A complex network of actors has emerged around the critical minerals of the Amazon. Some operate along contested river corridors, trading with guerrilla groups and corrupt security forces. Others, under a façade of legality, move massive quantities of material through large port cities connected to international trade routes. Together, these operations endanger the environment and the sovereignty of entire nations.
Category: Topics
Chorrobocón’s Gamble: Betting on Critical Minerals
In Colombia’s jungles, where the deep green of the Amazon collides with poverty and exclusion, a hidden and dangerous business flourishes. In the remote corners of Guainía, Indigenous communities such as the Puinave find themselves trapped in illegal mining, an activity that allows them to survive but threatens to destroy the land they inhabit. With the decline of gold, strategic minerals have risen as a promise for the future. However, this new mineral rush, which promises to be less polluting than gold mining, carries enormous environmental and social risks.
The Price of Progress: The Dark Side of Critical Minerals in the Amazon
Based on extensive fieldwork and an investigation of supply chains, tracing minerals from extraction to international buyers, we reveal how the global race for the inputs of the energy transition is intensifying violent disputes along the Colombia–Venezuela border, where armed groups control the territory, commit systematic abuses, and destroy one of the planet’s most important carbon sinks.
The Path of Science into Climate Policy
Researchers provide the data that proves the problem and suggest solutions for different scenarios, while the Scientific Council on Climate acts as support to ensure that the COP30 presidency makes decisions in the right direction.
COP30 Daily: What’s Happening in the Final Days of Climate Negotiation
See what is moving forward — and what is stalling — in the negotiations of the final week of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Women Environmental Defenders from the Amazon and Africa Draw Parallels from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis at COP30
Juma Xipaia and Joanita Babirye, two leaders from the Global South, report on violence, funding barriers, and the erasure of women in climate policy— and advocate for the conference to recognize those who support real solutions in the territories.
At COP30, Researchers Call for Expansion of Brazil’s Zero Deforestation Target by 2030
Given the climate emergency, the federal government’s plan should include forest degradation, align targets with states, and improve rural credit, say researchers in Belém.
Funding, adaptation and protests: highlights of the first week of COP30
InfoAmazonia summarizes the first week of the Conference, which began with the approval of the work agenda – still with four pending issues – and was followed by obstacles to setting adaptation indicators and by indigenous demonstrations at the entrance to the event. The week also saw the resumption of the Global Climate March after three COPs held in countries with restrictions on freedom of expression.
Brazilian government announces demarcation of two Indigenous territories following Munduruku protest at COP30
Munduruku Indigenous People demanded the demarcation of their territories and the revocation of infrastructure projects affecting their lands; the movement held a peaceful demonstration in front of the Blue Zone, a space where climate negotiations take place.
Colombia declares itself the first nation in the Amazon with its entire forest free from oil and mining activities
Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development, Irene Vélez Torres, made the announcement Thursday (Nov. 13) at a meeting of Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) ministers during COP30.