OPINION: For the Good of Humanity – Towards a Culture of Caring

About a week ago my wife was taken to hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia. She was promptly treated with antibiotics and, wonderfully, is now on the mend.

REDD and the Green Economy Continue to Undermine Rights

Dercy Teles de Carvalho Cunha is a rubber-tapper and union organiser from the state of Acre in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, with a lifelong love of the forest from which she earns her livelihood – and she is deeply confounded by what her government and policymakers around the world call “the green economy.”

More Economic Equality Brings Greater Political Polarisation in Brazil

“If I had to choose today I would stay back home, I wouldn’t come to look for work here,” said Josefa Gomes, who 30 years ago moved from Serra Redonda, a small town in Brazil’s semiarid northeast, to the city of Rio de Janeiro, 2,400 km away.

OPINION: One Mexico, or Many?

Mexico can charm, irritate, wound, inspire and confuse the casual visitor as well as the informed researcher. But no one is ever left indifferent by it. Mexico leaves an indelible mark.

OPINION: Rousseff Re-elected President – What Lies Ahead for Brazil?

The tight race between incumbent President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil’s Workers’ Party and her opponent, Aecio Neves from the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) party, ended on Sunday, Oct. 26 with the re-election of Rousseff.

They Say the Land is ‘Uninhabited’ but Indigenous Communities Disagree

Disregarding the rights of indigenous people to their traditional lands is costing companies millions of dollars each year, and costing communities themselves their lives.

The Nagoya Protocol: A Treaty Waiting to Happen

For over 20 years, Mote Bahadur Pun of Nepal’s western Myagdi district has been growing ‘Paris polyphylla’ - a Himalayan herb used to cure pain, burns and fevers.

Vanishing Species: Local Communities Count their Losses

The Mountain Chicken isn’t a fowl, as its name suggests, but a frog. Kimisha Thomas, hailing from the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, remembers a time when she could find these amphibians or ‘crapaud’ as locals call them “just in the backyard”.

Drought Plagues Brazil’s Richest Metropolis

Agricultural losses are no longer the most visible effect of the drought plaguing Brazil’s most developed region. Now the energy crisis and the threat of water shortages in the city of São Paulo are painful reminders of just how dependent Brazilians are on regular rainfall.

Brazil’s Two-Party System Leaves Amazon Activist Behind

The dream of electing Brazil’s first black president, an environmental activist from the Amazon jungle, lasted only 40 days and was frustrated in Sunday’s elections. In the end, it is the two parties that have dominated Brazilian politics for the last 20 years that will face off in the second round of voting on Oct. 26.

Financing for Biodiversity: A Simple Matter of Keeping Promises

With governments, activists and scientists tearing their hair out over the world’s impending crisis in biodiversity, the outgoing president of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) delivered a simple message to participants at the 12^th Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP12) currently underway in the Republic of Korea’s northern Pyeongchang county: honour the promises you made last year.

Latin America on a Dangerous Precipice

“We could be the last Latin American and Caribbean generation living together with hunger.”

Washington Snubs Bolivia on Drug Policy Reform, Again

Once again, Washington claims Bolivia has not met its obligations under international narcotics agreements. For the seventh year in a row, the U.S. president has notified Congress that the Andean country “failed demonstrably” in its counter-narcotics efforts over the last 12 months. Blacklisting Bolivia means the withholding of U.S. aid from one of South America’s poorest countries.

World’s Most Unequal Region Sets Example in Fight Against Hunger

Latin America and the Caribbean, the world’s most unequal region, has made the greatest progress towards improving food security and has become the region with the largest number of countries to have reached the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of undernourished people.