South America

"Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon topped 11,000 square kilometers for the first time since 2008 reports the Brazilian government."

"Vice-President Hamilton Mourao on Tuesday defended Brazil’s environmental policies, saying the country was working to protect the Amazon rain forest and adding nothing will change if Democrat Joe Biden wins the U.S. presidential election."

"Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged in October and the number of blazes is up 25% in the first 10 months of 2020, compared to a year ago, data from government space research agency Inpe showed on Sunday."

"Amazon fires this year are seriously threatening Indigenous territories in which isolated uncontacted Indigenous groups make their homes. Brazil has an estimated 100+ isolated Indigenous groups living within its borders, more than any other Amazonian nation."

"Just south of the Galapagos’ Marchena Island, there’s a dive spot known by locals as the “fish arena.” There, within the choppy, cool waters of the Pacific, thousands of colorful fish swim in schools, lobsters poke their long antennae out of rocky outcrops, dolphins bear their young and moray eels gape menacingly at visitors who swim too close."

"Smalltail shark populations have declined by 90% in Brazil, and new research finds that overfishing has pushed the species perilously close to extinction."

"Mining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG)."

"Fires in Brazil’s Amazon increased 13% in the first nine months of the year compared with a year ago, as the rainforest region experiences its worst rash of fires in a decade, data from space research agency Inpe showed on Thursday."

"The Amazon has already seen more forest fires this year than in all of 2019, according to satellite data made available in August 2020 by a new NASA fire analysis tool."

"In the past seven years, trafficking of jaguars and their body parts has become a major threat to the species, with China the main destination."