South America

"During his presidential campaign, Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the United States should mobilize $20 billion to stop the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and impose “significant economic consequences” if deforestation continued."

"Jair Bolsonaro could face charges in the international criminal court (ICC) after being accused of crimes against humanity."

"Javier Francisco Parra, 47, was shot on December 3, 2020 in the municipality of La Macarena, in Colombia’s south near the department of Meta." "Between January 1 and December 6, 2020, a jaw-dropping 284 environmental leaders and defenders have been assassinated in Colombia."

"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)."