Brazil could fulfill its climate commitments and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels but instead of asserting itself as an ecological power, it plans to produce more oil for export, which risks a new era of energy dependence

The mental disconnect after a possible heat-related death at the artist's concert shows we'll wait for the house to burn down before doing anything to save ourselves

Our conscious, ancestral production of fire was key to transforming us into animals capable of subjugating any and all land predators. What must we recover to save ourselves from our own Death drive?

A two-minute round-up of the latest Amazon news

Deborah Duprat, one of Brazil's top legal experts, who defended the Indigenous people against the historic cut-off point thesis, believes that this debate will return to the Supreme Court and that Congress is deciding on matters outside of its authority

Since 2015, the sequestering of the river's water by the hydroelectric plant has interrupted lifecycles and killed thousands of fish, threatening food security for Indigenous and Ribeirinho peoples, with Brazil's environmental regulator failing to make a decision to stop the destruction

The ipe tree who provided shelter and love in the Amazon – then became a table in New York. Dead at 53, H.s. left behind countless children and thousands of friends who were woven into her warm and welcoming life

SUMAÚMA and New York University School of Law join forces to center the rights and perspectives of animal-people, plant-people, and fungi-people

Silent erosion and then a sudden crash turned the village of Arumã into a giant crater. Two residents are dead, three missing and several homes have been sucked down into the mud, victims of the climate crisis, El Niño and negligence by the authorities

LiDAR surveillance by plane and the knowledge of traditional populations is helping Amazon archeologists to reconstruct the history of the human occupation of the rainforest, planted in part by original peoples but deemed uninhabited by governments in order to justify invasions and clearance

Sandra Benites talks about the collective process of curating the exhibit, which sought to ‘set aside this exotic view of the Amazon, as an untouchable thing’ to show the region's people and how it is ‘simmering’

In just thirty-five years, the Apyterewa-Parakanã peoples have seen their territory invaded, the forest cut down for illegal mahogany, and the conversion of this area to pastureland for 60,000 head of cattle – the on-going expulsion of the invaders will indicate the fate of the Amazon

An alliance of traditional communities, Indigenous researchers and university scientists aims to produce reliable data to counter information presented by Norte Energia on the impacts of the hydroelectric plant

The planet's largest rainforest lacks water and clean air, the smoke from fires is overtaking regions of the Amazon, extreme events are multiplying and scientists are warning: we are entering 'an unfamiliar domain that no one has ever witnessed in the history of humanity'

In Puerto Rico, the seawater and the insects glow in the dark but the people are fleeing. Natural resources can bring freedom and independence, colonization and submission. Hurricanes and earthquakes are cruel reminders of our hardships. What do we do when the lights go out?

A search for beings that sustain the Earth in a forest nearing the point of no return

There is a territory in Panama which, according to scientists, activists, politicians and journalists, will soon cease to exist. They say that Gardi Sugdub will be underwater, and its 1,300 inhabitants will become the first community of climate-displaced people in the Americas

Following a team of indigenous volunteer firefighters as they battle a blaze for 30 days and nights.

There is a love story behind the world’s finest yerba mate. The love of a man for a woman. Of a village for its traditions. Of a community for a forest surrounded by fields of soya and grazing cattle

Movements of air are essential to our planet’s vitality. But the winds are slowing just when we need them more than ever to turn our turbines, fertilise our crops and cool our cities

Screams for help from the devastating floods in southern Brazil, scorching waters during a critical drought of Amazonian rivers: we are nature and we forget this, while extreme events extend longer than humans and non-humans can bear

Miriam Marmontel, an oceanographer leading a research group on aquatic mammals, talks about the horrific scenes she witnessed on Lake Tefé, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, where at least 139 dolphins have died. While the climate crisis deepens in the Amazon, the animals’ cause of death is under investigation

Despite failing to meet legal requirements, the U.S.-based corporation operates two ports exporting soy from Pará. Now it wants to build a third. Though the project has not yet left the drawing board, the Public Prosecutor’s Office suspects the proposed site around the Abaetetuba islands was irregularly acquired

This new series on the Amazonian impact of cross-border companies is being debuted to mark the one-year anniversary of our platform

As the city sinks, Yanomami filmmaker Morzaniel Ɨramari presents his work at a premier international film festival and reflects on the 'revenge of the Earth' as he realizes Venice may succumb to the effects of climate disruption

In an interview with SUMAÚMA, the most prominent leader in the Indigenous struggle in Brazil warns his own people about the nefarious effects of mining and asks for societal awareness about global heating

Our reporters documented the indignity experienced by those who, with their lives threatened when they place their bodies on the front line in the war against nature, are forced to leave their territories, facing all kinds of hardships and humiliations within the programs that are supposed to protect them

To stop genocide and global heating, we must explore other ways of understanding relations between species

Xokleng elders and youth, the 'people of the sun,' are celebrating the outcome of the ruling against the legal thesis. SUMAÚMA was there to see reaction from older members, who remembered past struggles, while also explaining how the high court's decision on land indemnifications could impact the future

In the past, mercenary killers skewered Indigenous children on their machetes; today, these little ones face hazards on their way to school and are the target of racism in public spaces—while they wait for the courts to decide whether they will have a territory and a future, or whether their lives will be condemned once again.

SUMAÚMA has drawn up a guide for a debate that involves both the future and life itself

By 283 votes to 155, the House of Representatives approved unjust historic time limits on indigenous land demarcation

Attorneys for Indigenous peoples warn the supposed compromise opinion put forward by Brazilian Federal Supreme Court minister Alexandre de Moraes will open the door to new conflicts and forced evictions

SUMAÚMA visited the native peoples of the Ibirama-Laklãnõ territory, the center of the legal case being judged by the Federal Supreme Court. They have been victims of extermination campaigns for hundreds of years. Now once again they are threatened.

In the first story from Micélio Sumaúma - a Forest-Journalist Co-Training Program - Yudjá-Juruna reporters from Volta Grande do Xingu answer a question that ties violence to resistance, all at the same time

The scientist Luciana Gatti, who discovered the forest’s declining capability to absorb carbon dioxide emissions caused by human action, shows in a new study that in climatic terms the effects of deforestation under Bolsonaro were the equivalent to the most extreme El Niño ever recorded

A two-year study with participation by researchers from the region shows that a standing forest economy, with no new hydroelectric plants or high-speed roads, would generate more jobs and income than the current predatory model that is taking the biome to the point of no return

Controversial mining company behind two of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters funds public works to make Helder Barbalho’s state “sustainable.” Meanwhile, those on the frontline of climate change are shoved to the sidelines of the climate debate.

A SUMAÚMA investigation reveals carbon credit companies are trying to secure deals on protected and disputed public lands, including indigenous territories, prompting concerns about ‘green land grabs.’ While the money from carbon credit deals can bring benefits, public prosecutors have accused some agents of contract abuses in their dealings with forest populations. Against this backdrop, there is a growing clamour for the government to establish ground rules

Document says there should be government agency oversight of carbon credit contracts, prior consultation, a clear division of benefits, and public announcements of the process

The tool, created to help countries reach their pollution reduction targets, has led to growing corporate interest in the Amazon. Find out why

A report exclusively shown to SUMAÚMA shows chemical weapons were used in the massacre of eight villages in 1970 during the construction of highway BR-174. A retired colonel and Bolsonaro appointee has been appointed to a legal case against the federal government

Amazon needs to prepare for unusual heat and drought as the fire season approaches

The strongest root in Brazil's Indigenous movement, the elder put out a new call to relatives: he is preparing his succession, but he is still in the fight. And he promises to ‘give Lula an earful’

As the climate emergency worsens, the Amazon needs money, but on its own terms

Archaeology shows us that the region's past is characterized by enormous cultural and technological diversity, contrary to the common view in terms of contemporary ideologies regarding the exploitation of nature.

Underground, hidden from sight, fungi are silently doing a remarkable job, associating with plant roots

Even though it's his second time leading a state that is one of the worst offenders when it comes to deforestation, garimpo mining operations, and criminal fires, the political heir of the Barbalho clan, one of Brazil's most powerful oligarchies, is managing to sell the image of a ‘green governor’

'Piracema Hydrogram,' an animation made in partnership with Indigenous peoples and ribeirinhos, shows how the hydroelectric plant’s sequester of 70% of the river's water has turned life into death in one of the Amazon's most biodiverse regions

With help from readers, SUMAÚMA put together a Q&A of your questions on this topic

In an exclusive interview with SUMAÚMA, Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, discusses oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon and the renewal of the operating license for the disastrous Belo Monte hydroelectric plant.

In an exclusive interview with SUMAÚMA Rodrigo Agostinho, the new president of Brazil’s environmental protection agency Ibama, says the "life of the river" will be paramount in deciding whether to extend the operation of the destructive dam on the Xingu. On the Petrobras application to explore for oil at the mouth of the Amazon river, he insists “every possible and imaginable impact” must first be examined.

Nine years after the licensing process for Block 59 began, the people of the Oiapoque region are granted a first meeting with Petrobras in which they reveal the project is already impacting their lives. It is very late to consult them. An accident simulation test, which is regarded as the final stage of the process, is scheduled for this month

Deputies and senators in the state of Amapá have organized a public hearing to try to discredit the environment ministry’s decision to block exploration in the Mouth of the Amazon River. They allowed no counter-argument or scientific debate and left it too late for indigenous communities to build a consensus. Instead they hammered home a political message and campaigned for pro-drilling Randolfe Rodrigues to replace Marina Silva as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

The nearly 30,000 people who occupied Belém during the Amazon Summit are breathing down the president's neck, showing the difference between supporting the government – with conditions – and being with a government unconditionally – a healthy step in democratic maturity

Beatriz Matos and Alessandra Sampaio met to talk about living and fighting for life one year after the brutal murders of their husbands

Afro-Indigenous, a cabocla, and a ribeirinha, the woman at the helm of one of the most important departments in the environment ministry recalls that under Bolsonaro the words 'traditional' and 'communities' couldn't even be used together. Now, reconstruction demands time. 'We're reforesting'

The referendum to halt oil drilling in the Yasuni national park is a victory for the Amazon forest, indigenous communities and climate activists. Brazil’s president Lula would do well to heed the lesson it teaches about stranded assets

In a single week, at least 14 people were murdered inside the indigenous territory, including a member of Brazil’s largest criminal organization – First Capital Command (PCC). In retaliation, the faction has sent out a message telling its members to target police and federal agents.

President Lula must resist efforts in Congress to diminish environmental governance. The Chamber and the Senate are dominated not by conservatives, but by predators. They are on the wrong side of the war against nature.

In denying the oil giant Petrobras a license to drill at the mouth of the Amazon, the president of Brazil’s environmental agency has shown that the Lula administration is willing to maintain its commitment to protecting the rainforest and combatting global heating. The greatest backlash has come from an ally, the government’s leader in Congress, heralding the onset of “friendly fire.”

Anthropologist Caio Pompeia, explains how Brazil’s leading agriculture industry think tank strengthened the political influence of the country’s farming sector and how it is planning to respond to the election of Lula.

Aldo Rebelo, a former ally of Workers’ Party presidents Lula and Dilma Rousseff, now mixes with Bolsonaro supporters and landgrabbers. He is promoting an agricultural-military political agenda in one of the epicenters of the destruction of the Amazon forest

At the Free Land Camp in Brasilia, Brazil’s president stated that he “would not leave any Indigenous land without demarcation,” but so far, he has ratified only six of the 251 Indigenous territories now in the process, while he has inherited an agency of Indigenous affairs 1,200 employees short and is governing under enormous pressure from a Congress where the majority are anti-Indigenous

Empowered and better represented in government than ever before, indigenous people opened a new chapter in their struggle at the “Terra Libre” (Free Land) Camp in 2023. But as well as celebrating political gains, there was disappointment at fewer-than-expected demarcations.

Marina Silva, the minister who lends international ballast to the environmental agenda of the Workers’ Party, went to bed Tuesday night feeling victorious in the debate over the environmental license to explore for oil at the mouth of the Amazon, but the next day she saw her power undermined and was blitzed by a predatory Congress that represents the interests of denialist agribusiness. And worst of all, with the Brazilian president’s consent

President Lula must resist efforts in Congress to diminish environmental governance. The Chamber and the Senate are dominated not by conservatives, but by predators. They are on the wrong side of the war against nature.

The historical cut-off point rushed through the Chamber of Deputies is just one of the bill's atrocities. If a majority in the Senate votes for passage, it will produce large-scale destruction, redraw the map of Brazil, and compromise, perhaps irreversibly, the fight against global warming

SUMAÚMA publishes an exclusive story of a Venezuelan woman who came to Brazil at the age of twenty-seven after experiencing continuous violence in her home country. She spent time in 2021 and 2022 as a prostitute in five mining encampments in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory. Her memories and drawings, recorded in small notebooks, give voice to the stories of many women who balance the thin line between money and brutality.

Residents of three regions invaded by criminal gold prospectors reveal how their communities have been destroyed by contamination, violence and prostitution. Their accounts highlight the disruption caused by the state's failure of care.

After four years of malign negligence by the Bolsonaro government, the territory is experiencing a continual removal of dead, or extremely sick, Indigenous people, and a still uncertain plan to expel thousands of illegal, heavily armed, miners

Figures obtained by SUMAÚMA show that during Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government, the number of children under 5 years old who died from preventable causes increased 29% in Yanomami territory: 569 young indigenous children died in the last 4 years from diseases that are treatable

Deliberate negligence by the Bolsonaro administration has left Brazil’s largest Indigenous territory vulnerable to invasion by twenty thousand illegal miners who are accused of raping women and the land.

The Lula government wants to expand registration of the social welfare program in indigenous lands, but this alone will not be enough. The system of cash transfers must be adapted to the realities of different indigenous peoples. Without this, it could cause more misery and violence.

Faced with the enormous repercussions of the most recent crisis suffered by the Yanomami population, part of the legal community, belatedly and shamefacedly, has now begun to babble: well, now, maybe... As if the signs, and even proof, of the ongoing genocide had not already been offered by indigenous people for many years.

The indigenous people face a dramatic impasse: if they denounce their genocide to the world, they run the risk of not finding happiness after death

Deise Alves and Cláudio Esteves created a healthcare model that saved the Yanomami in the 1990s and early 2000s. But because they denounced illegal miners, their reputations have been destroyed and they are being asked to pay millions of reais to the government

To launch Francy Baniwa’s book, celebrated as a “literary event,” flames were reignited at the National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro—this time, for the purpose of hosting memories as part of a twelve-hour vigil conducted by Ailton Krenak. Those who lived this experience will never forget it.

A finalist for the Women’s Press Trophy in recognition of her work as host of Rádio SUMAÚMA’s podcast, Elizângela Baré is the first Indigenous woman to work toward a master’s degree in public health at the Universidade de São Paulo, and she wants to prove that Brazil’s public healthcare system should use ancient Indigenous science

Samela Sateré Mawé and Tukumã Pataxó, digital influencers who represent the new face of indigenous youth and promote the culture of native peoples, were recently married in a Pataxó ceremony known as the Aragwaksã

Threatened with death in Brazil, Alessandra Korap is one of six activists from around the world whose work is recognized this Monday by the prestigious Goldman Prize for Environmentalism

The country's first indigenous female federal deputy is now the first indigenous head of Funai. Her advisor, the journalist Mayra Wapichana describes how history was made in office 231 of the House of Representatives.

In an exclusive interview with SUMAÚMA, the newly elected congresswoman Célia Xakriabá tells how poetics will be an Indigenous weapon in parliament—and how the small but potent Indigenous caucus will take on the powerful ruralist lobby

A look behind the scenes at the events and alliances that allowed Sonia Guajajara to take power and make history

Stronger indigenous rights, greater protection of headwaters and fewer dams should be part of any global deal on water.

The disaster in São Paulo reminds us that we must reinforce the Amazon rainforest and other natural pillars that ‘hold up the sky'

A Rio Branco--based journalist who covers the impact of global heating, reports on his personal distress when the São Francisco, a tributary of the Acre River, flooded his street and home last month

Morzaniel Ɨramari, the first Yanomami filmmaker, will shortly release 'Mãri hi: The Tree of Dream', a portrait of how messages from the forest reach the shamans of a people whose lives have been jeopardized by mining activities over the last ten years

At a seminar for senior government officials in Brasilia, researchers finally reveal the weak study on which the dam's operator Norte Energia has based its quota of 8,000 cubic meters per second for nature. They say this is dangerously inadequate for the important ecosystem and way of life of people who live on the river's 'Big Bend'.

As a fisherman-writer, this ribeirinho writes to release feelings dammed up by the pain of what Belo Monte did to the river, which is his life

This is life in Katõ Village, in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, one of the lands hardest hit by illegal mining. If such mercury contamination were detected in a wealthy neighborhood in an urban area of Brazil, how would the State and the press react?

The Amazonian municipality of Itaituba is a centre of illegal gold prospecting, which puts it firmly in the sights of the federal government's crackdown on polluting activity inside indigenous territory. The pro-mining mayor Valmir Climaco response has been to deny the existence of indigenous lands, despite hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary.

The new president should revoke dubiously-enacted legal clauses that facilitate the purchase of gold criminally extracted from indigenous lands. These flawed legislation contributes to a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe

Former Brazil striker claims he ate gold leaf steak with current members of the national team to inspire people, but his choice could hardly have been worse

The recent pact between Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia raises hopes for tropical conservation but there are concerns it may be overly focussed on carbon credits. Sumaúma looks at the origins of this new front in nature diplomacy for clues about which way it will go

Known as the 'Man of the Hole', he protected the Amazon for 26 years. And even after his death, a victory in Brazil’s Supreme Court will help preserve the forest in which he lived

The recent killing of an indigenous woman began in 1973, when a road built by Brazil’s military dictatorship was carved through the forest

A visit to the Awa Guajá, where people have died from sadness as well as guns since their land became a freight line for the world's biggest iron-ore mine

18 years after her assassination in Anapu on February 12, 2005, missionary is becoming both a martyr and an encantada in the forest

'In this era of the deliberate destruction of nature, rampant consumerism, unhealthy narcissism and the metaverse (or should it be murder-verse?), Joaquim was committed to forming readers and, while hardly rich, donated books to students and readers from humble backgrounds, something I witnessed on several occasions. He gave all of himself that he could, in a gesture of profound generosity, with affection was paramount'

From harrowing tales of forced contact to a failed capitalist scheme to build a resource-supplying city in the forest, here is a sample of cinematic Amazonian destruction and beauty

Works that address important topics and might encourage the reader to delve deeper into primary sources and reference books

The Amazonian designer Sioduhi invited SUMAÚMA into his ateliers, in São Paulo and Rio Branco, to describe his journey from the Upper Rio Negro to the catwalks of São Paulo, and explain why he is returning to his ancestral origins

Maickson Serrão, aka Pavulagem, shares his experience of the World Economic Forum, addressing the audience in Davos, meeting Marina Silva, and mingling with attendees: 'One person talked to me about Bluetooth phones as if he were showing me a mirror 500 years ago’

Brazil's most iconic indigenous leader, the Kayapó learnt from the experience of Belo Monte that pressure must be put on white people's governments - no matter the political party - so that nature and the native peoples are respected

In the third part of our Nature in Power series, SUMAÚMA brings you voices for those that are never heard, although they are most affected by the planet’s dominant species