Tag: south america

The Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area, covering more than 283,000 hectares of pristine rainforest in Loreto, was established in June and will be managed by the regional government. For the 16 Indigenous communities who live along the Putumayo River, the designation represents both protection and recognition, reports Geraldine Santos.

“This area is being driven by the Indigenous communities of the Medio Putumayo themselves, through three federations,” says Freddy Ferreyra of the Instituto del Bien Común.

Local peoples, including the Murui, Yagua, Ocaina, Kukama Kukamiria, Kichwa, Maijuna and Bora, have been pressing for safeguards for over a decade. Now they gain legal standing to defend their forests against incursions by land traffickers, miners and loggers.

The new area sits within a larger ecological corridor that links Peru with Colombia and Ecuador. It forms part of a mosaic of reserves and parks intended to secure continuous habitat for species ranging from jaguars and river dolphins to the yellow-tailed woolly monkey.

“We hope this regional conservation area brings benefits to our communities,” says Gervinson Perdomo Chavez, a former leader of Puerto Franco. “That way, we can also take care of our forest.”

In the western Brazilian Amazon, scientists have documented the world’s largest known nesting aggregation of the endangered giant South American river turtle (Podocnemis expansa), reports Shanna Hanbury. Using drones and ground counts on a sandbank of the Guaporé River, which marks the border with Bolivia, researchers estimated around 41,000 adult females gathering to lay their eggs.

“We knew it was an important area, but we didn’t have the full picture of the size,” said Camila Ferrara of WCS.

The population has grown in part thanks to Brazil’s four-decade conservation program, carried out with local communities. Yet threats persist. Illegal traders continue to seize turtles by the hundreds, while habitat loss looms. Turtle meat, once sustainably harvested, has long been a staple in Amazonian diets—ranking second only to fish in archaeological records from 7,000 years ago—but today’s demand far outpaces historical levels.

To count the nesting turtles, the scientists combined ground surveys, drone imagery and mathematical models to correct for errors such as double counting or missed individuals. The method produced a more credible estimate than either approach alone and offers a stronger tool for monitoring mass nesting events. By improving accuracy, it allows conservationists to distinguish genuine declines from statistical noise—vital knowledge in the struggle to protect one of the Amazon’s most threatened species.

Healthy forests are more than climate shields; in the Amazon, they also serve as public-health infrastructure.

A Communications Earth & Environment study spanning two decades across the biome links the extent and legal status of Indigenous Territories to 27 respiratory, cardiovascular, and zoonotic or vector-borne diseases. The findings are complex, but one pattern is clear: Where surrounding forest cover is high and fragmentation is low, Indigenous lands help blunt health risks.

Between 2001 and 2019, the Amazon logged 28 million cases of illness, four-fifths of them from fires and mostly respiratory. More than 532,000 square kilometers burned during that period, with most blazes starting outside Indigenous lands. Each surge in fire activity sent fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) higher, and with it hospital visits for asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory ailments.

Landscape context matters. Municipalities with high forest cover outside Indigenous lands see fewer fire-related illnesses, as those forests buffer PM2.5 exposure. The protective effect appears once overall cover exceeds about 45%. For zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, forests inside and outside Indigenous lands offset fragmentation when combined cover passes 40%. Fragmentation weakens these protections.

Law matters too. Recognized Indigenous Territories show a nonlinear pattern: at low to mid coverage they correlate with higher incidence, but at higher coverage with lower incidence. Unrecognized territories are consistently tied to worse outcomes, reflecting heavier fire and deforestation where rights are weak.

“Indigenous forests in the Amazon bring health benefits to millions,” said Paula Prist of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in a statement. “We have long known that the rainforest is home to medicinal plants and animals that have cured countless illnesses. This study offers new evidence that forests themselves are a balm for fire-related threats to people’s lungs and hearts, to illnesses like Chagas, malaria and spotted fevers. Ensuring Indigenous communities have strong rights over their lands is the best way to keep forests and their health benefits intact.”

As fire season returns and climate talks convene in Belém, the message is straightforward: securing Indigenous land rights and conserving contiguous forests is a health intervention as well as a climate one.

Eight years after its launch, a solar-powered canoe initiative born in Ecuador’s Amazon is reshaping river transport far beyond its origins, reports Aimee Gabay.

The Kara Solar Foundation, led by Indigenous engineers and community leaders, has delivered 12 canoes to villages in Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Suriname and even the Solomon Islands. Each vessel glides silently across rivers that once echoed with the noise and fumes of gasoline engines.

For many communities, rivers are the only roads. Solar boats spare them the cost of fuel while reducing pollution.

“[They] do not pollute the environment, especially for those who live near rivers,” said Ichinki Tentets Tanchim Federico, a leader of the Achuar community of Wayusentsa.

The boats also diminish pressure to build roads, which often accelerate deforestation and the spread of mining and livestock.

The first canoe, Tapiatpia, proved the concept in 2017 when it traveled 1,800 kilometers across Amazonian rivers. Since then, Kara Solar has paired its boats with solar recharge stations that double as community energy hubs. Local residents are trained to operate and repair the systems themselves.

“Kara Solar ensures that technical knowledge is cultivated within the communities,” says Nantu Canelos, the foundation’s executive director.

Ambitions run high: By 2030, the group aims to support 10,000 solar canoes across the Amazon Basin and create a network of Indigenous-run recharge stations. Yet financing remains elusive.

“Projects like this…are not attractive for traditional investment because they are not designed to obtain large gains quickly,” Canelos said.

Still, in regions where infrastructure is sparse, these solar vessels offer a rare chance to chart a different future—quietly, cleanly, and on local terms.

For decades, the Amazon has been growing drier. A new study in Nature Communications disentangles how much of this shift is due to global warming and how much to tree loss within the forest. The results suggest deforestation is the dominant factor.

Researchers led by Marco Franco and Luiz Augusto Toledo Machado examined 35 years of land-use and atmospheric data across Brazil’s “Legal Amazon,” an area of 5 million square kilometers. Using statistical models, they separated the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions from local forest loss. They found deforestation accounts for nearly three-quarters of the rainfall decline and about one-sixth of the warming during the dry season since the mid-1980s.

Between 1985 and 2020, dry-season rainfall fell by about 21 millimeters per year, of which 15.8mm—74.5%—was linked to forest loss. Maximum daily temperatures rose by 2°C, with 0.39°C, or 16.5%, due to deforestation. The findings confirm what scientists have long suspected: forest clearance disrupts not only carbon balances but also local weather.

Amazonian trees are central to this system. Through transpiration they draw water from the soil and release it into the air, providing more than 40% of the region’s rainfall. This moisture rises and condenses into clouds, while creating low-pressure zones that pull in additional humid air, a process some call the “biotic pump.” Strip away forest and the cycle falters.

The consequences extend beyond the basin. The “flying rivers” of vapor influence rainfall across Brazil’s agricultural heartlands and into the Andes. Deforestation is also altering the South American monsoon, raising the risk of drought in central and southeastern Brazil.

If recent trends continue, by 2035 the region could see dry-season rainfall fall by another 7mm and temperatures climb by 0.6°C. The Amazon’s climate could begin to resemble that of the Cerrado savanna or even the semi-arid Caatinga.

Such a shift would test the resilience of the forest’s 11,000 known tree species, the communities that depend on them, and distant agricultural zones and megacities that rely on the Amazon’s moisture.

🔬 Franco, M.A., Rizzo, L.V., Teixeira, M.J. et al. How climate change and deforestation interact in the transformation of the Amazon rainforest. Nature Communications 16, 7944 (2025). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63156-0

Perched high above the forest floor, the tropical canopy is a reservoir of biodiversity that has long resisted scrutiny. Its inaccessibility has left many of its inhabitants—orchids, epiphytes, ants, monkeys, frogs—poorly studied and poorly protected. But a new study offers a workaround: let the rain do the climbing. 

Scientists led by Lucie Zinger at the French National Centre for Scientific Research have shown that water dripping from the canopy carries traces of DNA from the organisms above. By capturing and analyzing this “rainwash” in low-tech collectors, they identified hundreds of species across plants, insects, birds, amphibians, and mammals.

The study, conducted in French Guiana, compared samples from a mature Amazonian forest and a nearby tree plantation. The results were striking. Diversity was markedly higher in the undisturbed forest, where passive collectors accumulated eDNA over a ten-day period. Crucially, the rainwash signal was both local and persistent. Even after heavy rain, biodiversity signatures remained spatially distinct at the scale of tens of meters and stable for up to 40 days.

Unlike airborne or stream-based eDNA, which can drift and muddle geographic origin, rainwash captures a sharp snapshot of the immediate canopy. It can also be deployed at scale with minimal cost. The researchers propose that this method could become a cornerstone of biodiversity monitoring in tropical forests—habitats that are increasingly threatened and chronically under-surveyed.

That is not to say it is a panacea. Detection remains limited to species that shed detectable DNA and to wet seasons where rainfall is sufficient. But in a field stymied by logistical and financial constraints, the ability to “listen” to the canopy through its own runoff is a conceptual advance. In the future, the hum of the rainforest may be traced not through what can be seen and heard, but through what the rain leaves behind.

Lucie Zinger et al. (2025) Elusive tropical forest canopy diversity revealed through environmental DNA contained in rainwater. Science Advances 11, DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adx4909

In Brazil and across the Amazon Basin, a growing body of evidence confirms what many Indigenous communities have long known: hundreds of voluntarily isolated Indigenous groups continue to live deep in the forest, avoiding contact with the outside world. But for decades, their existence was denied or ignored by states, leaving them legally invisible and their lands open to extraction, deforestation, and exploitation.

That is slowly changing. A new 302-page report—launched in April 2025 at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues—offers a scientific framework for recognizing these groups without violating their autonomy.

Antenor Vaz, a veteran expert on isolated and initially contacted peoples (PIACI) who recently spoke with Aimee Gabay, co-authored the report with input from national Indigenous organizations such as AIDESEP in Peru. It catalogs 188 records of voluntarily isolated peoples in South America—yet just 60 are officially recognized by states.

Recognition matters. Without legal recognition, Indigenous peoples have no claim to territory, protections, or voice.

As Vaz puts it: “They have no rights because they do not exist for the state.”

Denial, he warns, is often politically motivated: once land is acknowledged as inhabited, it must be protected. That complicates plans for agribusiness, mining, and logging.

The report outlines both “direct” and “indirect” methodologies for evidence-gathering—from satellite imagery and field expeditions to local Indigenous knowledge. While states tend to privilege Western scientific methods, Vaz stresses that Indigenous trackers and shamans often provide the most accurate data. Their knowledge, he argues, is holistic, drawing on spiritual and ecological cues beyond the grasp of many Western institutions.

The implications go beyond Indigenous rights. Isolated peoples are entirely dependent on intact ecosystems. Their continued survival requires forests to remain undisturbed, making them natural stewards of biodiversity.

“For isolated peoples,” Vaz notes, “the forest is their pharmacy, supermarket, school, and city.”

Protecting their land helps protect the Amazon—and, by extension, global climate stability.

The report offers 11 core principles, including the foundational rule: No contact. That principle, enshrined in Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, has become a model for others.

As states weigh economic growth against Indigenous survival, Vaz says this document serves as a guide for navigating that fraught terrain—scientifically, ethically, and lawfully.