Overview
- International Crisis Group, which released a new report Wednesday, says transnational crime now drives major Amazon destruction and warns the forest is nearing a tipping point.
- It identifies cocaine trafficking and illegal gold mining as the most damaging economies, pushed deeper into the forest by rising European cocaine demand, police pressure on old routes, and soaring gold prices.
- The report cites data that criminal bands operate in about 67% of Amazon municipalities across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
- Brazilian factions Comando Vermelho and Primeiro Comando da Capital have expanded across borders, entrenching control, imposing local rules and rough justice, and using brutal violence.
- Cocaine processing and mercury from illegal gold mining contaminate rivers and clear new forest, and the group urges governments to work with Indigenous communities and for global buyers to block criminally sourced gold and other raw materials.