Latest Amazon River News

Takeaways from AP's story on the Ashaninka tribe's reforestation model in the Brazilian Amazon

Sep. 12, 2024 23:05 PM EDT

APIWTXA VILLAGE, Brazil (AP) — The Ashaninka tribe of Amonia River live in a largely preserved area of Brazil's western Amazon rainforest. Over the past three decades, they have taken back their territory from cattle farmers and loggers, replacing pasture with fruit and timber trees, the sacred...

The Amazon's Ashaninka tribe restored their territory. Now they aim to change the region

Sep. 12, 2024 11:11 AM EDT

APIWTXA VILLAGE, Brazil (AP) — It was just before dawn when the Ashaninka people, wearing long, tunic-like dresses, began singing traditional songs while playing drums and other instruments. The music drifted through Apiwtxa village, which had welcomed guests from Indigenous communities in Brazil...

Brazil's Lula pledges to finish paving road that experts say could worsen Amazon deforestation

Sep. 11, 2024 19:30 PM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — In a visit to see the damage caused by drought and fire in the Amazon, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged to pave a road that environmentalists and some in his own government say threatens to vastly increase destruction of the world’s largest tropical forest...

Judge in Brazil orders slaughterhouses to pay for Amazon reforestation

Sep. 05, 2024 19:56 PM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A judge in the Brazilian state of Rondonia has found two beef slaughterhouses guilty of buying cattle from a protected area of former rainforest in the Amazon and ordered them, along with three cattle ranchers, to pay a total of $764,000 for causing environmental damage,...

Love for American football reached Brazilian Amazon long before the NFL game in Sao Paulo

Sep. 03, 2024 19:09 PM EDT

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Pedro Canuto wears his pads and practices passing the football a few hundred yards from where boats filled with tourists are navigating the Amazon River into the rainforest. A quarterback for Manaus FA, arguably the best American football team in the region,...

People in Brazil’s Amazon are choking on smoke and feeling the heat from rainforest wildfires

Aug. 28, 2024 23:47 PM EDT

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Smoke from wildfires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest Wednesday was causing people in the region to cough, burning their throats and reddening their eyes. Large swaths of the country have been draped in smoke in recent days, resulting from fires raging across...

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest is down to lowest level since 2016, government says

Aug. 08, 2024 07:43 AM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest slowed by nearly half compared to the year before, according to government satellite data released Wednesday. It’s the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement. ...

Reclusive tribe attacks loggers suspected of encroaching on their land in Peru's Amazon

Aug. 05, 2024 18:55 PM EDT

Peru’s reclusive Mashco Piro ethnic group recently used bows and arrows to attack loggers suspected of encroaching on their territory in the Amazon, according to a regional Indigenous organization. FENAMAD, representing 39 Indigenous communities in the Cusco and Madre de Dios...

Severe drought has returned to the Amazon. And it's happening earlier than expected

Aug. 03, 2024 03:25 AM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Holder of one-fifth of the world's fresh water, the Amazon is beginning the dry season with many of its rivers already at critically low levels, prompting governments to anticipate contingency measures to address issues ranging from disrupted navigation to increasing...

Brazil to allow miles of selective logging in effort to preserve the Amazon

Jul. 23, 2024 21:45 PM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — To combat ongoing destruction in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil announced a plan Tuesday to dramatically expand selective logging to an area the size of Costa Rica over the next two years. In Brazil, vast forest lands are designated as public yet have no...