"Brazil’s federal environment agency last year gave out the fewest fines for breaking conservation laws since 1995, the agency’s press office told Reuters on Monday, as the efficacy of the agency, known as Ibama, continues to fall under President Jair Bolsonaro."
"Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama on Thursday published an order restricting contact between its employees and journalists, following a Reuters report on thousands of cargos of Amazon rainforest wood being exported without agency authorization."
Freelance photographer Morgan Heim explores the ethical and creative considerations of non-traditional photography when reporting on wildlife issues, in a sidebar to the latest EJ InSight. See a slideshow of images with her unique approach. Plus, Heim on surviving in today’s constrained news media economy and the implications for storytelling, independence and integrity.
"Last August, during the second-hottest year on record, while the fires in the Amazon rainforest were raging, the ice sheet in Greenland was melting, and Greta Thunberg was being greeted by adoring crowds across the U.S., something else happened that was of great relevance to the climate movement: An attorney who has been battling Chevron for more than a decade over environmental devastation in South America was put on house arrest."
"Indigenous lands and protected areas in the Amazon rainforest account for just 10% of all carbon emissions from tropical forests spread across the nine countries of the Amazon in South America, researchers said on Monday."
"A Peruvian judge ruled that the government exclude an indigenous region of the Amazon near the border with Brazil from any oil exploration and exploitation, a legal group said on Wednesday, in a win for native communities that have long fought against oil and mining projects on their land."
"Antofagasta, situated on the edge of the Atacama Desert, relies on a vast desalination plant which provides the city with drinking water – but the waste brine is killing wildlife, say fishermen"
"Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to new government data which highlights the impact the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made on the world’s biggest rainforest."
"Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday."
"Authorities in Peru have charged five men in the timber industry with the 2014 murders of four indigenous activists who had battled illegal logging in the Amazon jungle."
