The Amazon

Peru: pipeline failure triggers nationwide gas shortage

Peru has been hit with a shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (GLP) and compressed natural gas (GNV) following a “deflagration” on the Camisea pipeline in Megantoni district of Cuzco department. The explosion and fire caused major property damage in the rainforest settlement of Megantoni, according to Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP), the company responsible for the pipeline connecting the Camisea gasfields to a processing plant at Pisco on the coast. The incident resulted in an immediate rise of GNV and GLP prices, in turn leading to an internal energy crisis, with citizens nationwide standing in endless lines for a gas cylinder or a gallon of fuel. Taxi drivers and urban transport operators have raised fares and threatened a nationwide strike, demanding a government subsidy to continue working. (Photo: Ministerio de Defensa del Perú via Wikipedia)

Planet Watch

World’s ‘uncontacted’ peoples face imminent extermination

A comprehensive global report on “uncontacted” indigenous peoples published by UK-based Survival International estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted or isolated peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Nine out of 10 of these groups face the threat of unwanted contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups. After contact, indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International found that unless governments and private companies act to protect them, half of these groups could be wiped out within 10 years. (Photo: Brazil’s indigenous agency, FUNAI, makes contact with the Awá people in 2014. Credit: FUNAI via Mongabay)

The Amazon

Peru nixes plan for Yavarí Mirim indigenous reserve

Officials in Peru voted against a proposal to create an indigenous reserve in the country’s Amazon rainforest, 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. The proposed Yavarí Mirim Indigenous Reserve would have protected 1.17 million hectares (2.9 million acres) of rainforest in Loreto region, an area a fifth the size of Ireland that’s home to several indigenous communities living in isolation. A commission reviewed anthropological evidence of the communities’ presence in the area but voted in line with the interests of business sectors and logging concessions. (Photo: Pieritograbriel via Wikimedia Commons)

Planet Watch

Global forest loss shattered records in 2024

Global forest loss surged to record highs in 2024, driven by a catastrophic rise in fires, according to new data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) Lab, made available on the World Resources Institute‘s Global Forest Watch platform. Loss of tropical primary forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares—nearly twice as much as in 2023 and an area nearly the size of Panama, at a rate of 18 soccer fields each minute. For the first time on record, fires—not agriculture—were the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, accounting for nearly 50% of all destruction. This marks a dramatic shift from recent years, when fires averaged just 20%. Meanwhile, tropical primary forest loss driven by other causes also jumped by 14%, the sharpest increase since 2016. (Photo via Mongabay)

The Amazon

Israel, UAE to assist Ecuador drug war

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa says he is seeking assistance from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to combat the drug cartels that are terrorizing the South American country. The hardline rightist who won re-election last month said Israel and the UAE have agreed to provide intelligence aid “to help” fight the narco gangs. A day after Noboa’s comments, Ecuadoran authorities announced that 11 soldiers were killed while carrying out an operation to combat illegal mining in a region near the border with Colombia. The Prosecutor General’s office said the troops were attacked by the Comandos de la Frontera, a “dissident” faction of Colombia’s FARC guerillas that controls cross-border drug trafficking and illegal gold-mining operations in the eastern province of Orellana. (Photo: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador via WikimediaCommons)

Planet Watch

Global carbon emissions hit record high in 2024

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high in 2024, with still no sign that they’ve peaked, according to a “carbon budget” assessment by the UK-based Global Carbon Project. Researchers found that burning of oil, gas and coal emitted 41.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2024, a 0.8% increase over 2023. When added to emissions generated by land-use changes such as deforestation, a total of 45.8 billion tons of CO2 was emitted in 2024. At this rate, the researchers see a 50% chance that global warming will exceed the 1.5 Celsius warming target set by the Paris Agreement within six years. The findings come as the UN climate talks open in Azerbaijan, where the parties are ostensibly negotiating ways to meet the Paris targets. But the leaders of the biggest carbon emitters—those nations responsible for 70% of 2023 emissions—did not bother to attend the gathering. (Photo of Azerbaijan oilfields: Indigoprime via Wikimedia Commons)

The Amazon

Amazon wildfires release record greenhouse emissions

The Amazon rainforest has seen a record-setting wildfire season this year, fueled by an historic drought and scorching temperatures. In Brazil, the cumulative total estimated carbon emissions from the fires so far in 2024 has reached 183 megatons, according to Europe’s Copernicus atmospheric monitoring service—equivalent to the total annual emissions of the Netherlands. The unprecedented fires come even as overall deforestation (defined as the permanent conversion of forest for another use, such as logging, mining or farming) has dropped in Brazil since President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva took office in January 2023. Fires now account for a much higher proportion of forest loss. (Photo: Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace via Mongabay)

The Amazon

Peru: ‘uncontacted’ tribe attacks loggers

Peru’s reclusive Mashco Piro people used bows and arrows to attack loggers encroaching on their territory in the Amazon, according to a regional indigenous organization. FENAMAD, representing 39 indigenous communities in Cuzco and Madre de Dios regions, said that it believes illegal logging was taking place on Mashco Piro territory and that one logger was injured in the attack. Days before the incident occurred, photos emerged of some 50 members of the isolated tribe apparently searching for food on a river beach—which advocacy group Survival International said is evidence that logging concessions are “dangerously close” to its territory. (Photo: Survival International)

The Amazon

Ecuador: court orders return of Siekopai homeland

In what is being hailed as an historic decision, an appeals court in Ecuador ordered the return of a 42,360-hectare expanse of the Amazon rainforest to the Siekopai indigenous people, generations after they were driven from the territory by the military. The Provincial Court of Sucumbios ruled that the Siekopai retain indigenous title to their ancestral homeland, known as Pë’këya, which lies along the border with Peru in remote country. The lands were seized by Ecuador’s army during the war with Peru in 1941, and remained a military-controlled zone until being incorporated into Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in 1979. Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment has been given 45 days to deliver a property title to the Siekopai Nation, and make public apologies for the usurpation of their homeland. (Photo: Amazon Frontlines)

The Amazon

Brazil: high court nixes ‘time limit’ on native land claims

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal struck down the spurious thesis behind a legislative proposal advancing in the country’s Congress, which would impose a marco temporal or “time limit” on indigenous land recovery claims. The marco temporal law would nullify any indigenous group’s claim to traditional lands that they weren’t physically occupying on Oct. 5, 1988, the day of the enactment of Brazil’s Constitution, which for the first time recognized native peoples’ territorial rights. Instead, these lands would be considered the property of those currently in occupancy, or of the state. The thesis ignores the forced displacements that occurred during Brazil’s dictatorship in the generation before 1988, as well as the nomadic lifeways of some indigenous groups. Environment Minister Marina Silva declared the high court’s annulment of the marco temporal thesis an “act of justice.” (Photo via Twitter)

The Amazon

Win for rainforest in Ecuador elections

Winning 60% support in Ecuador’s election is a ballot measure to permanently bar oil drilling from Yasuní National Park, a world biodiversity hotspot in the Amazon rainforest. Parastatal PetroEcuador must now halt extraction at Bloc 43, which lies near the heart of the reserve. Likewise approved by a wide margin was a referendum on halting copper, gold and silver mining activity in the Chocó Andino de Pichincha, a biosphere reserve outside of Quito. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

The Amazon

Brazil: Amazon deforestation drops rapidly under Lula

The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen significantly since President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva took office in January 2023, according to government data. The area of deforestation detected by space agency INPE‘s forest monitoring system amounted to 2,649 square kilometers in the first half of the year, a 34% decline from the same period last year. The loss in the first six months of 2023 is the lowest since 2019, according to the satellite-based tracking system. Lula has prioritized reining in deforestation since assuming the presidency. Last month, he announced his administration’s plan to eliminate deforestation by 2030 as part of Brazil’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo: Mongabay)