BRAZIL: Belo Monte Dam Faces Endless Hurdles and Controversies

The Xingu river flows around small isles and islands and across rapids and waterfalls in Brazil's Amazon jungle, and has a dramatically reduced flow during dry season. Navigating it presents constant hurdles and risks.

ECUADOR: Trees on Shaky Ground in Texaco’s Rainforest

When the trunks of the trees move with every step you take, you know you are in a swamp. This is what happens when you walk over the seemingly firm and vegetation-covered ground over what was once a pit used to dump oil sludge in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest.

Q&A: “The Trial Against Chevron Is Totally Corrupt”

Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil company, believes that to overturn the verdict ordering it to pay 9.5 billion dollars in reparations for environmental and public health damages in Ecuador's Amazon jungle, the best defence is a good offence.

Q&A: “The Verdict Against Chevron Is Enforceable, Because It Is Just”

On Feb. 14, a provincial Ecuadorean court issued the harshest environmental verdict in history against a major oil company, the U.S.-based Chevron. But is there any chance it will be carried out?

ECUADOR: Still a Ways to Go, After Historic Ruling Against Chevron

The plaintiffs in the case against Chevron tried in Ecuador, who won a historic 9.5 billion dollar verdict after a nearly 18-year struggle over environmental and health damages caused in a quarter-century of oil operations in the Amazon jungle, are not disheartened by the road still ahead.

PERU: Government under Fire for Waiving Environmental Certificates for Dams

The Peruvian government has been forced to offer talks with governors, the ombudsperson's office and Catholic Church leaders, to stem the outcry over two emergency decrees that waive the requirement for environmental certificates for 33 investment projects, including hydroelectric dams in the Amazon rainforest.

VENEZUELA: Biopiracy Leaves Native Groups Out in the Cold

Millions of cancer patients around the world benefit from a medication called Paclitaxel (Taxol), which may begin to be produced from a new source: fungi found at the summit of Venezuela's flat-topped mountains. But the indigenous communities who have lived in that area since time immemorial will receive no benefits, and were not even consulted on the matter.

Rainfall Patterns Can’t Be Ignored in Climate Change Debate

In discussions of human activities that affect the climate, there is relatively little talk about alterations in rainfall patterns, despite the enormous implications that such changes have on human survival.

PERU: Local Communities Protect Their Amazon

San Martín is one of the three most deforested Amazon regions in Peru. But now local residents and non-governmental organisations have joined with local and regional authorities to defend the flora, fauna and water resources and halt the destruction of the rainforests.

BRAZIL: Oil Palm Plantations Expand on Degraded Land in Amazon

Brazil hopes to eventually become a major producer of palm oil, thanks to the expansion of this new exotic monoculture crop in the eastern Amazon jungle, where eucalyptus plantations are also mushrooming on broad swaths of already deforested land.

PERU: Sacrificing the Rainforest on the Altar of Energy

The construction of five hydroelectric dams in Peru as part of an energy deal with Brazil will do considerable damage to the environment, such as the destruction of nearly 1.5 million hectares of jungle over the next 20 years, according to an independent study.

SOUTH AMERICA: Rain May Disappear from the World’s Breadbasket

South America still has vast extensions of land available for growing crops to help meet the global demand for food and biofuels. But the areas of greatest potential agricultural production -- central-southern Brazil, northern Argentina, and Paraguay -- could be left without the necessary rains.

BOLIVIA: Madidi National Park and the Curse of Petroleum

Environmental organisations in Bolivia are waging a crusade to protect Madidi National Park against bids to tap into its petroleum reserves, build hydroelectric dams and promote human settlement in the country's largest nature preserve.

BRAZIL: Mitigating Impacts of Progress in Amazon Jungle

"We want real compensation," said Luis Nascimento de Freitas, a fisherman from Vila Teotonio, a ramshackle town on the banks of the Madeira River that will be flooded when the Santo Antonio hydroelectric plant is completed.

BRAZIL: Link to the Pacific: Road, Rail or Ship?

A land route to the Pacific, long coveted by Brazil, would not reduce the cost of transporting Brazilian exports to China and other markets in Asia and would not make them more competitive, as advocates of paving roads and building bridges through the Amazon jungle argue.

BRAZIL: Cattle Ranching Areas in the Amazon Industrialise

The agricultural frontier state of Rondonia in Brazil is a byword for deforestation in the Amazon jungle, much of which has been cleared in the northwestern state for cash crops and a cattle herd that has grown to 12 million head.

ENVIRONMENT-ECUADOR: Plenty of Promises but Little Cash for Leaving Oil Untapped

The Spanish government is "analysing mechanisms to contribute" one million euros (1.3 million dollars) to the Yasuni-ITT initiative, one of the few definite contributions received by Ecuador for a scheme to leave oil reserves untouched in a highly biodiverse area of the Amazon jungle.

BOLIVIA-BRAZIL: One-Sided Free Trade at the Border

There are no toy stores or electronics shops in Brasiléia, a city in Brazil's northwestern Amazonian state of Acre. To buy toys or computer items, the city's 20,000 inhabitants have to go to neighbouring Cobija, across the border in Bolivia.

BRAZIL: Battle Between Jungle and Livestock in the Amazon

"Put yourself in God's hands," his mother told him just before she died. Only later did he understand that as she was dying of kidney failure, she was urging him to continue her work as a Catholic evangelist.

BRAZIL: Environment Meets Development en Route to the Pacific

Acre, the small Brazilian state that is a symbol of the struggle to preserve the Amazon rainforest, is facing the challenge of ensuring that the development ushered in by two paved roads that will link the state to both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans will be sustainable.

BRAZIL: Making a Living from Lumber Without Destroying the Amazon

The Zolinger family, a typical example of those who migrated from southern Brazil to the Amazon in search of land and fortune, now has a second chance in the lumber industry, after contributing to the devastation of the forests in Rondônia state, where they settled in 1979.