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Victor Moriyama

Police officers at Atalaia do Norte on the Javari River investigate the disappearance of Phillips and Pereira after appeals from around the world prompted Brazilian authorities to intensify search efforts.

Southeast Coast, Brazil • Six months after Australia’s mangrove die-off in 2015, the same El Niño caused a storm that hit mangroves in the estuary of the Piraquê-Mirím River. Drought had stressed the trees, partly by boosting the water’s salinity. Hail and wind killed nearly a third of them. Globally, the main threat to mangroves—clearing for timber or farming—has declined. But climate change is a rising concern.

Workers on a former eucalyptus plantation are transforming it into a native forest on an experimental farm run by the University of São Paulo. Anderson da Silva Lima and Eder Araujo plant seedlings of Rapanea trees, a species prevalent in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

The Amazon River delta is a biodiversity hotspot—a destination for migratory birds from North America and home to the most extensive coastal mangrove belt on the planet.

Near Altamira in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, a large swath of forest has been burned (black area at left) to clear it for cattle pasture. The white area next to it is an abandoned gold mine, and to the right of that lies a cattle ranch. Mining and ranching are both significant sources of deforestation and pollution in the Amazon.

At its delta in the Brazilian states of Pará and Amapá, the Amazon River delivers 20 percent of the world's river water to the sea.

Gravediggers bury someone who died from the coronavirus at Vila Formosa Cemetery in São Paulo, Brazil, on July 7, 2020.

Burying a victim of the coronavirus, at Vila Formosa cemetery in São Paulo, Brazil, Tuesday, April 7, 2020.