21.04.2024

IÑAPARI, Peru — At the entrance to its sprawling tract of virgin Amazon rainforest, the Peruvian timber company Maderacre turns ancient hardwood trees into flooring on an industrial scale. Beside the vast, modern facility, a reddish dirt road leads into the jungle where workers harvest wood that takes centuries to mature. As it systematically removes the oldest trees from this stunning .. Read more

23.06.2023

Nelita Campos, an Iskonawa woman in Ucayali, Peru, is the last lucid speaker of the Iskonawa language. (Florence Goupil for The Washington Post) CALLERÍA, Peru — It’s a ritual that Roberto Zariquiey and Nelita Campos have engaged in for more than a decade. The odd couple — Zariquiey, a university linguist conducting postdoctoral research at Harvard; Campos, the last lucid speaker .. Read more

11.04.2025

Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s case against a German energy company could lead to a raft of cases against polluters Credit: Angela Ponce Lake Palcacocha, Peru – Saúl Luciano Lliuya shudders as he looks up at the endless slabs of ice crushed haphazardly atop each other, towering majestically into the clouds. Clinging to the flanks of Mount Palcaraju, the glacier has, like most in .. Read more

28.03.2012

The cluster of shirtless, tattooed inmates in the prison courtyard make no effort to hide the joint as a policeman wanders by. Instead, one turns up the volume on the salsa booming out of a portable stereo. Unconcerned by the clouds of cannabis smoke billowing from the group, the officer does not miss a beat as he carries on patrolling .. Read more

01.06.2024

The crashing blows from the giant piledriver reverberate above the jungle canopy, scaring away jaguars, spider monkeys, and other wildlife. Beneath the forest floor, in a partially submerged cavern – part of the extensive but fragile system of aquifers on which the arid Yucatan peninsula relies for water – the noise is muffled but now comes from directly overhead. Rust .. Read more

04.08.2011

As the bull twists and bucks, the frightened condor strapped to its back helplessly flaps its huge wings, almost dwarfing the enraged animal. To a chorus of battered horns, a villager with a tattered cape steps into the dusty square. Chicha, the fermented maize juice that is the preferred tipple of many Andeans, has been flowing for hours and the .. Read more