President Evo Morales signed into a law a bill passed by Bolivia's congress that nearly doubles the area of national territory open to coca leaf cultivation for the legal market.
Some 70,000 are displaced and at least 70 dead as Peru's heaviest rains in two decades—linked to an "abnormal" El Niño—unleashed flash-floods and landslides across the country.
Campesinos and environmentalists held a national mobilization demanding that Colombia establish a Truth Commission for environmental crimes as part of the peace process.
Colombia's congress approved a transitional justice structure that will attempt to bring reparations to the more than 8 million victims of the decades-long conflict.
Hundreds of peasant coca-growers shut down a main highway through southern Colombia to oppose the government's renewed "forced eradication" campaign in the region.
Even as the FARC guerillas begin the disarmament process under Colombia's peace plan, the ongoing wave of deadly violence against social leaders remains unrelenting.
A trial opened in Peru's Cajamarca region against 16 community leaders facing prison terms for their participation in a protest against the Conga mining project.
Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that "prior consultation" with local communities must be carried out before an open-pit gold mine project can move ahead.
Under UN oversight, the FARC guerillas began the process of turning over their weapons at the 26 "transitional camps" established for the purpose around the country.
The Trump administration seriously turned up the heat on Venezuela, slapping sanctions on the country's vice president Tareck Zaidan El Aissami as a drug "kingpin."
Ecuador's once-powerful but increasingly fractured indigenous movement is divided on which candidate to support as the presidential race heads to a second round.
Colombia's Constitutional Court upheld the power of municipalities to block mining operations on their lands, clearing the way for local referenda throughout the country.
