SPANISH LOOKOUT, Belize — When the Mennonite community here purchased a property four years ago in the middle of the Maya Forest Corridor, a government-recognized stretch of land designed to connect forests in the region, conservation groups were concerned. Community members began clearing land before completing an environmental impact assessment, resulting in fires and pollution, according to one report. In addition, Mennonites beat a conservation coalition that had also wanted to purchase the land for the corridor. The battle for that piece of real estate is just one example of how Mennonites conduct business in Belize, and how those moves have led to extensive deforestation. The small Central American country, flanked by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, is about the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey, but its dense jungle is now much smaller than it once was. The nation lost around 20% of its forest cover between 2001 and 2025 — more than 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres), similar to the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Much of the deforestation in Belize has been tied to Mennonites, the conservative and largely insular Christian denomination that began migrating to Belize more than six decades ago, cutting down the rainforest to establish new colonies. While reports documenting Mennonites and deforestation are common, far less understood is the corporate machinery they’ve put in place for this expansion. Mongabay conducted extensive interviews and reviewed dozens of land records to better understand the way Mennonites became one of the most prolific land…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A legal complaint in Costa Rica has alleged that a banana plantation destroyed parts of a protected wetland in Bananito Sur, located in the Valle La Estrella district in the central province of Limón. Workers on the La Paz banana plantation, owned by Standard Fruit Company de Costa Rica, a subsidiary of Dole, cut down and burned vegetation inside an area listed on the country’s National Wetlands Registry, according to several complaints and a June 23 Supreme Court filing. In addition to environmental impacts, the dispute has raised questions about government transparency, with several agencies allegedly failing to provide information about what was happening in the area. “The government has to draw a line and say enough is enough, and stop the company. It hasn’t done that,” Marco Levy Virgo, president of the Association for the Development of Ecology, an environmental advocacy group, told Mongabay. Alleged destruction from the plantation. Image by Marco Levy Virgo. Banana plantations often require extensive pesticide use, as well as complex drainage systems with channels that transport water away from crops. Levy said he noticed damage related to that work at the start of the year. He submitted formal requests for information and technical data to the authorities, including the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE). In April, MINAE’s Caribbean Hydrological Unit, responsible for managing the country’s largest watersheds, published two reports describing an agricultural drainage channel passing through the wetland from the plantation, with cutting and burning running parallel to it. The cleared area measured between…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A mine that has been operating for decades in the Peruvian Andes continues to contaminate the soil, water and air for thousands of people living nearby, according to a lawsuit filed last month. The contamination has displaced farming and livestock, the lawsuit said, while causing cognitive issues in children, among other public health concerns. Companies working at the Cerro de Pasco mine, located in Peru’s central highlands, need to be held responsible for the pollution and public health issues that have affected more than 100,000 people, according to Cerro de Pasco Mayor Julio Rupay Malpartida and public prosecutor Darwin Alejandro Ramón Yalico, who filed the injunction petition on behalf of the municipality. “[The] environmental contamination is on such a scale that it’s present in every corner of the city,” the lawsuit said, “a consequence of the accumulation of heavy metals and toxic substances.” The area has been home to mining activity since at least the 16th century, when the Spanish discovered silver deposits during colonization. More recently, the private company Volcan Compañía Minera took over the mines in 2000 and has overseen underground and open pit operations to extract silver, copper, zinc and lead, among other metals. The lawsuit also lists Volcan subsidiaries Óxidos de Pasco, Empresa Administradora Cerro and Empresa Minera Paragsha as defendants. The Cerro de Pasco mine from above. Image courtesy of SkyTruth/Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Some of the operation is located in the center of the city, with a population of more than 74,000. As a result, particulate…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Colombia passed a landmark law June 4 aimed at improving traceability of its cattle supply chain to ensure beef isn’t sourced from deforested land. The law hopes to enhance existing traceability systems and make it easier to identify when cattle have grazed in protected areas and forests that were illegally cleared for pasture. “This is the most powerful tool for determining whether the meat people consume comes from deforested areas,” said representative Juan Carlos Losada, one of the law’s sponsors, in a post on X. About 54% of Colombia’s total land area is covered by forest, that’s roughly 60 million hectares (148 million acres). Deforestation has ebbed and flowed in recent years, declining in 2023, spiking in 2024 and then declining again in 2025. Cattle are always one of the main drivers. The country has over 29.7 million heads of cattle, according to last year’s estimates from the Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers. To better regulate the industry, lawmakers tried to pass traceability legislation in 2021 and 2022 but failed to move it through Congress. Another version took too long to reach a final debate in the senate, and expired in 2024. The effort began around the same time that the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was passed. Once implemented, the law will require that companies trading with the EU demonstrate their cattle and other commodities weren’t sourced from deforested land. The law allows officials to establish “high surveillance zones” in deforestation hotspots. It includes the ability to implement special…This article was originally published on Mongabay