Latest Amazon River News
Biden becomes the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon rainforest
MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Joe Biden toured the drought-shrunken waters of the Amazon River’s greatest tributary Sunday as the first sitting American president to set foot in the legendary rainforest, while the incoming Trump administration seems poised to scale back the U.S. commitment to combating...
Severe droughts threaten the sustainable catch of the Amazon's giant fish
AGUA CLARA, Brazil (AP) — Two years of record-breaking drought have dealt a heavy blow to what is arguably the Amazon’s most successful sustainable economy: the managed fishery for the giant pirarucu. In Brazil´s Amazonas state, almost 6,000 riverine dwellers authorized to fish...
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon drops by nearly 31% compared to previous year
AGUA CLARA, Brazil (AP) — Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon dropped by 30.6% compared to the previous year, officials said Wednesday, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. In a 12-month span, the Amazon rainforest lost 6,288 square kilometers (2,428 square miles), roughly...
Police in Brazil indict Colombian fish trader in high profile killing in Amazon region
Brazilian police have indicted a Colombian fish trader as the person who planned the slaying of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon in 2022, they announced Monday. The statement did not name the accused, but a police officer told the The...
A truck crashes in Ecuador's Amazon killing 10 people
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ten people died Sunday when the truck they were traveling in on the Ecuadorian Amazon fell into a ravine, law enforcement authorities in the South American country said. Police in the Amazonian province of Morona Santiago, in the country’s southeast, said...
Brazilian state law overturns soy moratorium that helped curb Amazon deforestation
AGUA CLARA, Brazil (AP) — A historic agreement that's helped curb deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon for nearly two decades suffered a major blow after Mato Grosso, the country´s largest soybean-producing state, passed a law ending incentives for participating processing and trade companies. ...
Brazil fines meatpacking companies, including giant JBS, for buying illegally raised cattle
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's environmental agency has levied $64 million in fines against 23 meatpacking companies and their suppliers for buying and selling cattle raised illegally on deforested land in the Amazon. The operation, dubbed Cold Meat 2, launched last week. It...
Criminals may be leveraging climate change as record acreage burns in Brazil's Amazon
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Wildfires in Brazil have swept through an area the size of Switzerland, a level of destruction that will take decades to recover, if it ever does, according to a new satellite assessment. The breadth of forest that has been lost or degraded was revealed as...
In Colombia, Amazon River's extreme drought falls hard on Indigenous communities
LETICIA, Colombia (AP) — Marciano Flores stood knee-deep in the Amazon River with the rest of his crew, ready to haul in a giant net as a man in a canoe circled in an attempt to drive fish their way. At 69, after a life of working the river, Flores can tell at a glance just the right spots to...
A Brazilian artist uses ash and mud for a massive Sao Paulo mural lamenting climate disasters
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian artist Mundano on Wednesday is presenting a massive street mural in Sao Paulo that uses ash from wildfires and mud from floods to highlight extreme weather events wreaking devastation across the country — as well as their causes. Over 30 meters (98.4...
