RIO DE JANEIRO—The world’s forests are increasingly threatened, and the main thing keeping some of them alive is people who stand up to those who want to clear the land. Many of them are indigenous people.
Today I want to explain why life is becoming increasingly dangerous for foresters and other environmental activists.
At least 1,733 people have died protecting the environment in the past decade, according to the report. Reported by Global Witness, environmental groups. No region is more dangerous than Latin America. More than two-thirds of his deaths recorded by Global Witness occur in the region. Brazil, where I write this, tops the list. Most of the killings of Brazilian activists occurred in the Amazon rainforest.
Latin America is the world’s most violent place In general, it is mainly due to the drug trade. What scares many of the Brazilian activists and law enforcement officers I’ve spoken to in recent months is the fact that drug cartels are becoming more involved in environmental crime.
One of the main reasons is that Amazon has become an important drug route in recent years. (here map.) The cartels running these routes are professional, heavily armed and extremely violent.
The areas they need to control for these routes to work overlap with areas where illegal logging, mining, land grabbing and other environmental crimes are prevalent.Officials say they believe there is a conflict of interest An alliance between these different criminal groups.
Another factor is that there is little risk for cartels in engaging in environmental crime. As a federal police officer here explained to me months ago, the cost of looting nature is low: in Brazil, trafficking cocaine can get him up to 15 years in prison. Illegal gold mining can give you gold.
Beto Malbo, leader and organizer of the Javari Valley Indigenous Community, said he saw just that. “Today, organized gangs that were not involved in environmental crime are starting it,” he told me. “If there is an opportunity to earn more, why is it?”
It was near his property near the Brazilian-Peruvian border that journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were murdered this year.
This pattern has been repeated throughout the region. As my colleague Nick Casey has shown, illegally mined river-polluting gold is an important source of income for organized crime in Colombia. My colleague Katrin Einhorn also discovered that organized crime is linked to illegal fishing that threatens to wipe out Mexico’s porpoises.
In theory, there is an international agreement to fight this kind of crime. escazu agreement, the first environmental treaty in Latin America. Governments that signed the agreement commit to prevent and investigate attacks on environmental defenders.
It came into force in April last year. But some of the deadliest countries for activists, such as Colombia and Brazil, have yet to join.
By doing so, you can give a boost to environmental advocates. Many of them I have interviewed over the years are scared because they have no one to turn to. They surrender their safety and sanity to report the destruction they see to prosecutors and the police. Most of the time nothing happens.
For example, last year I interviewed a rubber extractor who was threatened by land grabbers who wanted him to leave his home in the Amazon rainforest. He has reported the threats to multiple law enforcement agencies and journalists, but no one has yet been held accountable.
When Dom died, many of my journalist friends who covered for Amazon said it was proof. battle with nature.
It made me think about how much the world resembles the so-called war on drugs that has been waged for decades. must be counted.
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Before You Go: A Show About the Climate That’s Not Scary
There are few books, TV shows, or other tools to help parents and teachers talk to preschoolers about climate change. “Octonauts: Above and Beyond” is one of his first attempts. This program tries to strike a delicate balance. So gently showing the 3-year-old and her 4-year-old, without scaring them, that the world is already changing.
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Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. View past newsletters here.
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