As Brazilians head to the polls to vote in a runoff election, Amazon deforestation is also on the ballot. New data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) find that incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presided over the lowest deforestation levels ever recorded in both the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna. Between August 2025 and July 2026, deforestation fell to 3,335 square kilometers (1,288 square miles), registering a drop of nearly 42% from the previous year and the lowest rate of deforestation since satellite monitoring began in 1988. “In 2021, deforestation peaked under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to its highest level since 2008. More than 13,200 km2 (5,097 mi2) of forest was cleared — nearly four times the 2025-26 figure. “Without a doubt, what we are seeing is very positive,” University of São Paulo climate scientist Carlos Nobre told Mongabay in an audio message. “I am also sure that this is the lowest deforestation in the Amazon’s history since the military dictatorship began heavily deforesting the Amazon in the mid-1970s.” Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1964 till 1985. The nation did not keep year-on-year deforestation data during that period, but INPE estimates suggest an average of 21,130 km2 (8,158 mi2) of forest were cleared every year between 1978 and 1988. The Cerrado, a tropical savanna and one of Brazil’s main agricultural regions, also recorded its lowest deforestation level last year since monitoring began for that biome in 2001. Between August 2025 and July 2026,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Greenland’s parliament has asked the government to pause licensing on seabed mining amid concerns about foreign interests in mining and potential environmental consequences for marine life. The Oct. 15 measure directed the government, called Naalakkersuisut, to present a law to the parliament, called Inatsisartut, in early 2027 to suspend seabed mining until at least 2029. “This is a decision to decide. An important one, and not the same thing as protection,” Jenseeraq Poulsen, executive director of Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, an environmental nonprofit, told Mongabay by email. Of the Greenlandic parliament’s 31 members, 17 were present, and all voted in favor of the proposal across party lines. On Oct. 14, a day before the vote, U.S. President Donald Trump said that “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration was getting ready to begin in Greenland, a statement at odds with the recent decision from Greenland’s parliament. “On a question that has divided this parliament before, and in a month when there is considerable external interest in Greenland’s minerals, Inatsisartut spoke with one voice,” Poulsen said. “Every member present voted for it.” The resolution was first proposed in February 2026 by Pipaluk Lynge, a representative of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party. In the original proposal, she stated concerns over endangering Greenland’s marine environment due to other countries’ interest in deep-sea mining, and potential impacts on game animals and fishing. According to the 2026 report from Greenland’s national statistics organization, more than 90% of Greenland’s exports come from the fishing industry. According to a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Every year, Amazonian rivers spill over their banks and flood the forests around them for months. These wetlands cover around 30% of the Brazilian Amazon and are often home to riverine families, who live in adapted homes built on stilts. They fish and plant crops with the natural ebb and flow of the rivers. But a new study has found that more than 6% of the total area of Amazon floodplain forests and other wetland areas has been cleared over the last 40 years. Nearly a third of that destruction occurred between 2015 and 2024. “When we think about 6%, we may get the impression that it’s small, but the converted area is basically the size of Belgium,” lead author Guilherme Lobo, a researcher at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, told Mongabay by phone. Researchers compared wetland clearing across 13 types of land designations and found huge differences. Public land not yet assigned by the government to any specific use had the largest share of human-converted wetland: a median of nearly 14% had been deforested. According to Lobo, people burn these lands to show they’re in use, hoping to claim a land title later. According to a 2026 study by Imazon, a Brazil-based research institute, federal and state land laws create incentives for such land-grabbing practices, locally called grilagem. Undesignated public land is routinely granted to the people who clear it, with deforestation used as proof of the productive use of the land to justify the land title…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Fishers have caught at least 440 invasive lionfish off the coast of Porto Seguro in northeastern Brazil in recent weeks. The local government paid fishers to harvest the fish in an attempt to curb the rapid spread of a species that can decimate native fish stocks, Mariana Martins writes for Mongabay Brasil. Lionfish (Pterois volitans), which are native to the Indo-Pacific and Red Sea, have no natural predators along Brazil’s coastline and are preying upon the young of local species. The fish have already damaged coral reef ecosystems in the North Atlantic, including the Caribbean. Now they have also reportedly reached the Abrolhos reefs, the largest and richest reef system in the South Atlantic. “By preying on juveniles of commercially exploited species, there is a depletion of fish populations,” Carlos Hackradt, biologist and coordinator of the Marine Ecology and Conservation Laboratory at the Federal University of Southern Bahia, told Martins. “This brings serious consequences for the ecosystem, affects the fishing economy and harms tourism on degraded reefs.” Abrolhos is home to mushroom-shaped coral structures, locally known as chapeirões, and supports at least 90 coral and 266 fish species, including the goliath grouper (Epinephelus itajara) and blue parrotfish (Scarus coeruleus), which are nationally listed as critically endangered and endangered, respectively. Abrolhos is also the main breeding and nursing ground for humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Western South Atlantic. While the presence of lionfish there has been confirmed, their extent has not yet been measured. “It has only just happened,” Hackradt…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Seven of Brazil’s nine Amazonian states are set to be governed by politicians aligned with far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, Karla Mendes and Lucas Berti reported for Mongabay Brasil. On Oct. 25, Brazil will have an electoral face-off between the top two candidates for several races that were not able to secure more than 50% of the vote in the first round of the elections. The second round election includes the decision for president, where incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is up against Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro who is barred from public office after being convicted of planning a coup d’état in 2022. The second vote will also define many of the state governments in the Brazilian Amazon. In the first round on Oct. 4, five candidates won a clear majority and have already been elected. Mato Grosso, an agricultural state in the southwest of the Brazilian Amazon, elected agribusinessman Otaviano Pivetta, aligned with the right-wing party Republicanos. Pará elected Daniel Santos, known as Dr. Daniel, with the Podemos party. He has promised to designate Vinícius Borba to lead the environment department. Borba is a lawyer who gained notoriety for representing farmers illegally raising cattle on Indigenous land. In Roraima, Brazil’s northernmost state that borders Venezuela and Guyana, nearly 70% of voters elected Arthur Henrique, affiliated with Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party. He previously served as the popular mayor of the state’s capital city, Boa Vista. He supports legalizing mining in Indigenous territories.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Iranian spider-tailed horned viper, a rare snake endemic to western Iran, hunts by holding its body completely still while twitching its tail. Its body camouflages among the rocks of its semi-arid Zagros Mountains habitat, but its bulbous tail with accompanying leg-like scales looks remarkably like a large chunky spider. The snake, Pseudocerastes urarachnoides, uses its spider tail to lure unsuspecting mammals and birds to their last meal. Scans of a specimen collected in 1968 and kept in the Field Museum of Natural History in Illinois, United States, now reveal what the lure is made of. “The tip actually consists of enlarged, elongated and modified scales, which are unique among all living reptiles,” lead author Georgios Georgalis, an associate professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals in Kraków, Poland, told Mongabay by email. The scanned P. urarachnoides specimen. Image © Georgalis et al. (2026). Vipers have attracted the interest of researchers for centuries, Georgalis said, but knowledge of the group’s morphology is still limited. Scientists described P. urarachnoides for science in 2006, but only this year did they publish a high-resolution 3D scan to see the mechanism inside the snake’s tail as part of a scientific study. The tail filaments, the authors said, loosely resemble those found on some ornithodiran archosaurs and other forms from the Triassic and Jurassic periods. This doesn’t mean that they are related, it’s more likely a case of convergent evolution: similar environmental demands pushing the evolutionary development of similar characteristics.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Oil slicks from vessels and offshore oil operations repeatedly drifted into marine protected areas around the world between 2022 and 2025, a new analysis has found. The report raises concerns for important habitats for a variety of marine life, including whales, dolphins, and sea turtles. Researchers from SkyTruth, a U.S.-based nonprofit that tracks oil pollution using satellite imagery, detected dozens of slicks covering hundreds of square kilometers in protected waters globally. “We’re seeing persistent, repeated, chronic oil pollution in many parts of the ocean from shipping and offshore oil and gas operations,” SkyTruth CEO John Amos told Mongabay by phone. “Wind and current blow them around out in the ocean, so even if the pollution event that occurs is outside a marine protected area, that pollution could drift into the protected area.” Map by Emilie Languedoc/Mongabay. The worst oil pollution in an MPA was recorded along the Atlantic coast of the Republic of Congo’s Conkouati-Douli National Park. SkyTruth recorded 27 oil slicks covering 880 square kilometers (340 square miles) of the park’s waters. The slicks likely came from three offshore oil platforms located outside the marine park, according to the report. The area is home to sharks, rays, dolphins, whales, and manatees. Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles also nest there. In the Mediterranean Sea, roughly 417 km2 (161 mi2) of oil slicks covered sections of two important marine protected areas. Spain’s Mediterranean Cetacean Migration Corridor registered 45 slicks, all from vessels, the report notes. The…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Right-wing candidates made big gains in both houses of Congress in Brazil’s Oct. 4 general election. Brazil’s main Indigenous organization, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil APIB, told Mongabay that the result will drive new attempts to strip constitutional protections from Indigenous peoples. “Unfortunately, what we saw today is, let’s say, a bleak moment,” Dinamam Tuxá, an executive coordinator with APIB, told Mongabay in an audio message. “We did not expect this result.” The far-right Liberal Party, affiliated with presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, won 19 of the 54 Senate seats up for election, bringing its total seats to 28 of the chamber’s 81, or 35%, starting from 2027. This is nearly double its current number and the largest bloc in the house. Other right-wing parties, namely the Progressistas (PP), Republicanos and Novo, secured 8 seats, bringing their total representation to 15 seats. This gives the four parties a majority in the Senate. Center-right parties now occupy 9 seats, and centrist parties, 13. Left and center-left hold 15 seats. The Liberal Party consistently cast votes against Indigenous rights between 2019 and 2026, according to an analysis of Congress’s voting records by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic Church-affiliated advocacy organization. According to CIMI’s analysis, 95.9% of the party’s votes were against Indigenous rights. The other right-wing parties voted similarly: Republicanos at 90.5% and Progressistas (PP) at 85.6%. Novo cast anti-Indigenous votes 100% of the time. On Oct. 25, Flávio Bolsonaro will face off against incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In Brazil’s general election on Oct. 4, incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finished second to far-right Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was barred from public office after being convicted of planning a coup d’état. The two candidates will face each other in a second-round vote on Oct. 25 as neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote needed for a first-round victory. Flávio Bolsonaro won the majority of votes in eight of the 10 Amazon municipalities that cleared the most rainforest over the last decade, according to an analysis by Sumaúma, an Amazon-based publication. Sumaúma compared official results from the first-round votes with satellite deforestation data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency coincided with a historic spike in deforestation. Lula took office in 2023. Starting in August 2025, Amazon deforestation fell to the lowest level in more than a decade. Novo Progresso in Pará state was the site of the 2019 “Day of Fire” when local residents, many Jair Bolsonaro supporters, purposely set hundreds of forest fires. Flávio Bolsonaro won 84% of the vote in Novo Progresso. In the municipality of Altamira, where the Lula administration blacklisted more than 500 farms for illegal deforestation last year, Flávio Bolsonaro won 63% of the vote. Nestled between Altamira and Novo Progresso is the site of the largest land grab in Brazilian Amazon history. Lula won the vote in two of the 10 most deforested municipalities. He won…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Oil slicks from ships and offshore oil platforms cover nearly 1.6 million square kilometers (618,000 square miles) of the ocean surface each year, an area slightly larger than the nation of Mongolia. The estimate comes from a recent report by Skytruth, a U.S.-based nonprofit that used satellite imagery, machine learning and vessel tracking data to trace global oil pollution in the oceans between 2023 and 2025. According to John Amos, CEO of Skytruth, this kind of pollution was largely invisible before satellite imagery made it possible to track. “Any vessel operator could be pretty confident that nobody was going to notice what they were doing out in the middle of the ocean,” Amos told Mongabay by phone. “So that’s changed. We can see it now.” Map courtesy of SkyTruth. Much of the vessel oil slicks come from bilge waste, a mix of oil and water that collects in the bottom of a ship’s hull during operation. Tankers sometimes also wash out their cargo holds and flush crude oil residue into the sea. “It’s nasty oily dirty gunk that you just want to get rid of,” Amos said. “And the easiest thing to do with it is just pump it out into the ocean while you’re at sea.” According to the report, most of these discharges are illegal under MARPOL, the international treaty on pollution from ships. A MARPOL treaty adopted in 1973 allows vessels to discharge bilge water containing no more than 15 parts of oil per million parts of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Renewable energy companies are driving most of Brazil’s plans for new data centers, according to a recent joint analysis by The Intercept Brasil and Mongabay. As of December 2025 there were 68 requests to connect data centers to Brazil’s national power grid with 65% registered by renewable energy companies, including wind and solar power plants, the investigation found. Brazil produces more renewable energy than it can distribute across its territory, and the national power grid cannot always absorb all the power generated by renewable energy plants. Doing so would cause disruptions in provision, and potentially even blackouts. To avoid this, the national grid operator frequently orders plants to halt production. In the first half of 2025 such measures cost power generators an estimated 3.2 billion reais ($617 million). One solar plant was forced to cut production by nearly 40% in 2025. Renewable energy companies argue that data centers, which constantly demand large amounts of energy, can provide more stability and income for the renewable energy sector. The Brazilian government has been actively seeking deals with big tech companies, advertising Brazil as an environmentally friendly host for data centers. On Sept. 15, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a law exempting data centers from several taxes on equipment purchases if they meet water efficiency criteria and use renewable or low-emission energy. In April 2026, Brazil’s foreign trade agency, Apex, organized a roundtable in the U.S. to attract foreign investment for sustainable data centers. “Renewable energy companies are able to sign…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Scientists have described a species of tiger cat that was previously unknown to science. From Bolivia’s Yungas cloud forests, it is the first discovery of a living novel cat species in more than 100 years. The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo) takes its species name from the name locals already had for it. Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic explorer who discovered the species and co-author of the Current Biology paper that describes it, said the name honors traditional knowledge in the region. The tilcayo is smaller than a domestic cat at 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds). It has rounded ears, a slender body and a coat with large spots. “I have the honor of naming a cat, and that’s a really big thing,” Nogales-Ascarrunz, who is also a researcher at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, told Mongabay by phone. Photo © Fernando Faciole/National Geographic. For decades, researchers lumped small spotted cats across South America under a single species name: Leopardus tigrinus or tiger cat. However, evidence had been mounting for years that the group might contain several species. In the article published on Sept. 17, researchers unwound the species’ genetic web and confirmed at least four distinct species. Many newly recognized small cat species result from this kind of taxonomic reshuffling:  Researchers find a subspecies is actually a distinct species; or two different species that had been lumped together are separated. But the tilcayo was different. Researchers knew a cat occurred in the Yungas cloud forests, but it…This article was originally published on Mongabay