Latest Amazon River News

Amazon Indigenous community wins latest stage of court battle for lost territory

Dec. 20, 2024 15:23 PM EST

An Indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon is celebrating a legal victory in the latest stage of its attempt to take back claimed ancestral rainforests. The Puerto Franco community of the Kichwa tribe say their territory was stolen to form the Cordillera Azul National Park in...

Environmental groups condemn new laws threatening soybean restrictions in Brazil's Amazon

Dec. 12, 2024 18:41 PM EST

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Dozens of environmental nonprofits issued a manifesto Thursday condemning new laws in Brazilian states that threaten to dismantle the Amazon soy moratorium — a landmark voluntary agreement banning trade in soybeans from recently deforested areas. The...

Organized crime gangs expanded into a third of cities in Brazil’s Amazon, report finds

Dec. 11, 2024 11:53 AM EST

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Criminal gangs are operating in over a third of municipalities in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest driving a boom in violence, according to a report published Wednesday by a prominent nonprofit organization. Gangs were present this year in 260 of 772...

Brazilian beef and leather companies fall short in tackling deforestation, a study finds

Dec. 11, 2024 06:48 AM EST

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The next United Nations climate conference, COP30, will be held in Belem, the capital of an Amazon region where widespread deforestation mainly driven by cattle farming has turned the surrounding rainforest from a vital carbon sink into a significant carbon source. ...

Amazon workers in India join Black Friday strike action for better wages and working conditions

Nov. 29, 2024 10:43 AM EST

NEW DELHI (AP) — Amazon staff in India have joined strike action calling for better wages and working conditions as the company prepares for one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. About 200 warehouse workers and delivery drivers rallied in the capital, New Delhi, under a...

Agribusiness-friendly states in Brazil try to undo forest protections

Nov. 27, 2024 09:58 AM EST

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Several states in Brazil are trying to rid themselves of rainforest protections, bowing to pressure from cattle ranchers and soybean growers to cut down trees and expand agriculture. Their efforts run counter to those of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,...

Belem, host of next year's climate talks, is Amazonian city plagued with pollution and violence

Nov. 20, 2024 00:09 AM EST

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — For the last few years, climate scientists, environmentalists and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have been talking up the first U.N. climate conference to be held in the Amazon. The largest tropical forest in the world stores huge amounts of planet-warming...

From the Amazon rainforest, Biden declares nobody can reverse US progress on clean energy

Nov. 17, 2024 20:55 PM EST

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Speaking from the Amazon rainforest, President Joe Biden declared Sunday that there’s no going back in America’s “clean energy revolution” even as the incoming Trump administration vows to spur fossil fuel production and scale back efforts against climate change. ...

Severe droughts threaten the sustainable catch of the Amazon's giant fish

Nov. 09, 2024 06:32 AM EST

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

Nov. 07, 2024 13:46 PM EST

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...