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Serious labour rights violations have taken place at Brazilian farms linked to some of the largest international coffee certification systems, including Rainforest Alliance and UTZ, according to an investigation by Repórter Brasil. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, with about one-third of all coffee consumed planted in the country. These violations include workers' pay packets being falsely docked resulting in some receiving less than half Brazil's minimum wage, and workers being hired informally and without mandatory medical tests. One farm even promoted its output with a Fairtrade certificate it was not entitled to use.

Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.

Illegal logging in Brazil poses a serious problem for businesses producing legal wood products.

A Brazilian Senate Commission is quickly, and surreptitiously, moving forward a constitutional amendment (PEC 65) that would end the need for environmental assessment approvals for public works projects in Brazil ranging from Amazon dams to roads and canals, and oil infrastructure.

Just 15% of the environmental claims made by consumer brands in Brazil are confirmed by third-party certification, according to Brazilian research company Market Analysis. The number of products making sustainability claims has increased almost sixfold since 2010, the company's researchers found

The Brazilian government has ratified its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change, a significant step by Latin America's largest emitter of greenhouse gases that could spur other countries to follow suit.

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest jumped 29 percent over last year, representing a sharp increase over the historically low deforestation rate seen just five years ago and the highest level recorded in the region since 2008, reports the Brazilian government. The numbers, released by Brazil's National Space Research Institute INPE on Monday, show that 7,989 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed between August 2015 and July 2016. The loss is equivalent to an area 135 times the size of Manhattan or the combined land mass of the American states of Connecticut and Delaware.

Demand for soy and other crops grown in Bolivia and Brazil may be contributing to a rise in deforestation in the Amazon basin. In Bolivia, for example, estimates are that 865,000 acres of land have been deforested annually since 2011, up from 667,000 acres a year during the previous decade.

Millions of "invisible environmentalists" sift through trash for recyclable material. A rapidly growing program now provides them a living wage. 

Late last year, devastating fires engulfed 2 million hectares of land in Indonesia, impacting the health of 43 million people and emitting as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Brazil does in a year. They were driven by years of rampant, unregulated deforestation, chiefly for the expansion of paper pulp and oil palm plantations. Through global supply chains, we are all connected to Indonesia's fires and to the deforestation that led to them. It's easy to say we need to stop deforestation, but this is nearly impossible without adequate information. 

Brazil's conservative National Congress has rushed to pass a wave of legislative initiatives, which taken all together, would dismantle much of the nation's body of law protecting the environment and indigenous people - an effort likely to escalate in 2017. The latest attempt occurred last week, just before the parliamentary recess. The agricultural lobby unexpectedly put forward three bills, known as Decretos Legislativos (PDCs), which are laws promulgated by the President of the Senate over which the country's President does not have the right of veto. If eventually passed, as seems likely, the bills will allow industrial waterways (requiring many dozens of new dams) to be built without the proper assessment of environmental and social impacts. The waterways would be used by agribusiness as a cheap means of exporting soy and other commodities.

PepsiCo has announced it will restore and protect a handful of watersheds in Latin American countries in which it operates, including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala. The company announced plans to "replenish" all the water used during manufacturing in high water risk areas by returning it to the watershed from which it was taken.

Fazenda da Toca, a private enterprise in São Paulo, is demonstrating the viability of large scale organic farming and agroforestry, including on land with highly degraded soils. Toca could effectively end the myth that agroforestry is not viable at a large scale, that it's too expensive and too labor intensive to be attractive to the private sector.

Next year's World Cup in Brazil will cause the emission of 2.72 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to a FIFA report -- nearly twice as much as the 2010 tournament. The organization plans to offset all of the emissions it causes directly, plus a portion of the emissions caused by fans' flights to the games

By teaming up with The Nature Conservancy, this leading agricultural company has helped to mitigate deforestation in Brazil

Soccer merchandise produced by adidas, Nike and Puma ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil has been found to contain hazardous chemicals, according to an investigation by Greenpeace Germany.

A soy moratorium imposed by a private sector alliance has been more effective at stopping deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon than government regulation

This year's World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report lists water as the number one risk in terms of impact. The impact of water can already be seen and felt across different parts of society, especially recent droughts in the western United States and Brazil, which have made international headlines, and are evidence of an underlying problem.

Two counties and a city in California have filed separate Superior Court lawsuits against 37 oil and coal companies seeking damages related to fossil fuel development, which the communities allege has resulted in climate-related problems in their areas. Their lawsuits are "a first-of-its-kind challenge that some liken to the high-stakes litigation of the tobacco industry in the 1990s," writes Kurtis Alexander.

British shoppers could be unknowingly buying wooden furniture, flooring and even food items that are byproducts of destructive illegal logging in the Amazon, environmental campaigners are warning. Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to make companies reveal the source of their products in order to stop the black market trade. Last week human rights watchdog Global Witness revealed that 185 environmental activists were killed in 2015, many of whom had been trying to stop illegal logging in the Amazon. An estimated 80% of Brazilian hardwood is illegally logged.