Double Exposure
For centuries, the Quilombola people, descendants of escaped African slaves, have survived against insurmountable odds in the Amazon rainforest. Now industrial pollution and a pandemic are threatening their existence.
For centuries, the Quilombola people, descendants of escaped African slaves, have survived against insurmountable odds in the Amazon rainforest. Now industrial pollution and a pandemic are threatening their existence.
The state with the most forest cover in Brazil is home to a new arc of devastation, and two of the seven municipalities with the highest deforestation rates in the Amazon in 2020.
Mato Grosso is the epicenter of the pandemic in the Brazilian Amazon; in one community, 70 percent of the population has tested positive for COVID-19. Simultaneously, fires antagonize Indigenous lands.
Residents of the Middle Juruá Extractive Reserve worry that less rain could decimate livelihoods and leave them at risk of forest fires.
From the times of ancient Rome to the late 19th century, malaria was a deadly infection that no one knew how to cure, until chloroquine was discovered. Trump, Bolsonaro, and Maduro have defended its use against COVID-19, but scientific studies indicate that it is not effective.
On the banks of the Tapajós River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon, a development policy was implemented years ago to turn the region into an important world corridor for Brazilian soybeans. There lies American car mogul Henry Ford’s failed factory city.
A project called the "grain train," with its planned trajectory through the Brazilian Amazon, divides Indigenous groups and those who support rural development.
An ambitious infrastructure project in the Brazil is increasingly opposed the closer it gets to the heart of the Amazon—an area that has been defended by Indigenous communities for years.
The Brazilian city Sinop embodies the aspirations of a prosperous Amazonian agro-industry — especially now, with the prospect of a railroad that will help send exports to China.
Before it was outlawed, the Brazilian government federally isolated leprosy patients in remote colonies. Decades later, the children of these patients are calling for federal reparations.
The movement led by Chico Mendes in the 1980s has seen a resurgence in the face of government attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Soy and agriculture have helped a small city in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso prosper economically—to the point that the per capita income is 40% higher than the national average.
Gamella Indians of Maranhão reclaim their ancestral lands from the hands of landowners and regenerate Amazonian flora and fauna.
Rio de Janeiro's drug gangs are converting to evangelical Christianity. And in the favelas where they act as governments, their faith is becoming a kind of state religion.
A group of young ballerinas from one of the most violent favelas in Rio de Janeiro use dance to strive for a brighter future.
Tropical forests are tipping from carbon sink to source, threatening a crucial hedge against runaway climate change in the violent, corruption-stained Brazilian Amazon.
Brazil has put laws into place to serve the autistic community, but barriers exist that prevent legal rights from becoming a reality.
Brazil’s prison system is in crisis. The wives and mothers of inmates at Alcaçuz—some who live right next door to the maximum-security prison—are its unseen victims.
How Western and Brazilian agribusiness are planning to take over an entire region of Mozambique to produce commodity crops for export.
Though the Zika outbreak in Brazil has seemingly peaked, its aftermath will be felt by the thousands of families caring for and raising children with Zika-related complications and disabilities.
An unintended planet-wide experiment is underway–leading to warming temperatures and an acidifying ocean.
What happens when you send 20 University of Michigan students into Brazilian prisons to facilitate theater workshops? Join the Prison Creative Arts Project as they travel to Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
Brazil’s school feeding program feeds 45 million children. Besides fighting hunger, it is also changing kids’ understanding of food and nutrition, while supporting millions of local farmers.
Some of the world’s last isolated tribes are poised to make contact with the outside world as illegal loggers, miners, cocaine traffickers and others penetrate their territory.