Local timber interests are suspected in the slaying of Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria Do Espirito Santo da Silva, two activists seeking to protect the rainforest of Brazils’ Para state.
Indigenous bands living in voluntary isolation in remote regions of the Peruvian Amazon again fired arrows at intruders—as the national government announced new oil exploration blocs in the disputed territory.
Ecuador’s national indigenous organization announced that is filing a legal complaint against the government, including President Rafael Correa, for complicity with “genocide” against indigenous people in the Amazon.
Peruvian indigenous forest dwellers have been forced to set up a guard post to protect a reserve established for “uncontacted” peoples, after the authorities ignored their repeated pleas for action.
The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International noted the 100th anniversary of an historic report by Irish investigator Roger Casement finding that 30,000 Amazon Indians were enslaved by British rubber interests.
Peru’s government secretly admitted that 70-90% of its mahogany exports are illegally felled, according to a WikiLeaks cable—amid concerns of illegal loggers encroaching on indigenous lands.
National Police opened fire on a roadblock by small-scale unlicensed miners in Peru’s Amazon region of Madre de Dios, launched to protest a crackdown that included aerial bombardment.
Peru’s security forces cracked down on illegal gold mining operations in the Amazon region of Madre de Dios, with army troops putting several dredges on the region’s rivers to the torch.
A Brazilian judge ruled in favor of local indigenous groups, blocking President Dilma Rousseff’s plans to move ahead with construction of the controversial Belo Monte dam.
Indigenous protesters rallied in Quito to demand the release of three leaders of the Amazonian Shuar people who they say are being framed in the death of a Shuar teacher killed by police.
The Hunt Oil-led consortium that operates Peru’s massive Camisea gas field is deadlocked in royalty talks with the government—raising questions about plans for massive expansion.
A new study in the journal Science indicates the growing frequency of severe droughts in the Amazon could make the world’s biggest rainforest a net emitter of greenhouse gases.
