NewzBOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon are taking their fight against illegal mining, drug trafficking and deforestation to a United Nations conference in Vienna starting Monday. More than a dozen Indigenous representatives from Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador are participating in the Oct. conference on transnational organized crime, known as COP13.
The leaders want governments to tackle the financial networks behind environmental crimes while giving Indigenous peoples a greater role in protecting their ancestral territories and shaping a proposed international agreement. Criminal networks threaten Indigenous territories Galois Flores, a representative of Peru’s Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, told The Associated Press that illegal gold mining, logging and drug trafficking are putting growing pressure on Indigenous communities. “Deforestation and pollution in the Amazon are no longer just environmental problems, but a crisis of transnational organized crime and security,” Flores said.
Mercury from gold mining is contaminating rivers used for fishing and drinking water, Flores said, while criminal networks have access to weapons, money and the ability to intimidate communities. In response, the Wampis have established two monitoring posts, each staffed by 14 Indigenous guards, to confront illegal mining. But those resisting criminal groups face threats and violence, Flores said.
Similar dangers confront the Kakataibo people in Peru’s central Amazon, where drug traffickers have established illegal coca plantations and processing laboratories in ancestral forests, according to Indigenous leaders. Marcelo Odicio, president of the Federation of Native Kakataibo Communities, said six Kakataibo leaders have been killed since 2020, while community representatives routinely face threats. Across the border in Brazil, Francisco Piyako Apiwtxa, an Ashaninka leader, described threats from illegal logging, drug trafficking and roads used to transport illicit goods.
In July, he said, at least five heavily armed, masked men entered an Ashaninka community, threatening families and searching for Indigenous leaders. Piyako said inadequate government protection has left Indigenous communities confronting criminal groups themselves. “Our territories, our homes, our waters, the future of our children are at stake,”…
conference on transnational organized crime, known as COP13.The leaders want governments to tackle the financial networks behind environmental crimes while giving Indigenous peoples a greater role in protecting their ancestral territories and shaping a proposed international agreement.Criminal networks threaten Indigenous territoriesGalois Flores, a representative of Peru’s Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, told The Associated Press that illegal gold mining, logging and drug trafficking are putting growing pressure on Indigenous communities.“Deforestation and pollution in the Amazon are no longer just environmental problems, but a crisis of transnational organized crime and security,” Flores said.Mercury from gold mining is contaminating rivers used for fishing and drinking water, Flores said, while criminal networks have access to weapons, money and the ability to intimidate communities.
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