecessor Bolsonaro unleashed record destruction and emboldened loggers, land grabbers and illegal miners

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s narrow victory over President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s October elections was hailed as the potential salvation of the Amazon, after four years of unbridled destruction which have brought the rainforest close to a tipping point, threatening the very survival of the Indigenous populations whose lives depend upon it.

Lula has vowed to reverse the environmental destruction wreaked under his far-right predecessor and work towards zero deforestation by tackling crime in the Amazon and guaranteeing the protection of Indigenous rights. But the president-elect, who takes office on 1 January 2023, faces an uphill battle to meet these big promises he has made to the Brazilian people and the international community.

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Lula vows to undo environmental degradation and halt deforestation

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President-elect says he will work to save Amazon rainforest and key ecosystems in rousing Cop27 speech

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the world that “Brazil is back” at Cop27, vowing to begin undoing the environmental destruction seen under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and work towards zero deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

Followed by a carnival atmosphere wherever he went on Wednesday, Lula told the climate summit that his administration would go further than ever before on the environment by cracking down on illegal gold mining, logging and agricultural expansion, and restoring climate-critical ecosystems.

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Peruvian Amazon Indigenous leaders to lobby banks to cut ties with state oil firm

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Leaders from Achuar and Wampis peoples say Petroperú is responsible for spills in their territory

Native leaders from the Peruvian Amazon are to travel to the US this week to lobby banks to cut financial ties with Peru’s state oil company, Petroperú.

Leaders from the Achuar and Wampis peoples say the state company is responsible for oil spills in their territory that violate their human rights by polluting their water sources and irreparably damaging their fishing and hunting grounds.

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Brazil, Indonesia and DRC in talks to form ‘Opec of rainforests’

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Spurred by Lula’s election, the three countries, home to half of all tropical forests, will pledge stronger conservation efforts

The big three tropical rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – are in talks to form a strategic alliance to coordinate on their conservation, nicknamed an “Opec for rainforests”, the Guardian understands.

The election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, has been followed by a flurry of activity to avoid the destruction of the Amazon, which scientists have warned is dangerously close to tipping point after years of deforestation under its far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Indigenous people in Peruvian Amazon detain tourists in oil spill protest

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About 70 people seized in protest at environmental damage from crude oil spillage into Cuninico River

Indigenous people in the Amazon in Peru have detained a group of Peruvian and foreign tourists, including UK and US citizens, in protest at a lack of government aid following an oil spill in the area.

“[We want] to call the government’s attention with this action, There are foreigners and Peruvians, there are about 70 people,” Watson Trujillo, the leader of the Cuninico community, told RPP radio.

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Poverty, housing and the Amazon: Lula’s in-tray as president-elect of Brazil

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After four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right rule, Lula da Silva says his first priority will be helping the 100 million Brazilians living in poverty

The euphoria of an election victory is fleeting and while many Brazilians will wake up with a hangover after celebrating the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro, president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will soon have his own headaches to deal with.

Lula takes power on 1 January 2023 and will be charged with rebuilding and reuniting a nation that has been left damaged and bitterly divided after four years of Bolsonaro’s anarchic far-right policies.

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Brazil election goes to the wire after ill-tempered final TV debate

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Veteran leftist Lula da Silva holds slender poll lead over Jair Bolsonaro as national divide grows before Sunday vote

The two political heavyweights vying to become Brazil’s next president have locked horns during the final television debate before a momentous election with profound implications for the Amazon rainforest, the global climate emergency and the future of one of the world’s largest democracies.

The former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro faced off in Rio at the studios of Brazil’s biggest broadcaster, with eve of election polls giving Lula a slender but not unassailable lead.

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira remembered in Lancaster exhibition

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Exhibition at Halton Mill is part of a month of activities about the Amazon commemorating Phillips and Pereira

An exhibition in memory of the murdered Guardian journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira opens on Sunday ahead of an international conference on saving the Amazon rainforest which is being held next month.

The two men were killed in Brazilian Amazonia in June 2022 while researching a book Phillips was writing called How to Save the Amazon.

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Amazon loses London-sized area of rainforest in a month with Bolsonaro’s reign under threat

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Large area destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before possible change of president

Amazon deforestation has soared ahead of Brazil’s environmentally vital presidential election, with an area almost the size of Greater London lost last month alone.

Government satellites show a 1,455-sq km area of rainforest was destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before a possible change of president could bring Jair Bolsonaro’s era of destruction to an end.

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‘This land belonged to us’: Nestlé supply chain linked to disputed Indigenous territory

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Investigation reveals cattle raised on Mỹky territory ended up in global supply chain including food giant

On one side of the fence, in dense forest, the Mỹky people grow their crops: cassava, pequi and cabriteiro fruit. On the other side, ranchers raise cattle on devastated land. That land is the Mỹky’s, they say.

Xinuxi Mỹky, the village elder, says this region used to be a forest where different villages thrived. Only one now remains and the farms have cut into that land as well. “This pasture, where the whites live, was also our village, but now they are raising cattle. The land belonged to us: Indigenous peoples.”

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Indigenous leaders urge businesses and banks to stop supporting deforestation

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Amazon ecosystem is on verge of collapse, leaders tell brands such as Apple and Tesla as UN gathers in New York

Indigenous leaders from the Amazon have implored major western brands and banks to stop supporting the ongoing destruction of the vital rainforest through mining, oil drilling and logging, warning that the ecosystem is on the brink of a disastrous collapse.

Representatives of Indigenous peoples from across the Amazon region have descended upon New York this week to press governments and businesses, gathered in the city for climate and United Nations gatherings, to stem the flow of finance to activities that are polluting and deforesting large areas of the rainforest.

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Brazilian forest guardian killed weeks after joining Amazon summit

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Janildo Oliveira Guajajara had recently taken part in an Amazon assembly organised by murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira

A rainforest activist from one of Brazil’s leading Indigenous protection groups has been killed just weeks after participating in an Amazon assembly organised by the murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira.

Janildo Oliveira Guajajara, a member of the Guardiões da Floresta (Forest Guardians) collective, was reportedly shot dead in the early hours of Saturday near the Araribóia Indigenous territory where he lived.

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Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says

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Swathes of rainforest have reached tipping point, research by scientists and Indigenous organisations concludes

Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found.

“The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” the report concludes. “Brazil and Bolivia concentrate 90% of all combined deforestation and degradation. As a result, savannization is already taking place in both countries.”

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Anglo-French oil firm threatens Amazon reserve for isolated Indigenous people

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Perenco sues Peru government for repeal of law that offers recognition to proposed Napo-Tigre reserve

Isolated Peruvian tribes face a threat to their existence from a push to scrap a planned Indigenous reserve led by an Anglo-French oil company, Indigenous groups say.

The firm, Perenco, whose slogan is “Oil remains an adventure”, filed an injunction in May for the repeal of a law offering preliminary government recognition to a proposed Napo-Tigre reserve. The first hearing is scheduled on 7 September.

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Lula vows to take on Amazon crime if returned to power in Brazil elections

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Ex-president says he will clamp down on illegal miners and loggers after murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

The leading candidate to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to launch a major crackdown on the illegal miners and loggers laying waste to the Amazon in the wake of the “barbaric” murders of the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips.

Speaking to foreign journalists in São Paulo, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid tribute to the two men, who were gunned down in June while documenting the historic assault on Indigenous lands that has unfolded under Brazil’s current leader, Jair Bolsonaro.

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