CONSERVATION NEWS

For years, two communities in southeast Colombia have worked to protect the black caiman — the largest predator in the Amazon River basin, which was hunted to near extinction in the area for its highly-prized skin.

Years ahead of schedule, Bolivia has met an ambitious goal to protect 30 percent of its land — and that's thanks in large part to Amazonian towns and villages that are accelerating the pace and scale of conservation in the country.

When U.S. President Joseph Biden meets with Brazil’s newly elected president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in Washington this week, climate change and the fate of the Amazon will be one of the many items of discussion, according to news reports.

A bold initiative to regrow 73 million trees in the Brazilian Amazon has made substantial progress despite some unexpected hurdles, according to an upcoming report.

In case you missed it: The Amazon is the ecological jewel of the world, home to nearly 400 billion trees and 10,000 species at risk of extinction. It’s also the world’s largest terrestrial carbon sink. Yet a new report shows those climate benefits are not uniformly distributed.