South America

"A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon."

"Colombia's capital Bogota will start rationing water this week to alleviate droughts wrought by the El Nino weather pattern, which has exacerbated the Andean country's dry season and caused reservoir levels to fall, Mayor Carlos Galan said on Monday."

"Letitia James’s lawsuit accuses JBS of deceiving customers about being climate-friendly – and the implications could be far-reaching".

"Many Yanomami, the Amazon’s largest Indigenous tribe in relative isolation, have been contaminated with mercury coming from widespread illegal gold mining, according to a report released on Thursday by Brazil’s top public health institute."

"Extreme flooding and droughts may be the new norm for the Amazon, challenging its people and ecosystems."

"The Amazon is battling record early-year fires, fuelling fears of a worse climate crisis to come as blazes kill vegetation that is key to absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide. Fanned by drought, high winds and human felling, the forest is suffering unprecedented fires this early in the year, satellite images show, with the dry season still to reach critical parts of the Amazon."

"In the “lithium triangle” – a region spanning Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – native communities sit upon a treasure trove of the stuff: an estimated trillion dollars in lithium."

"The generator powering the medical facility had blown and the 29 members of the Brazilian Air Force in charge had to change it before they could see patients again. Medical professionals who'd been trained to care for dengue patients, they expected to attend to up to 600 people with suspected cases per day. In the first 24 hours after the doors opened on Feb. 5, they saw 1,300. The generator couldn't keep up."