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Tiffany M. Higgins

@tiffanymhiggins

Independent journalist covering the Brazilian Amazon. @Noosphere.app contributor. muckrack.com/tiffany-higgins/portfolio

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17.09.2024
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Latest posts by Tiffany M. Higgins @tiffanymhiggins

My reporting for @mongabay.com

04.03.2026 00:18 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Indigenous board ship near Cargill port; police respond On Feb. 19, Indigenous protesters boarded a ship near Cargill’s grain port in Santarém, hanging banners saying “The Tapajós River isn’t merchandise” and demanding repeal of a decree privatizing three ...

Indigenous protesters boarded a ship near Cargill’s grain port, hanging banners saying “The Tapajós River isn’t merchandise” & demanding repeal of a decree privatizing three Amazon rivers. Police ordered them away from an “area of international security" My report www.noosphere.app/untitled-113...

20.02.2026 14:58 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
"Shipping channels will cause deforestation." Auricélia Arapiuns (Part 2) Auricelia Arapiuns says “a series of destructive projects” — shipping channels, railways, ports, mining — threaten traditional peoples in the Amazon. The government narrative of shipping channels redu...

My video interview of Auricélia Arapiuns in Santarem for @noosphere.app - Part 2 of our interview
www.noosphere.app/auricelia-ar...

19.02.2026 00:28 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Noosphere App on Instagram: "In Belém, Pará, Brazil, protestors have taken to the streets after a bill advanced that could reduce the prison time of former president Jair Bolsonaro. In her latest rep... In the latest development in Brazil, protests are erupting in Belém as a bill that could reduce the prison term of former president Jair Bolsonaro gains traction. We spoke with Israel Esteban, a geogr...

My video reporting from the Amazon on a new bill that would reduce the prison term of former president Jair Bolsonaro. I went to a demonstration in #Belém and talked with a history professor about what's at stake for democracy. www.instagram.com/p/DSYRLHCCdAA/

18.12.2025 23:25 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

My video reporting from the Amazon for @noosphere.app

18.12.2025 23:20 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Fire Breaks Out as Climate Deals Burn in COP Climate Conference’s Final Hours Get news direct from reporters you trust.

An honor to have been in #Belem for the COP30 climate conference. My article for @noosphere.app describes how fire literally broke out in the COP halls. Then, fires in the COP agreements broke out, too. Video by young communicator Caed Alves #COP30 www.noosphere.app/untitled-89/

24.11.2025 19:35 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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‘We thought Lula would protect the Amazon. Now he’s approved oil drilling’ As Brazil hosts Cop30, indigenous territory untouched even by the environmental ‘criminal’ Jair Bolsonaro has been opened up to oil by his left-wing successor

Appreciated the chance to work with Steve Gibbs on this piece. We talked with Indigenous & traditional river communities about how they're feeling about COP30 while oil drilling & new shipping channels are being approved, set to harm Amazonian communities, they say. www.thetimes.com/world/latin-...

31.10.2025 23:33 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you so much for putting the word out to editors that I'm available, Jake!

29.10.2025 18:40 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Andy, thanks so much for posting my message!

29.10.2025 14:47 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I’m a bilingual US journalist based in Belém with years of experience reporting from the Amazon region. I hope to connect w/ editors for COP30 coverage. I speak Portuguese fluently, have widespread Amazon contacts w// experts & traditional communities' voices. Feel free to fwd
@revkin.bsky.social

27.10.2025 19:10 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 2

My article for Climate Home News, edited by the excellent Megan Rowling

19.09.2025 13:07 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

In Para state, more than 61,000 quilombolas live in municipalities where the hidrovia would pass apenas no trecho do Baixo Tocantins River. The majority of these were classified as “not in the direct impact area” in government studies -- which thus did not evaluate how they might be impacted.

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

That is part of the judge’s evaluation of a current public interest lawsuit of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office that seeks to overturn the license as illegal.

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

In September, a judge will conduct a judicial inspection to visit the communities of the Pedral do Lourenção. The license to explode the Pedral is temporarily suspended until that judicial visit.

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Federal prosecutors affirm that the whole waterway project has to undergo the licensing process. They say that blowing up a first section before evaluating all the impacts on communities and ecosystems is illegal.

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

That was part of a judicial decision that opened a pathway for a May 2025 license to blow up the ecologically sensitive Pedral do Lourenção, a first step in building an industrial shipping channel on the Tocantins River.

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I asked Pontes about a judge’s February 2025 statement that there are no traditional communities who live on the Lourenção Rocks. #hidroviaaraguaiatocantins #hidrovias #riotocantins

04.09.2025 22:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Login • Instagram Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

My interview with Federal Prosecutor Felício Pontes on the Tocantins River in the Brazilian Amazon. Brazil’s federal government has a license to blow up an ecologically sensitive stretch, the Lourenção Rocks, to turn the river into a shipping channel. www.instagram.com/reel/DOLWVWv...

04.09.2025 22:41 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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How climate change and deforestation interact in the transformation of the Amazon rainforest - Nature Communications In this study, the distinct impacts of deforestation and global climate change on the Brazilian Amazon are quantified for the period 1985-2020. Deforestation amplifies the temperature increase and dom...

Emerging evidence suggests that deforestation in the Amazon is already altering South American monsoon patterns, resulting in drier conditions that may compromise the long term resilience of the rainforest.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

03.09.2025 01:35 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

My reporting for Climate Home News

07.08.2025 21:29 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Justiça suspende licença para obras em pedral no Rio Tocantins, no Pará - ((o))eco Agências públicas estariam tentando evitar obrigações legais e reduzir o alcance das compensações socioambientais

Justiça suspende licença para obras em pedral no Rio Tocantins, no Pará ⬇️

Pedido havia sido feito pelo MPF, alegando que a permissão federal foi concedida sem cumprir condições legais e judiciais

26.06.2025 17:25 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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Justiça suspende licença para obras em pedral no Rio Tocantins, no Pará - ((o))eco Agências públicas estariam tentando evitar obrigações legais e reduzir o alcance das compensações socioambientais

Brazil plans to blow up a key Amazon biodiversity spot, the #LourençãoRocks. A judge just suspended the license until a complete ruling is made on federal prosecutors' suit to overturn the license. An August judge's visit to the rocks' impacted traditional communities was set. #hidrovia

27.06.2025 00:03 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Justiça suspende licença para obras em pedral no Rio Tocantins, no Pará - ((o))eco Agências públicas estariam tentando evitar obrigações legais e reduzir o alcance das compensações socioambientais

Brazil plans to blow up a key Amazon biodiversity spot, the #LourençãoRocks. A judge just suspended the license until a complete ruling is made on federal prosecutors' suit to overturn the license. An August judge's visit to the rocks' impacted traditional communities was set. #hidrovia

27.06.2025 00:03 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Pará's Amazon forest carbon deal in doubt as prosecutors move to block it The Brazilian state’s contract with foreign governments and companies has run into trouble over concerns it was premature and agreed without consulting Indigenous communities The Brazilian state’s con...

Journalist and current Sacatar Fellow Tiffany Higgins has published an article discussing the shortcomings of carbon credit policies in Pará and highlighting how traditional quilombola and indigenous communities are being sidelined in negotiations.

www.climatechangenews.com/2025/06/08/p...

16.06.2025 14:27 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
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Mighty Earth responds to JBS’ claim that it never promised to be Net Zero by 2040 - Mighty Earth Brazilian meat giant JBS has claimed that the company’s net-zero emissions pledge was “never a promise” and that it only has an “aspiration” to be Net Zero by 2040.

Brazilian meat giant JBS has claimed that the company's net-zero emissions pledge was "never a promise." These comments are a clumsy attempt to evade accountability and to wash its hands for its outsized impact on the planet. mightyearth.org/article/migh...

15.01.2025 18:03 👍 43 🔁 19 💬 2 📌 4
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Licenciamento da Hidrovia Tocantins-Araguaia está "repetindo os erros da Belo Monte", diz MPF - ((o... Em audiência pública, MPF afirma que licença prévia do empreendimento foi ilegal, pede desculpas às comunidades impactadas e cobra do DNIT e do Ibama a correção do processo

Licenciamento da Hidrovia Tocantins-Araguaia está “repetindo os erros da Belo Monte”, diz MPF ⬇️

Em audiência pública, MPF afirma que licença prévia do empreendimento foi ilegal, pede desculpas às comunidades impactadas e cobra do DNIT e do Ibama a correção do processo
oeco.org.br/reportagens/...

21.12.2023 14:57 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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MPF pede anulação de licença de obra que viabiliza hidrovia Tocantins-Araguaia - ((o))eco Órgão quer barrar explosão do Pedral do Lourenço, berço de espécies ameaçadas e afirma que não houve consulta pública prévia, livre e informada como determina a legislação

MPF pede anulação de licença de obra que viabiliza hidrovia Tocantins-Araguaia ⬇️

Órgão quer barrar explosão do Pedral do Lourenço, berço de espécies ameaçadas e afirma que não houve consulta pública prévia, livre e informada como determina a legislação
oeco.org.br/salada-verde...

20.08.2024 14:33 👍 10 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Blasting the Amazon: The Araguaia-Tocantins Shipping Channel’s Data Holes and Erasure of Traditional Peoples — Washington Brazil Office In the coming months, Brazil may begin blasting a river in the Amazon to create an industrial shipping channel. The Hidrovia Araguaia-Tocantins, largely unknown outside Brazil, could span over 3,000 k...

Absolutely insane environmental destruction about to commence in Brazil's northeast Amazon: dredging and dynamiting 500kms of the Araguaia-Tocantins rivers.
Why?
Shipping channels.
But there hasn't even been a feasibility study!!!
@naomiaklein.bsky.social

www.braziloffice.org/en/articles/...

17.03.2025 10:27 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Peoples of the Water: Saving a River and the Amazon From Industry | Atmos A project to industrialize a river in Brazil threatens to uproot the culture of quilombola communities—and destroy the Amazon.

Article by @tiffanymhiggins.bsky.social; more here

atmos.earth/afro-brazili...

news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

17.03.2025 10:30 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0