South America

"The promise to help Brazil protect the Amazon must be approved by Congress, where Republicans are opposed to foreign climate aid."

"WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday will pledge $500 million over five years to fight deforestation in Brazil, a White House official said, in a move that would make the United States one of the largest donors to the global Amazon Fund.

"Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose 14% in March from the previous year, preliminary official data showed on Friday, highlighting the continued challenges for the new leftist government."

"A Supreme Court judge backed a government move to crack down on illegal gold mining in Brazil, suspending a legal practice of buyers accepting the origin of the precious metal with paper receipts based on the "good faith" of the seller."

"The Cordillera Azul National Park on the eastern flank of the Peruvian Andes takes in a sweep of Amazon rainforest, mountains and waterfalls in a territory about the size of Connecticut, so precious that tens of millions of dollars in carbon credits have been sold in a program that supporters said would protect its trees."

"A corporate conservation project in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has sold carbon credits from publicly owned land without state authorization, a Context investigation has found, highlighting concerns about the credibility of offsets from areas with disputed land ownership."

"Brazil has ousted almost all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami territory, its largest indigenous reservation, and will remove miners from six more reserves this year, the head of the federal police's new environmental crimes division said Tuesday."

"As the details of the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory unfold amid action to remove illegal miners, mercury left by the rampant gold mining in the area will remain a lingering toxic legacy."

"For the last four years Brazil’s rainforests bled. “They bled like never before,” said Felipe Finger as he prepared to venture into the jungle with his assault rifle to staunch the environmental carnage inflicted on the Amazon under the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro."

"Eduardo Mendúa, an Indigenous activist who was fighting to protect Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest from oil extraction, has been killed by gunmen, the Indigenous organization CONAIE reports."

"Bird flu has killed tens of thousands of birds, mostly pelicans, and at least 716 sea lions in protected areas across Peru, the authorities said, as the H5N1 strain spreads throughout the region."