Forest clearance at smallest total since records began in 1988 in success for Lula ahead of presidential run-off
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest level since records began, new government data shows.
But whether this globally important success is maintained or reversed is on a knife edge ahead of a presidential election run-off on 25 October between two candidates with sharply different visions for the future of the rainforest and how that affects relations with the US under Donald Trump.
A mission of experts from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will visit Honduras in late 2026 to evaluate protection, management, and conservation efforts in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve—the country’s largest protected area and a site currently inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The announcement was made this Friday by Ángel Prado, Deputy Director of the Institute for Forest Conservation (ICF), who explained that the visit will aim to review activities undertaken to preserve the territory and to update the biosphere’s management plan for the next ten years.
Located in the Mosquitia region of northeastern Honduras, the Río Plátano Biosphere spans approximately 350,000 hectares and preserves one of the few remaining tracts of tropical rainforest in Central America. The site was added to the World Heritage List in 1982 and is home to indigenous communities that have maintained their traditional ways of life.
UNESCO placed the reserve on the List of World Heritage in Danger in June 2011, citing illicit land occupation. At the time, the organization also pointed to a breakdown in law and order in the area, the presence of drug traffickers, and the state’s limited capacity to manage the site effectively.
🚨#HechosEstelar | “Es necesaria la visita de la UNESCO a la Biósfera del Río Plátano”, expresó Mario Pinel, de la Plataforma Jóvenes contra el Cambio Climático, al destacar la importancia de proteger esta reserva natural y señalar que su conservación debe ser una misión de… pic.twitter.com/uegF3aKs3i
The text reads, “A visit by UNESCO to the Río Plátano Biosphere is necessary,” stated Mario Pinel, of the Youth Against Climate Change Platform, as he highlighted the importance of protecting this natural reserve and noted that its conservation should be a mission for everyone.”
The ICF is coordinating efforts with the Secretariat of Natural Resources and the Honduran Armed Forces to address these risks. Authorities are also working with indigenous communities on organization and training initiatives aimed at strengthening the conservation of natural resources.
The protection of the Río Plátano area is linked to other natural areas in northeastern Honduras, such as the Tawahka Asangni Biosphere Reserve and Patuca National Park. These territories connect to the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua and form part of one of the largest contiguous forest blocks in Latin America.
The UNESCO visit will allow for a review of the site’s management and the definition of actions that will guide its conservation over the next decade.
#FromTheSouth News Bits | Following the approval of the law to strengthen and promote the agro-industrial sector in Honduras, there has been a rise in evictions of communities resisting dispossession. pic.twitter.com/R4T1NaqHAR
Two giant pandas recently landed in Atlanta, a week after Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Washington. The summit produced no immediate breakthrough on trade deals, Taiwan or AI, but it did produce something cuddly for the American public: a pair of giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, which are on a ten-year […]
From Assam’s rhino to the Himalayan red panda, India’s wildlife stamps showcased biodiversity and the growing case for conservation. They also recognised regional identity, projected national strength, and carried a subtle message about sovereignty.
Apparently, African wild dogs enjoy knocking around balls of elephant dung like a football. It’s this playfulness that has endeared them to researchers—but, as Helen Sullivan points out, they have their work cut out for them trying to protect this persecuted big predator. Sullivan follows conservationists in southern Africa who are carefully managing tiny, isolated populations and attempting to introduce genetic diversity. The story of the three sisters who are flown over from Mozambique to be introduced to Waterberg—a South African municipality three hours from Johannesburg—is heart-wrenching. Yet in such a harsh environment, individual tragedies have to be endured while staying focused on the bigger picture: the fragile recovery of the species as a whole.
As we help Greyling and Hlako lift a crate off the pickup, a dusty paw flops out of one corner, and I think of something my uncle says: “You can smell the world in a dog’s paw.” Mooney and I back away, watching from inside a container as Hlako moves the car so that the overheating dog is in the shade. Though it is late afternoon, the temperature is still around 90 degrees.
Hlako and Greyling release the dogs one at a time, opening the crate and waiting until a dog walks, then trots, out. The first is less sure on her feet, the second seems almost normal, until Mooney points out that she would have run much faster from the crate and people had she not still been a bit dozy. The sisters stand together in a grassy area, point their noses in the air, move their satellite-dish ears and lie down under a thorn tree; it has been a long day.
Midway through Boyce Upholt’s mind-boggling dispatch, one of his sources sums up the central challenge of the Gulf Coast canid: “Why is there not just a simple explanation for what this thing is?” The “wolfy coyotes” of southeastern Texas hold genetic traces that may link them to red wolves, which were declared extinct in the wild in 1980. But a lack of data makes it challenging to define the species—or, for that matter, to determine whether a private company has cloned the red wolf or something else entirely. Upholt doesn’t deal in simple explanations; the pleasure, here, is in the complexity.
The concept of a “species” is less sturdy than your high school biology teacher might have led you to believe. The most familiar definition is that a species consists of animals that can produce fertile offspring. But that’s a rule various species of canids violate all the time; it’s long been clear that North America’s soup of Canis genes is something less like a family tree and more like a river—one that’s broken by islands and sandbars into many braided channels that split and merge and re-split.
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