Luiz Alberto Araújo, a municipal environmental official in the Amazon town of Altamira who had aggressively campaigned against illegal logging, was shot dead by unknown gunmen.
With the Rio de Janeiro Olympics over, the world media are moving on—but the city's poor favela dwellers are left to contend with a wave of murderous police terror.
More than 20 land rights activists have been killed in Brazil this year, with most deaths linked to conflicts over logging and agribusiness—ongoing terror amid the Olympics spectacle.
Advocacy group Survival International has launched a campaign to prevent the annihilation of tribal peoples in Brazil, to coincide with the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
The planned São Luiz do Tapajós mega-dam in Brazil's Amazon received a significant setback when its license was suspended on grounds of its impacts on indigenous peoples.
Human rights group Global Witness ranked Honduras as the world's most dangerous country for environmental defenders, with 109 slain over the past five years.
Four of Peru’s presidential candidates, including far-right front-runner Keiko Fujimori, have been implicated in the “Panama Papers” revelations.
Brazil has seen its biggest protests since the end of the dictatorship as ex-president "Lula" da Silva is appointed to a cabinet post that gives him immunity in a corruption scandal.
Greenpeace sent 1.4 million signatures to Brazil's congress demanding a "zero deforestation" law—while cattle and timber barons push a bill to further open indigenous lands.
Brazil's Environment Minster announced plans to sue BHP Billiton Ltd and partners for $5.24 billion in damages caused by a dam collapse at an iron ore site that wiped out a village.
Brazilian mining company Samarco agreed to pay $260 million after waste dams were breached at its facility, flooding nearby villages with toxic mud.
Peru's government designated as a national park the vast Sierra del Divisor area of the Amazon rainforest—but will it really be able to police the remote territory?
