Special Report

Concerted governmental policies to protect the forest have been few and far between.

Expanding the network of protected areas and better environmental-law enforcement can help to curb deforestation.

There are more life forms in Amazonia than anyplace else. But by the end of this century, there may be many fewer.

A road here and a cattle ranch there imperil more than the immediate vicinity.

As farming, ranching, and logging shrink the globe’s great rainforest, the planet heats up. A Prospect special report on the assaults on, and the efforts to protect, the Amazon.

Brazil’s forest dwellers, often its best stewards, are trying hard to make a living from the standing forest.

Imagine an infant born into poverty. this child is statistically at greater than normal risk for every bad social outcome in later life associated with early chronic trauma. As the infant grows into a toddler, the child is more likely to have poor cognitive and emotional skills; later on, to do poorly in school; to […]

Private enterprise produces employment, wages, and wealth, but our public structures are what facilitate the conduct of business, providing the framework necessary for markets to thrive. Key public systems also help protect people against the risks of a free-market economy and provide the infrastructure for economic opportunity such as public- and higher-education systems, tasks that […]

Social mobility, economic security, and self-reliance are at the heart of the American ideal. These widely shared goals can be the foundation for a new political consensus built around the cultivation of financial and human assets. At least two sources animate this new policy context. First, globalization is widening economic inequality and insecurity, for the […]

Victor and Eloise represent the new face of debt in America. Together, they’ve worked in a series of low-wage jobs that include stints at fast-food restaurants, small factories, and hotels. Technically, they are not poor according to the government’s official definition of “poverty,” but the economic vulnerability of the working poor and the near-poor are […]