Fish return off coast of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul after state’s trawling ban
Trawl nets literally sweep the ocean floor, turning a complex ecosystem into a desert.
South America
This archive covers progress stories and milestones from across South America, spanning countries from Brazil and Colombia to Argentina and Peru. Expect reporting on conservation wins, public health advances, economic shifts, and community-led efforts shaping life across the continent.
Indigenous Shuar community in Ecuador wins decades-long battle to protect land
Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas now includes the 13,583-acre ancestral Tiwi Nunka Forest in the country’s south.
Colombia launches $245-million initiative to create and maintain protected areas
Heritage Colombia is one of the most significant conservation investments the country has ever made — pooling $245 million from governments, international institutions, and private donors to protect nearly 80 million acres of land and sea over the next decade. Colombia holds roughly 10% of the world’s biodiversity, making it one of the most ecologically critical places on Earth to get this right. Crucially, local communities are central to the design, not an afterthought. If it succeeds, Heritage Colombia could become a replicable model for how nations fund lasting, community-rooted conservation at scale.
Brazil’s High Court first to declare Paris Agreement a human rights treaty
As a result of the ruling, if Brazil’s Congress passes a law that conflicts with the Paris Agreement, the Paris Agreement should take precedence.
Colombia launches largest ocean reef restoration project in the Americas
Colombia’s reef restoration effort is one of the most ambitious marine recovery programs anywhere on Earth — a government-backed push to plant one million coral fragments across 494 acres of degraded Caribbean seafloor. It pairs underwater nurseries and scientific method with indigenous and coastal communities whose knowledge of local waters runs deep. That combination matters: restoration ecologists consistently find that community-rooted programs outperform purely technical ones at scale. If it holds, this project offers a replicable model for reef recovery across the Caribbean and beyond.
Colombia elects first Black woman vice president, Francia Marquez
Francia Márquez became Colombia’s first Black woman vice president on June 19, 2022, winning alongside Gustavo Petro with just over half the national vote. A former housekeeper and single mother from Cauca, one of Colombia’s poorest provinces, she rose to office through years of grassroots organizing against illegal gold mining — work that earned her the Goldman Environmental Prize and, along the way, death threats she refused to back down from. Now leading a new equality ministry, she’s focused on women’s rights, rural health care, and education for communities long shut out. Her election doesn’t undo generations of exclusion, but it changes what’s imaginable — for Afro-Colombian girls, for environmental defenders, and for movements everywhere insisting the overlooked belong at the table.
Ecuador becomes first Latin American country committed to Fisheries Transparency Initiative standards
Fisheries transparency just gained a major foothold in Latin America: Ecuador has become the first country in the region to join the Fisheries Transparency Initiative, pledging to publish vessel records, catch data, subsidies, and the identities of who ultimately profits. The commitment was announced in Manta, home to much of the country’s tuna fleet, and it opens a door that journalists and even government scientists have spent years knocking on without answer. A new national working group will bring civil society and industry to the table alongside officials, with annual independent reviews to keep progress honest. For oceans worldwide, where opacity has long shielded overfishing and illegal catch, Ecuador’s step offers a replicable model — and a reminder that sunlight remains one of conservation’s most powerful tools.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. pledges to plant 6 million trees across the U.S., Brazil, India, and Indonesia
Through a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids and Teen, West Elm, and others will plant one tree for every piece of indoor wood furniture sold.
World’s biggest tropical crop bank opens in Colombia
The Future Seeds facility will not only safeguard tropical crop biodiversity, but also serve as a living laboratory for some of the world’s most advanced agricultural technologies.
Giant anteaters lead biodiversity resurgence in Argentina’s Iberá
In 2007, the first pair of giant anteaters was reintroduced Iberá reserve, a region from which it had gone extinct decades earlier. Today, more than 200 anteaters live free in the reserve.