Andre Cabette Fabio

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed into law a bill easing environmental licensing rules for projects that could accelerate deforestation in the world's largest tropical rainforest.

Dubbed the "devastation bill" by critics, the law dismantles environmental protections that have forestalled developing ecologically sensitive areas and required companies to avoid or compensate for projects' impact on nature.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed decrees recognising four Indigenous territories totalling 2.45 million hectares as part of efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest.

Coming near the end of the two-week U.N. COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem, the move aims to ensure Indigenous territories are legally protected from invasive farming, mining and logging.

As high temperatures and forest degradation fuel record-breaking wildfires, dozens of governments and organisations meeting at the COP30 climate summit have pledged to boost prevention efforts and funding to fight the stronger, more frequent blazes.

Government environment and forest agencies from Ecuador, Peru, Ghana and Kenya along with nearly three dozen environmental and Indigenous groups worldwide signed an agreement to secure $100 million in funding by 2030 to strengthen wildfire prevention and response.

With world leaders gathered in Brazil for the COP30 climate summit, the nation's farmers are taking the opportunity to make their case that they are not to blame for the much criticised deforestation that threatens the Amazon rainforest.

Hosting news conferences before a global audience, the contingent of soybean, grain and cattle farmers rails at trade barriers set up by the European Union to protect the Amazon and other vulnerable lands.

A dozen countries have pledged to formally recognise land rights across 80 million hectares where Indigenous, Afro-descendant and other communities live in tropical forests around the world by 2030 in a bid to stem global deforestation.

The Intergovernmental Land Tenure Pledge, billed as the first global commitment recognising land tenure to secure additional land under Indigenous communities' control, was announced on Friday ahead of the U.N. COP30 climate summit that kicked off Monday.

Countries around the world are set to contribute $5.6 billion in long-term loans to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), a multilateral fund proposed by Brazil to support global forest conservation.

The announcement was made by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at a leaders' summit on Thursday, ahead of the U.N. COP30 climate summit next week when world leaders will meet in Brazil's Amazonian city of Belem.

As Brazil hosts COP30, the climate commitments of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will come under scrutiny, as he has sought to position the country as an environmental champion yet is advancing development projects in the Amazon rainforest.

World leaders, with the glaring exception of U.S. President Donald Trump, are set to gather in Brazil's Amazon rainforest city of Belém for the U.N. COP30 climate summit from November 10-21.

Under Brazil's Amazon rainforest canopy, hundreds of transparent plastic panels hang between tree trunks to starve a hectare of land of half the water it normally receives.

Scientists are creating this artificial drought in Querencia municipality close to the southeastern edge of the world's largest rainforest to better understand the limits of the Amazon's resistance to extreme dry conditions that are predicted by climate change models.

At the mouth of the Amazon River, Brazil's most promising oil frontier is at the centre of a dispute between environmentalists and South America's largest company.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is pressuring the government's environment agency Ibama to drop its objections to allowing state-controlled oil energy Petrobras to drill for oil in the Equatorial Margin region, off the northeast coast.

The deep timbre of bamboo flutes emerges from within a darkened Indigenous communal house in the Amazon rainforest, followed by dancers in body paint and musicians rhythmically stomping their feet under the scorching afternoon sun.

Variations of this scene have played out for generations in the Kalapalo people's Tanguro village in Brazil's Xingu Indigenous Park.