New Future

Brazil’s Federal Police have arrested the Indigenous chief of the Mangueirinha Indigenous area in southern Paraná state. They accused José Carlos Gabriel, the chief of the territory comprising eight villages from two ethnic groups, of being part of a criminal gang involved with illegal logging critically endangered trees.

Since 1970, wildlife populations globally have plummeted by about 73%. One driver is habitat fragmentation that isolates small populations, leading to inbreeding and fewer healthy offspring. California’s endangered Pacific pocket mouse, limited to three small populations, is a case in point.

A hidden incentive structure may be driving the approval of questionable carbon credits.

ANTANANARIVO — “Tomorrow offers two paths. On the left, extinction. On the right, survival, ” eminent primatologist Jonah Ratsimbazafy told the recently concluded 30th Congress of the International Primatological Society in Antananarivo in July. “We are in the middle now; and I believe, like me, you will choose the path on the right.

In the tropical dry forests of Campeche, Mexico, a tree-planting outpost stands deserted, its future uncertain. Once a hub of reforestation activity, it was abandoned in 2023 after flooding and depleted soil made restoration too expensive.

PORTO JOFRE, Brazil — When Oscar de Morais isn’t out tracking jaguars, you’ll find him aboard his houseboat moored along the banks of the São Lourenço River. He sits beneath a mosquito net on two stacked blue plastic chairs, watching Brazilian soap operas while a fan blows warm air his way.

Sweet, savory, raw, fried or baked. A main course, side dish, dessert or smoothie. Raise a hand: Who doesn’t have at least one fond memory of the world’s most widely consumed fruit, the banana?

Officials in Peru last week voted against a proposal to create an Indigenous reserve in the country’s Amazonian region, where isolated tribes face threats from logging, mining and drug trafficking. The decision will likely delay efforts to protect them by several years and could lead to their displacement, critics said.

A photojournalism series documenting the environmental and human impacts of overfishing in Southeast Asia has won the 15th Carmignac Photojournalism Award. Nicole Tung, a photographer based in Istanbul, Türkiye, spent nine months in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines documenting the fishing industry and the toll it’s taking on marine life, fishers and coastal communities.

COLOMBO — As Sri Lanka grapples with severe agricultural losses caused by wildlife species ranging from primates to peafowl, in March, the government launched a nationwide, five-minute rapid visual census or a RVC, inviting citizens — farmers, students and officials in particular — to count monkeys, giant squirrels and peafowl simultaneously across the island.

Tropical bird populations are crashing as temperatures soar. That’s according to a new study that found abundances of tropical birds were 25-38% lower than they would be without human-driven climate change and the rising temperatures it has caused. This temperature impact on birds is greater than declines attributed to deforestation. “It’s a staggering decrease.

Officials in Guatemala have announced plans to occupy a recently closed oil field with the aim of increasing enforcement in protected areas badly hit by organized crime.

Amazon Rainforest Day, first celebrated in 2008, aims to raise awareness about the importance of Earth’s largest rainforest. There is a place where the Amazon meets the Andes, where forests climb the lower slopes of mountains before giving way to the mists of the cloud forests.

A new report, published ahead of the International Day of Indigenous Women on Sept. 5, analyzed structural barriers faced by Indigenous, Afro-descendant and other local community women’s organizations in accessing funding for conservation, land rights and gender equality projects — and it offers several recommendations to address these challenges.