"A study to be published this year by Ecuadorean glaciologist Bolivar Caceres suggests that the country's glaciers lost more than 40% of their surface area between 1956 and 2006."
"Indigenous activists threatened a clash with Brazil's government as they dispatched boats carrying 150 men on Wednesday to occupy the planned site of a controversial hydro-electric dam in the Amazon, a chief said."
"A Brazilian rancher accused of ordering the murder of U.S. nun and Amazon defender Dorothy Stang was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison."
"BELEM, Brazil — A top activist for land reform in Brazil's Amazon has been murdered, police said Thursday."
Trucks full of gunmen sought to kill 64-year old Sister Leonora Brunetto, who had spent decades trying to keep ranchers from stealing Amazon land. "Impunity in the Amazon because of a weak judicial system and corruption among local officials is endemic, a problem not only for people like Brunetto, but for the Brazilian government trying to preserve a rain forest the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi. More than 20 percent of the forest already has been destroyed."
"For more than 300 years, residents of Colombia's Pacific Coast area of Tumaco have mostly been left alone to fish or grow bananas .... But in recent years, the peace has been disturbed by new security threats, aggravated by climate change."
"Facing the possibility of a $27 billion pollution judgment against it in an Ecuadorean court, Chevron launched an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign to try to prevent the judgment as well as reverse a deeply damaging story line."
