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topic: Organized Crime
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A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.
- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.
- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.
Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.
- In Itaituba, the hub of the Amazon illegal gold trade, taxes from gold sales fell by more than 90% in just the first quarter of this year.
- Experts attribute this drop to police raids on illegal mining operations and on requirements for sellers to issue electronic invoices.
- But they warn the illegal gold still persists, shifting to unofficial channels to evade the eye of regulators.
Cambodian official acquitted in trial that exposed monkey-laundering scheme
- A U.S. court has acquitted a senior Cambodian official accused of involvement in smuggling wild-caught and endangered monkeys into the U.S. for biomedical research.
- Kry Masphal was arrested in November 2022 and has been detained in the U.S. since then, but is now free to return to his job as director of the Cambodian Forestry Administration’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity.
- Evidence presented at his trial in Miami included a video of him appearing to acknowledge that long-tailed macaques collected by Cambodian exporter Vanny Bio Research were in fact being smuggled.
- The Cambodian government has welcomed news of the acquittal, while animal rights group PETA says that despite the ruling, “the evidence showed that countless monkeys were abducted from their forest homes and laundered with dirty paperwork.”
Safety of Peru’s land defenders in question after killing of Indigenous leader in the Amazon
- Quinto Inuma was killed on November 29 while traveling to the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community in Peru’s Amazon following a meeting of environmental defenders.
- For years, the Indigenous Kichwa leader had been receiving threats for his work trying to stop invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging in his community, forcing him to rely on protection measures from the Ministry of Justice.
- After Inuma’s death, a group of 128 Indigenous communities released a statement appealing for justice and holding the Peruvian state reponsible for its inaction and ineffectivtieness in protecting the lives of human rights defenders in Indigenous territories. Several other Indigenous leaders who receive threats have requested protection measures from the state but have not gotten a response.
- According to an official in the Ministry of Justice, providing the Kichwa leader with protection measures was very complex because he lived in a high-risk area. The only thing that could be done, they said, is to provide permanent police protection, which wasn’t possible for the local police.
End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara
- Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo for a documentary film nine months before his death, returned to Arariboia in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
- “If those invaders had managed to kill us both, me and Paulo, they were going to hide us in the forest. Who would find us? Nobody was ever going to find me or Paulo again in a forest of that size,” Laércio says of his will to warn the guardians about Paulo’s murder, even as he suffered four gunshot wounds.
- Justice may soon be on the horizon for the Guajajara people: Paulo’s case will be the first killing of an Indigenous defender that will go before a federal jury, likely in the first half of 2024, after a court in late October denied a motion by those accused to try the case in state court.
‘We won’t give up’: DRC’s Front Line Defenders award winner Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke
- Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke, Africa winner of the 2023 Front Line Defenders Award, is an environmental lawyer and community activist.
- He has spent 15 years working in defense of communities in and around Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Because of his activism in a region dominated by armed conflict and the illicit exploitation of natural resources, including gold and coltan, his life has been threatened on numerous occasions and he currently lives in exile.
- Defending the environment is becoming increasingly dangerous: Nearly half of the 194 human rights defenders killed in 2022 were environmental defenders.
How the U.S. financial system props up illegal logging and mining
- The U.S. has an estimated $466 billion in illicit funds floating around its economy, much of it from environmental crimes like illegal logging and mining sourced to Latin America.
- The FACT Coalition, a group advocating for a fair tax system in the U.S., recently made the case that more attention needs to be paid to “financial secrecy” in conservation circles fighting climate change, deforestation and pollution.
- Weak regulation of shell companies, financial institutions and the real estate market make it too easy for environmental criminal activity to hide illicit funds in the U.S., the coalition said.
No new mining operations on Yanomami land after raids and deaths
- The alerts of illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land have zeroed for the first time since 2020, according to satellite monitoring by the Brazilian Federal Police.
- Military operations continue in the region to drive out the last of the illegal miners and federal operations are also underway to remove criminal activity in the Karipuna and Munduruku Indigenous Territories.
- At least 15 people have been killed in the Yanomami land since April and evidence suggests one of South America’s most powerful mafias is operating in the region, putting the safety of federal agents and Indigenous people at risk.
- On June 14, the Brazilian Senate unanimously approved a set of solutions to tackle the Yanomami health disaster, which critics said focuses more on legalizing development in the region than on addressing the humanitarian crisis.
Warfare for wildlife: Q&A with Rosaleen Duffy
- Rosaleen Duffy is a professor of international politics at Sheffield University in the U.K. and a longtime critic of military and law enforcement tactics in the conservation world.
- In 2021, she published “Security and Conservation” with Yale Press, drawing on anonymous interviews with dozens of conservation practitioners, as well as funders, private military companies, government officials and the private sector.
- Duffy is currently the principal investigator for a U.K. government-funded project analyzing the links between the legal and illegal wildlife trade in European brown bears, European eels, and songbirds.
Landmark Nepal court ruling ends impunity for wealthy wildlife collectors
- Wildlife collectors in Nepal will have to declare their collections to the government, under a landmark ruling spurred by the perceived injustice of the country’s strict wildlife protection laws.
- The May 30 Supreme Court ruling caps a legal campaign by conservationist Kumar Paudel to hold to account wealthy Nepalis who openly display wildlife parts and trophies, even as members of local communities are persecuted for suspected poaching.
- Under the ruling, the government must issue a public notice calling on private collectors to declare their wildlife collections, and must then seize those made after 1973, the year the wildlife conservation act came into effect.
- Conservationists and human rights advocates have welcomed the ruling, but say “only time will tell if the government will take this court order seriously or not.”
A frontline view of the fight against illegal mining in Yanomami territory
- In the Brazilian Amazon, Yanomami Indigenous people have been suffering a health crisis aggravated over recent years by the dismantling of Indigenous health care support services and the illegal mining invasion.
- Since the start of operations against miners in February, Brazil’s environmental inspectors have been setting fire to gear used to support illegal mining activities, both inside and outside the Indigenous territory.
- “The Yanomami land is one of the most difficult areas in the country in which to conduct our operations,” said one inspector who spoke to Agência Pública.
Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy
- How does public land in the Brazilian Amazon, including chunks of protected areas and Indigenous territories, end up under private ownership?
- This investigation unveils the network of realtors and engineers who take advantage of Brazil’s disjointed land registration system to launder stolen land.
- Experts say the CAR land registry in particular, which was meant to prevent environmental crimes, has instead made land grabbing easier than ever.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
Indigenous leader assassinated amid conflict over oil that divided community
- In February, Eduardo Mendúa, an Indigenous leader representing opposition to oil operations in his community, was killed by hitmen after suffering from 12 gunshot wounds.
- Mongabay looks into Eduardo Mendúa’s life and the oil conflict against the Ecuadorian state-owned oil company Petroecuador EP that divided his community and escalated into his murder.
- David Q., a member of the community faction in favor of oil operations, has been charged with allegedly co-perpetrating the crime by transporting the assassins to the scene.
- The incident worsens the fragile relationship between the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE) and President Guillermo Lasso, with the former accusing the government and oil company of amplifying the community conflict.
‘Gold library’ helps Brazil crack down on Amazon’s illegal mining
- Launched in 2019, the Ouro Alvo program is creating a gold database with samples obtained from different parts of Brazil.
- The information is allowing the Federal Police to create a chemical fingerprint of each sample, which they can then use to cross-reference the origin of seized or suspicious gold.
- This strategy could be complemented with other methods, including physically tagging the gold and tracking transactions using blockchain.
- While technology can be a great ally to fight the illegal gold trade, experts say the country still needs stricter regulations governing the industry.
Can a new regional pact protect the Amazon from environmental crime? (commentary)
- Police, prosecutors, money-laundering experts and others convened last week in Brazil to tackle drug and environmental crimes like illegal mining and logging that are growing in scale across the Amazon.
- The group resolved to move law enforcement beyond occasional raids and periodic destruction of machinery used by organized crime syndicates and toward a concerted and pan-Amazonian push for local, regional and global cooperation on law enforcement.
- While acknowledging the increasing scale of these crimes, participants were optimistic: “We are living in a new moment to fight environmental crime and protect the Amazon,” said the newly appointed director for Amazon environmental crime with Brazil’s federal police, for example.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Colombia, Ecuador announce alert system to protect Indigenous Awá from armed groups
- Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a system designed to alert about risks of violence against residents who live near the border, many of whom are Awá Indigenous people.
- Since last August, thousands of Awá have been forcibly displaced or suffered threats, intimidation, torture or forced recruitment by organized crime groups participating in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
- Many Awá live in extremely biodiverse areas that serve as corridors to other parts of the Amazon. But they’ve struggled to protect their ancestral land.
The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon
- This is the story of how three individual landowners engineered the single-largest instance of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The clearing of 6,469 hectares (or 15,985 acres) of forest in the southern part of Pará state could earn them nearly $20 million in profit at current land prices.
- The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms, or plant grass and sell it for cattle ranching.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park suffering increasing mining deforestation: report
- Satellite imagery analyzed by NGO Amazon Conservation revealed that illegal mining operations in Yapacana National Park, located in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, are clearing protected forest much faster than previously thought.
- Over 750 hectares (1,870 acres) of deforestation took place between 2021 and 2022 in the mining area of the park.
- Although law enforcement carried out raids in the area last December, many experts believe the problem will persist amid government complacency.
Top 10 notable Indigenous stories of 2022
- This year was a historic one for many Indigenous communities around the world that marked many ‘firsts’ with successful land rights rulings, both on the global and national level.
- As Indigenous rights, roles and contributions in biodiversity conservation gain more attention, underreported and critical issues impacting Indigenous peoples were thrust into the spotlight this year.
- To end this impactful year, Mongabay rounds up its 10 most notable Indigenous news stories of 2022.
Podcast: Into the Wasteland, part 3: Buried in Europe’s recycling
- The European Commission estimates that the illegal handling of recycling and other wastes represents around 15-30% of the total EU waste trade, generating EUR 9.5 billion annually.
- Our team visits a facility in Poland that’s supposed to be handling U.K. recycling but finds it shuttered and infested with rats.
- We also speak with the ‘James Bond of waste trafficking’ who reveals that much recycling is being ‘laundered’ via the Netherlands and shipped on to countries where such resources are often dumped, not recycled.
- This is the final episode in Mongabay’s three-part, “true eco-crime” series, where investigative reporters trace England’s — and Europe’s — towering illegal waste problem.
Dalian Ocean Fishing, subject of Mongabay probe, now sanctioned by U.S.
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently announced sanctions on Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing while operating in distant waters.
- One sanctioned company, Dalian Ocean Fishing Co., Ltd. (DOF), was the subject of two Mongabay investigations: one uncovered widespread human rights abuses, and the other exposed extensive illegal shark-finning operations within the DOF fleet of longline fishing vessels.
- China, which operates the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet and has a long history of fisheries offenses, denounced the sanctions, saying that it is a “responsible fishing country.”
Podcast: Is waste crime ‘the new narcotics’ in the U.K.? Into the Wasteland, part 2
- The U.K.’s Environment Agency calls waste crime — where instead of delivering recycling or rubbish for proper disposal, companies simply dump it in the countryside — “the new narcotics” because it’s so easy to make money illegally.
- It’s estimated that one in every five U.K. waste companies operates in this manner, and the government seems powerless to stop it.
- In a three-part, “true eco-crime” series for Mongabay’s podcast, investigative journalists trace England’s towering illegal waste problem.
- On this second episode, a lawyer describes her year-long campaign to get the government to deal with a single illegal dump site, but they failed to act before it caught fire. We also speak with a former official at Interpol who shares that his agency also lacks the resources to tackle the problem.
Podcast: True eco-crime in the U.K., ‘Into the Wasteland’
- In a three-part, ‘true eco-crime’ series for Mongabay’s podcast, investigative journalists trace England’s towering illegal waste problem.
- The country is facing a mountain of waste problems, but ‘fly-tipping’ might not be one you’ve heard of: it’s the clandestine, illegal dumping of household and business waste, even dead animals, in the countryside.
- In a country that throws away more plastic per person than anywhere else in the world, fly-tipping has become a much more serious – and dangerous – problem lately, with the involvement of criminal elements seeking easy profit.
- On this episode, a mild-mannered English IT professional shares how he’s gone to great lengths — and has had to run for his life — for exposing the people behind the rubbishing of the country’s farms, fields, and public spaces.
‘It was a shark operation’: Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat
- Rusnata was one of more than 150 Indonesian deckhands repatriated from the various vessels operated by China’s Dalian Ocean Fishing in 2020.
- Previous reporting by Mongabay revealed widespread and systematic abuses suffered by workers across the DOF fleet, culminating in the deaths of at least seven Indonesian crew members.
- In a series of interviews with Mongabay, Rusnata described his own ordeal in detail, including confirming reports that DOF tuna-fishing vessels were deliberately going after sharks and finning the animals.
- He also describes a lack of care for the Indonesian workers by virtually everyone who knew of their plight, from the Indonesian agents who recruited them to port officials in China.
Report offers a road map to restore the rule of law in the Brazilian Amazon
- Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to supercharge many of the same policies that he employed in his first two terms to bring Amazon destruction rates down from their record highs, a new report says.
- The report, by a group of development, security and conservation think tanks, lists 92 proposals for Lula when he takes office at the start of 2023, centered around ending the culture of criminal impunity that flourished under the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro.
- Experts say the absence of law enforcement in the Amazon has strengthened a criminal ecosystem that profits from land grabbing, illegal logging, mining, and wildlife and drug trafficking.
- The Bolsonaro administration has encouraged this in large part by weakening environmental enforcement agencies and putting loyalists in their top posts.
Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
How Mitsubishi vacuumed up tuna from a rogue Chinese fishing fleet
- Last week, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark finning operation across the fleet of a major Chinese tuna fishing firm.
- The company, Dalian Ocean Fishing, mainly serves the Japanese market. Most of its tuna has gone to Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and its seafood trading arm, Toyo Reizo.
- While the general outlines of their partnership are well-documented, tracing specific tuna flows from individual fishing boats to Mitsubishi’s supply chain is impeded by the murky nature of the supply chain.
- Experts say this lack of transparency must be solved in order to prevent illegal fishing and labor abuses at sea.
‘There are solutions to these abuses’: Q&A with Steve Trent on how China can rein in illegal fishing
- Earlier this week, Mongabay published an article uncovering a massive illegal shark finning scheme across the fleet of one of China’s largest tuna companies, Dalian Ocean Fishing.
- China has the world’s biggest fishing fleet, but oversight of the sector is lax, with many countries’ boats routinely found to be engaging in illegal and destructive practices, especially in international waters.
- Mongabay spoke with Steve Trent, the head of the Environmental Justice Foundation, which has also investigated the fishing industry, about DOF’s shark finning scheme and how China can better monitor its vessels.
Exclusive: Shark finning rampant across Chinese tuna firm’s fleet
- Dalian Ocean Fishing used banned gear to deliberately catch and illegally cut the fins off of huge numbers of sharks in international waters, Mongabay has found.
- Just five of the company’s longline boats harvested roughly 5.1 metric tons of dried shark fin in the western Pacific Ocean in 2019. That equates to a larger estimated shark catch than what China reported for the nation’s entire longline fleet in the same time and place.
- The findings are based on dozens of interviews with men who worked throughout the company’s fleet of some 35 longline boats. A previous investigation by Mongabay and its partners uncovered widespread abuse of crew across the same firm’s vessels.
- Campaigners said Dalian Ocean Fishing’s newly uncovered practices were a “disaster” for shark conservation efforts.
The Fixers: Top U.S. flooring retailers linked to Brazilian firm probed for corruption
- New evidence uncovered by a yearlong investigation by Mongabay and Earthsight reveals the corrupt deals made by Brazil’s largest flooring exporter, Indusparquet, and its suppliers.
- The company was charged in two corruption lawsuits in Brazil over its use of public officials to gain access to timber supplies. Mongabay and Earthsight gained access to dozens of hours of wiretaps and video footage, along with thousands of pages of court records, revealing how the alleged bribery schemes were carried out.
- One of the court cases showed the company used a local official to secure the supply of bracatinga, a tree species native to the Atlantic Forest, for an unnamed “U.S. client.”
- We also found indications that the American client was Floor & Decor, America’s largest flooring retail chain, which was previously involved in illegal timber scandals with Indusparquet, while LL Flooring, fined for breaching the Lacey Act in 2013 over its illegal timber exports, is also an Indusparquet client.
Indigenous Brazilians demand justice as 4 killed in escalating violence
- Two Indigenous Guajajara men were killed on Sept. 3 in Brazil’s Maranhão state and a 14-year-old Guajajara boy shot and hospitalized, Indigenous leaders and rights groups say.
- The day after, a 14-year-old Indigenous Pataxó boy was also allegedly gunned down and a 16-year-old shot and wounded as they sought to retake a farm that had reportedly been established illegally within their territory in Bahia state.
- On Sept. 11, another Indigenous Guajajara was murdered in Maranhão. In the past 20 years, more than 50 Guajajara individuals have been killed in the state, with none of the alleged perpetrators ever going on trial, advocates say.
- Indigenous groups and advocacy organizations are demanding justice for these and earlier killings, and have raised concerns about escalating violence against native peoples throughout the country.
Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.
Raids reveal how illegal gold from Indigenous lands gets laundered in Brazil
- Coordinated raids on mining company Gana Gold have revealed how gold mined illegally in Indigenous territories and other protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon makes its way into the legitimate trade.
- The company only has a permit to prospect, but is alleged to have doctored other licenses and sourced gold from illegal mines, before laundering it into the legitimate supply chain.
- The raids also uncovered strong links between drug traffickers and illegal miners, who were found to use the same trafficking routes to get their respective illicit commodities out of the forest and into the rest of the world.
- Experts say that given that the vast majority of Brazilian gold is exported, there’s an onus on overseas buyers to establish chain of custody controls to ensure they’re not buying illegally mined gold.
Violence persists in Amazon region where Pereira and Phillips were killed
- Armed illegal gold miners on July 15 threatened government rangers near the site where British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed in June.
- Days after the threats, federal prosecutors charged three men in the killing of Phillips and Pereira, but activists and lawmakers say the investigation needs to be expanded to identify the possible involvement of criminal organizations.
- Activists say threats against government officials, including Pereira, have happened for decades, but that the situation has grown dire under President Jair Bolsonaro.
- The government’s weakening of environmental agencies and Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric have created a sense of impunity, emboldening criminals in the Amazon to retaliate against activists and environmentalists who expose their illicit activities, experts say.
Organized crime drives violence and deforestation in the Amazon, study shows
- Increasing rates of both deforestation and violence in the Brazilian Amazon are being driven by sprawling national and transnational criminal networks, a study shows.
- Experts say criminal organizations engaged in activities ranging from illegal logging to drug trafficking often threaten and attack environmentalists, Indigenous people, and enforcement agents who attempt to stop them.
- In 2020, the Brazilian Amazon had the highest murder rate in Brazil, at 29.6 homicides per 100,000 habitants, compared to the national average of 23.9, with the highest rates corresponding to municipalities suffering the most deforestation.
- Experts say the current government’s systematic dismantling of environmental protections and enforcement agencies has emboldened these criminal organizations, which have now become “well connected, well established and very strong.”
Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
- A sting operation led by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service has netted notorious alleged poacher Simon Ernesto Valoi and an associate in possession of eight rhino horns.
- Conservationists say Valoi and other poaching kingpins have operated freely from Massingir district to poach thousands of rhinos just across the border in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
- Valoi’s arrest, following the January sentencing of another major rhino horn trafficker to 30 years in jail, may be a further sign that Mozambique’s law enforcement authorities are successfully targeting high-level poachers.
Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- For the first time in Brazil, the killing of an Indigenous land defender is expected to be tried before a federal jury — escalated to that level because of what prosecutors say was an aggression against the entire Guajajara Indigenous community and Indigenous culture.
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was killed in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in November 2019; two people have been indicted to stand trial in the case.
- The impending trial stands out amid a general culture of impunity that has allowed violence against Indigenous individuals and the theft of their land — including the killings of more than 50 Guajajara individuals in the past 20 years — to go unpunished.
- It could also set an important legal precedent for trying those responsible for the recent killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira.
Amazon rainforest activist under threat in Brazil plans to flee his home
- Erasmo Theofilo, an agroecologist, founded a farmers’ cooperative in one of the most hostile corners of the Amazon to defend landless and poor rural workers and promote sustainable farming practices.
- He has been the target of death threats, ambushes and attempts on his life for his work in the municipality of Anapu, in Pará state, where U.S.-born nun Dorothy Stang was killed for her activism in 2005.
- Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office at the start of 2019, land conflicts and deforestation in the Amazon have surged, with a recent report showing that Pará is the most dangerous for land rights defenders.
- Theofilo told Mongabay he believes he will never be safe in Anapu again, even if the land conflicts are resolved, and is planning to leave for good with his family.
Deaths of Phillips and Pereira shine light on a region of the Amazon beset by violence
- Brazilian police reported on June 15 that they had found the bodies believed to be those of Brazilian Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips deep in the western Amazon.
- The bodies were found not far from where the pair disappeared on June 5, in the Vale do Javari region, considered the most violent region of Brazil, where criminal groups vie to seize land occupied by Indigenous and traditional communities.
- Similar conflicts occur all over the Amazon, with some land grabbers admitting that they will, if necessary, use violent methods to achieve their goals.
- The Brazilian Senate has launched an investigation into the disappearance of Pereira and Phillips, but observers say it’s unlikely to deliver the far-reaching change required to tackle the violence.
Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.
Year of the Tiger: Illegal trade thrives amid efforts to save wild tigers
- As the world celebrates the Year of the Tiger in 2022, humans continue to threaten the cat’s long-term survival in the wild: killing, buying and selling tigers and their prey, and encroaching into their last shreds of habitat. That’s why they are Earth’s most endangered big cat.
- Undercover video footage has revealed an enlarged tiger farm run by an organized criminal organization in Laos. It’s one of many captive-breeding facilities implicated in the black market trade — blatantly violating an international treaty on trade in endangered species.
- Under a 2007 CITES decision, tigers should be bred only for conservation purposes. Evidence shows that this decision is being disregarded by some Asian nations, including China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. But CITES has done little to enforce it, which could be done through sanctions, say critics.
- With the world’s second Global Tiger Summit and important international meetings on biodiversity and endangered species looming, it’s a crucial year for tigers. In the wild, some populations are increasing, some stable, and others shrinking: Bengal tigers in India are faring best, while Malayan tigers hover on extinction’s edge.
Slick operator: Indonesian cooking oil probe may spread to biodiesel industry
- A top economist in Indonesia has been charged for his alleged role in helping palm oil companies export the commodity instead of selling it domestically — a practice blamed for a shortage of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- The arrest of Lin Che Wei, who prosecutors allege was “involved in every palm oil policy,” also puts the spotlight on the state palm oil fund that he helped create and that disproportionately channels subsidies to many of the same companies implicated in the cooking oil scandal.
- President Joko Widodo has called for a thorough investigation to “find out who is playing a game here,” but the palm oil lobby has pushed back against what it says is a vilification of the industry — even threatening to stop producing cooking oil for the domestic market.
- The cooking oil shortage has battered domestic trust in Indonesia’s powerful palm oil industry, whose reputation abroad has long been tarnished by its links to deforestation, labor abuses, and conflicts with Indigenous and local communities.
Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.
All coked up: The global environmental impacts of cocaine
- Cocaine is one of the most widely used illicit drugs in the world, consumed by an estimated 20 million people in 2019, mostly in North America and Europe.
- Production, transit and consumption of the drug are exacting a heavy environmental toll, impacting tropical forests, freshwater and estuary ecosystems. Some of these effects, such as pollution impacts on eels and other aquatic species, have been documented, but most are still poorly understood, with many unresearched.
- Indigenous peoples are often at the front lines of criminal gangs’ activities in producer and trafficking countries. Often, when new narco-trafficking transport routes are established, like those in Central America, those same routes are used for other criminal activities such as wildlife and weapons trafficking.
- Researchers argue that detaching the environmental harm caused by the cocaine trade from the long-lasting war on drugs is not possible. Solutions implemented to deal with the drug problem, such as the aerial spraying of illegal coca crops, while locally effective in curbing illegal cultivation, also cause deforestation and biodiversity damage.
Study links many reported fisheries crimes to just a few repeat offenders
- A new study in the journal Science Advances analyzed roughly 8,000 fisheries offenses reported globally between 2000 and 2020, a database the authors call the “largest existing repository” of reported fisheries offenses.
- The study shows that a small number of companies may be responsible for a large chunk of international industrial fisheries crimes.
- It also shows that the vessels committing abuses, such as unauthorized fishing and human rights and labor violations, often engaged in more than one offense.
- Illegal fishing accounts for one fourth the value of all landed seafood products, roughly $30 billion globally. It contributes to the depletion of fish and other marine wildlife populations.
Cold case: Half-hearted prosecution lets ivory traffickers escape in Uganda
- More than three years since Ugandan authorities seized a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales, no one has been prosecuted for the trafficking attempt.
- Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the bust, but they vanished after being granted bail.
- Wildlife trade investigators have questioned the commitment of the Ugandan authorities to pursue the case, saying their efforts to find the suspects since then appear half-hearted at best.
- They add the failure to prosecute this case is a missed opportunity to break up a major trafficking network moving wildlife parts from East and Central Africa to Southeast Asia.
Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
- As killings of elephants in Africa spiked in the early 2010s, some conservation organizations claimed the ivory trade was financing armed groups like al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- According to a study published in Global Environmental Politics, those ties were overstated and strategically pushed by NGOs in order to attract funding for anti-poaching efforts.
- Despite shaky evidence for some of the claims, they helped frame wildlife trafficking as a global security issue and were subsequently repeated by policymakers from the U.S. and elsewhere.
- The study said the confluence of conservation and security policy has had “material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.”
Attack on environmental lawyer’s home alarms DRC rights defenders
- Armed men, including two dressed in police uniform, attacked the home of Congolese lawyer Timothée Mbuya earlier this month and told family members they were sent to kill him.
- Mbuya is also facing a defamation lawsuit after publishing a report alleging encroachment of a protected area by a farm owned by former DRC president Joseph Kabila.
- Campaigners say both the lawsuit and the violent assault on the lawyer’s home fit a pattern of harassment of environment and human rights activists in the country.
Wildlife trade hub Vietnam is also hub of impunity for traffickers, report says
- Only one in every seven wildlife seizures made in Vietnam in the past decade has resulted in convictions, a new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has found.
- Low numbers of arrests and prosecutions highlight problems of weak enforcement and a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
- Three-quarters of the shipments originated from African countries, they found, with numerous large-scale seizures indicating transnational organized crime.
- With pandemic-related restrictions easing, the worry is that the cross-border wildlife trade will come roaring back even as Vietnam struggles to follow up on investigations into past and current seizures.
Malawi court sentences Chinese wildlife trafficking kingpin to 14 years in jail
- A court in Malawi has sentenced a Chinese national to 14 years in jail for masterminding an illegal wildlife trafficking cartel that operated across Southern Africa.
- Yunhua Lin and his accomplices, including his wife, were arrested in 2019 and found in possession of pangolin scales, elephant ivory, hippo teeth and rhino horns.
- Wildlife authorities have hailed the stiff sentence as “a message to all criminals out there that we are no longer functioning in a business-as-usual way.”
Malaysian hornbill bust reveals live trafficking trend in Southeast Asia
- The recent seizure of eight live hornbills at Kuala Lumpur International Airport confirmed experts’ suspicions that live hornbill trafficking is on the rise in Southeast Asia.
- Analysis of seizure records across Southeast Asia indicates that the incident is just the tip of the iceberg: Between 2015 and 2021, there were 99 incidents of live hornbill trafficking involving 268 birds spanning 13 species.
- Among the recent haul was a baby helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a critically endangered species hunted to the brink of extinction for its distinctive ivory-like bill casque, which is prized by collectors in parts of Asia.
- Specialists say more information on how poaching for live trade affects wild populations is urgently required; only then, they say, will it be possible to push for stronger enforcement and close loopholes that allow the illegal trade to flourish.
As tigers dwindle, Indonesia takes aim at poaching ring
- Indonesian officials recently confiscated three tiger skins from a man in Sumatra.
- They believe the perpetrator is connected to a larger ring of wildlife traffickers.
For sustainable global fisheries, watchdogs focus on onshore beneficial owners
- Onshore owners of global fishing vessels have benefited from the illegal activities their crews practice, yet remain largely untouched by law enforcement.
- In the last decade, a growing number of international NGOs have worked in parallel to map out and highlight the onshore networks that fund and benefit from illegal fishing vessels around the world.
- They compile data from a wide range of sources to connect the dots between the people sailing the vessels to the people ultimately benefiting from the business.
- Eradicating fisheries crimes requires a broad portfolio of measures, from increased monitoring to strengthened corporate due diligence, with full transparency throughout the seafood supply chains at the center of it, experts say.
Lockdowns didn’t stop 2020 being deadliest year yet for earth defenders
- The countries with the highest death tolls overall were Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Overall, the Americas were the most dangerous for land and environmental defenders, with seven of the top 10 countries by number of killings located in Latin America.
- Nicaragua and Honduras were the deadliest per capita, as threats against Indigenous land by cattle ranchers and economic migrants continue to rise.
- Global Witness said governments need to take more aggressive action to force businesses to monitor and regulate their supply chains.
Unregulated by U.S. at home, Facebook boosts wildlife trafficking abroad
- The world’s largest social media company, Facebook, regularly connects wildlife traffickers around the world, and advocates are stepping up the pressure to address the problem in the company’s home country.
- Proposed U.S. legislation targets a decades-old law that protects online companies’ content as free speech on their platform. Advocates say wildlife crime is not speech, and that online companies lack the regulation that other “real-life” companies must follow.
- Trafficking has increased since Facebook chose to self-regulate in 2019, researchers say. The company could cooperate with law enforcement or conservationists, but it has rarely chosen to do so.
- Meanwhile, researchers are gathering more and more evidence that wildlife trafficking is one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity.
New bill seeks to end Hong Kong’s days as an illegal wildlife trade hub
- Hong Kong is a leading transportation hub for the illegal wildlife trade: In the past two years, Hong Kong authorities seized more than over 649 metric tons of illegal wildlife and wildlife products across 1,404 seizures, according to a new report.
- While many seizures lead to prosecution, the people who tend to be punished are the “mules” rather than the leaders of organized criminal syndicates. Additionally, some of the largest wildlife seizures in Hong Kong have not been followed by any prosecution, possibly due to the lack of evidence.
- A new bill may change the status quo by allowing wildlife crimes to be subject to the provisions of Hong Kong’s Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, which would allow authorities to conduct more in-depth investigations and hand out harsher penalties.
- Supporters of the bill say there is a strong possibility that it will pass into law due to strong political support and a lack of opposition.
In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs
- Multiple sources, backed by satellite data, say an illegal road is being cut through the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Sources say the road will facilitate land invasions into the biosphere and is likely to be used as a drug-trafficking route.
- The road has created divisions between Indigenous groups, with the Bakinasta Miskito denouncing its presence and demanding the government step in to halt it.
- Despite knowing about the road for more than a year, the Honduran government has not taken definitive action to enforce the law.
Indonesian omnibus law’s ‘whitewash’ of illegal palm oil shocks its architects
- Indonesian lawmakers appear outraged at a scheme from a law they already passed that grants amnesty to oil palm plantations operating illegally inside forest areas.
- The amnesty scheme gives the operators a grace period of three years to apply for the proper paperwork, including a redesignation of the forest they’re illegally occupying to a non-forest designation.
- The lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved the law last November despite near-universal criticism, have called the scheme “whitewashing” and “eco-terrorism.”
- One even expressed his own regret at not being a “forest thief” had he only known how lucrative it would be.
Exposing organized crime in the Amazon: Q&A with Robert Muggah of the Igarapé Institute
- Relentless deforestation has pushed the Amazon to the brink of an ecological shift from rainforest to savannah with potentially devastating consequences for climate change and biodiversity.
- Home to most of the world’s tropical forest land, almost all logging in the Amazon is thought to be illegal, yet few penalties are imposed on offenders.
- To address the culture of impunity, a new data visualization platform, Ecocrime, has been developed by the Igarapé Institute, which seeks to expose the organized criminal networks that sustain illicit trade in the Amazon.
Legal failings leave illegal loggers unpunished and certified in Indonesia
- Illegal loggers in Indonesia continue to go largely unpunished because of a weak judicial system and loopholes in timber regulations, according to a new report.
- The report by investigative NGOs EIA and Kaoem Telapak looked at law enforcement actions against more than 50 companies, most of them found to be trading in illegally logged merbau, a prized tropical hardwood, but evading prosecution.
- The few companies and individuals prosecuted and found guilty in court were still allowed to operate and even retain their certificates of timber legality — a stamp of approval that allows them to export the illegally logged wood.
- In one case, Indonesia’s highest court overturned a lower court’s judgment against a convicted merbau trafficker, ordering the authorities to give him back the stockpile of illegal timber they had seized from him.
Video: Romania’s deadly fight against illegal logging
- Romania’s rich and ancient forests are in peril. Since joining the European Union in 2007, the country has seen its forest cover depleted at record levels.
- Rangers and environmentalists who investigate and document these crimes face violence, intimidation and even murder from agents of an extensive criminal network that supplies multinational corporations with timber.
- New technology has become one of the most effective ways for activists to investigate and document environmental crimes.
- In late 2020, activists teamed up with technologists to monitor illegal logging using bio-acoustic devices hidden in treetops. The devices record sound patterns in the forest, sending instant alerts to rangers who can intervene to stop the theft in its tracks.
Colombian environmental official assassinated in southern Meta department
- Historically, this is a zone of armed conflict in the Amazon with frequent issues related to deforestation and land grabbing.
- Parra was coordinator of the Corporation for the Sustainable Development of the La Macarena Special Management Area (Cormacarena). He was a 20-year veteran of the environmental authority.
- Between January 1 and December 6, 2020, a jaw-dropping 284 environmental leaders and defenders have been assassinated in Colombia.
New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries
- A recently published paper by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy highlights the extent of transnational organized crimes associated with the global fisheries sector.
- Besides illegal fishing, these crimes include fraud, money laundering, corruption, drug and human trafficking, and they occur globally throughout the entire fisheries value chain: onshore, at sea, in coastal regions, and online, the paper says.
- The paper calls for an intersectional, transboundary law enforcement by governments around the world to combat these “clandestine” crimes in the global fisheries industry.
Understaffed and under threat: Paraguay’s park rangers pay the ultimate price
- Protected areas in eastern Paraguay are beset by illegal marijuana cultivation and logging. Government interventions have had limited success, with clearing resuming shortly after agents leave an area.
- Park rangers tasked with monitoring the country’s reserves and parks say they routinely encounter hostile criminal groups when on patrol. These encounters can take a violent turn – several rangers have been murdered over the past decade while patrolling protected areas for illegal activity.
- According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the ideal number of park rangers is one for every 1,000 hectares. However, in Paraguay, there is just one park ranger for more than 38,000 hectares.
- Rangers say they need more resources and support to do their job safely and effectively.
Forest crimes persist in Peru following Indigenous leader’s murder
- The leader of an Indigenous community in Peru’s Huánuco region was murdered when he went fishing earlier this year. Despite this, criminal groups have reportedly continued to operate in the area.
- The death of Arbildo Meléndez Grandes is one of a series of environmental crimes reported since the COVID-19 state of emergency began in Peru.
- Operations against illegal mining and logging have been carried out in the Madre de Dios, Loreto and Ucayali regions in recent months.
No choice: Why communities in Paraguay are cutting down forests to survive
- Illegal deforestation for marijuana cultivation is a growing problem for eastern Paraguay’s protected areas.
- Sources say much of the clearing is done by indigenous community members and small farmers who are beset by poverty and have no other options.
- A joint project between the Paraguayan government and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations seeks to provide more opportunities for rural communities, but has been stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marijuana farms expand in Paraguay reserve despite gov’t crackdowns
- Approximately 600 metric tons of marijuana was seized by agents of Paraguay’s National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) in an operation in the heart of the forests of Morombí Reserve, between the departments of Canindeyú and Caaguazú.
- Over eight days, some 70 officers destroyed 202 hectares of marijuana and dismantled 23 camps set up by drug traffickers.
- But sources say this is just the tip of the iceberg and many more illegal marijuana farms are pockmarked throughout Morombí, increasing by the day. Satellite data support this, showing the reserve’s deforestation rate skyrocketed in 2019 and continues to climb into 2020.
Protected areas in Paraguay hit hard by illegal marijuana farming
- Agriculture has deforested much of eastern Paraguay’s Upper Parana Atlantic Forest, an endangered ecoregion of which less 10% remains today.
- More recently, illegal marijuana cultivation has become a driving force of deforestation in the region. Even protected areas are not immune from destruction, with satellite data and drone footage confirming large swaths of protected primary forest have been cleared for marijuana cropland over the past year. Sources say timber and charcoal are also being produced as by-products of clearing for marijuana and are illegally transported out of protected areas.
- Four protected areas have been particularly affected: Mbaracayú Reserve, San Rafael National Park/Proposed National Reserve, Morombí Reserve and Caazapá National Park.
- Forest rangers working in the protected areas say there aren’t enough enforcement staff to combat the illegal encroachment.
Drug trafficking could be putting ‘fragile fisheries’ at risk, study says
- A new study found that fishing vessels are increasingly being used to traffic drugs, tripling over the past eight years, and accounting for 15% of the global retail value of illegal drugs.
- Small-scale fishermen commonly get involved in the drug trade, possibly due to collapsing fish stocks and strict conservation measures threatening their livelihoods, or because they have been coerced.
- While most fishing vessels carrying drugs don’t appear to be involved in other maritime crimes like illegal fishing, drug traders may reinvest profits into illegal fishing activities, which could lead to fisheries collapse and environmental destruction.
- The COVID-19 pandemic may intensify the issue of drug trafficking on small fishing vessels due to global economic stress, and maritime routes currently being more accessible than land routes.
Former U.S. envoy under scrutiny for links to sanctioned Moldovan oligarch, land baron
- A former U.S. ambassador to Moldova who is employed by the country’s top commodities baron, Vaja Jhashi, has come under scrutiny for the firm’s links to a sanctioned oligarch.
- Last month, a Mongabay investigation revealed Jhashi’s firm, Trans-Oil, is allegedly over-exploiting its virtual monopoly on grain exports from the country and using offshore companies to transfer its profits overseas and avoid paying tax.
- The fugitive tycoon in question, Vladimir Plahotniuc, has reportedly been living in the United States, despite the sanctions, at a property linked to Jhashi.
- A senior Trump administration official, acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell, has also come under fire for working for the oligarch, raising fears he was vulnerable to blackmail.
Peru uncovers organized crime network laundering illegally mined gold
- A massive operation involving more than a thousand law enforcement officers in five regions has led to the arrests of 18 people accused of belonging to a criminal network called Los Topos, or The Moles, laundering illegally mined gold.
- Four of those under investigation are listed in the mining formalization registry,with their documents used to legitimize the transport of large quantities of gold.
- The Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines says those who abuse their mining formalization status will be removed from the registry.
- But law enforcers investigating the network say the government’s repeated extension of the deadline for miners to register allows opportunity for more such abuses of the system.
Fields of Gold: Commodities kingpin leaves a troubling legacy in Moldova
- A Mongabay investigation has traced the rise and fall of a billion-dollar commodities cartel in Eastern Europe, finding it relied on money laundering, tax avoidance and state capture.
- Over more than six months reporters reviewed hundreds of court filings, corporate and property records, and carried out interviews with those involved to reveal how the deals were done and where the money went.
- Despite mounting evidence of impropriety by the group, major development banks continued to fund its projects, lending legitimacy to its operations.
Rhino poaching in South Africa declines for fifth straight year
- South Africa reports that rhino poaching has declined for a fifth straight year in the country, with 594 rhino poached in 2019, down from the 769 rhino killed for their horns in 2018.
- According to an official press release from the South African government, the decline in poaching in 2019 is due to a combination of measures, including deployment of technologies that allow for better reaction times to poaching incidents, improved information collection and sharing between law enforcement agencies, greater cooperation between entities at the regional and national level, and more meaningful engagement of the private sector, NGOs, and donors.
- There were 2,014 incursions and poaching-related activities recorded in South Africa’s Kruger National Park in 2019, leading to 327 rhinos being lost. Some 178 alleged poachers were arrested within the Park last year, while 332 arrests were made throughout the country.
Mozambique’s newly empowered rangers, courts catch up with poachers, loggers
- Mozambique has recorded a measure of success recently against wildlife poachers and illegal loggers, thanks to stronger enforcement.
- Nearly a quarter of the country’s area has been designated as conservation space, helping wildlife numbers recover after a 15-year civil war that decimated animal populations.
- One of the remaining threats to the country’s protected areas is illegal logging.
- In addition to better training and equipment for rangers, the recent introduction of new conservation laws and extensive training of prosecutors and judges is helping deliver swift and heavier sentences for poaching and illegal logging.
Finally, Latin America is tackling wildlife trafficking (commentary)
- On October 3-4, a High Level International Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade in the Americas will take place in Lima, Peru. This is the first-ever such conference organized exclusively around wildlife trafficking in the Americas, with particular focus on South and Central America. Why has it taken so long, and why is it so important?
- Latin America is the single most biologically diverse region in the world, and trade in its wildlife, including illegal trade, is not a new issue. Latin America’s unique and precious wildlife has endured threats from illegal and unsustainable commercial trade, both domestic and international, for decades—and in some cases, even longer.
- There are still large intact forest and grassland habitats across the region, and populations of species that can either be maintained or restored, if strong action is taken today. Preventive measures can and must be taken now, to ensure that Latin America’s wildlife thrives, from Mexico to the tip of Patagonia.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indonesian officials foil attempt to smuggle hornbill casques to Hong Kong
- Indonesian authorities have arrested a woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle 72 helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil) casques to Hong Kong.
- The distinctive-looking bird is critically endangered, its precipitous decline driven by poaching for its casque — a solid, ivory-like protuberance on its head that’s highly prized in East Asia for use as ornamental carvings.
- Tackling the hornbill trade will be on the agenda at next month’s CITES wildlife trade summit in Geneva.
Goldman Prize winner survives armed attack on Afro-Colombian social leaders
- Last week on May 4, two bodyguards were wounded when armed gunmen tried to storm a meeting of Afro-Colombian activists that included 2018 Goldman Prize winner Francia Márquez.
- The community leaders had been meeting to discuss future actions following a massive land rights protests last month in Colombia’s Cauca region in which one protester was killed by armed forces.
- In March and April, Afro-Colombian activists participated in an indigenous-led protest with 20,000 people against the government’s environmental and social policies.
Indonesia arrests 7 for allegedly selling Komodo dragons over Facebook
- Indonesian officials have arrested seven suspected members of a trafficking network that sold at least 40 Komodo dragons, along with other rare species, through Facebook and other social media platforms.
- Komodo dragons are found only in Indonesia and are a protected species, which means the suspects could face up to five years in prison and up to $7,000 each in fines for trading the animals.
- Six baby Komodo dragons were seized from the suspects, and are now being cared for by conservation officials ahead of a possible release back into the wild.
- The arrests have highlighted the dominant role of social media platforms in facilitating the illegal trade in Indonesia’s protected wildlife, with up to 98 percent of transactions believed to be carried out online.
‘Everything’s moving’: Indonesia seeks global pushback on illegal fishing
- Officials in Indonesia, home to one of the world’s biggest fisheries, say their fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to be stymied by the complex web of offshore holdings that own much of the illegal fishing fleet.
- Enforcement efforts have failed to net the owners of these vessels, instead only going as far as punishing the crew caught on board the boats.
- Indonesia’s fisheries minister, Susi Pudjiastuti, has long called for an international consensus to recognize IUU fishing as a transnational crime, putting it in the same bracket as drug trafficking and human smuggling, which would enable greater international cooperation to identify and prosecute owners of illegal fishing boats.
CITES rejects another Madagascar plan to sell illegal rosewood stockpiles
- At a meeting in Sochi, Russia, earlier this month, CITES’s standing committee rejected Madagascar’s latest plan to sell off its stockpiles of illegally harvested rosewood, largely because the plan called for local timber barons to be paid for their troves of wood.
- Environmental groups argued that operators who logged illegally should not be rewarded for it, and delegations from several African countries reportedly opposed the plan because they feared their own timber barons would learn the wrong lesson from the deal.
- Madagascar’s environment ministry released a statement after the meeting indicating that it would take the recommendations made by the CITES committee into account in revising the plan for submission again in 2019.
Madagascar proposes paying illegal loggers to audit or buy their rosewood
- In June, the World Bank facilitated a workshop to discuss what Madagascar should do with its stockpiles of illegally logged rosewood.
- Madagascar has been grappling with the question for years, but has been unable to make a proper inventory of the stockpiled wood or control illegal exports.
- The rosewood could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the international market, but the country cannot sell it until it shows progress in enforcing its own environmental laws.
- At the workshop, Madagascar’s government proposed a radical solution: paying loggers for access to their illicit stockpiles in order to keep tabs on the wood, or even buying the wood back from them directly.
Abdon Nababan: ‘North Sumatran land mafia offered me $21m to win election — and then hand over control of government’
- When Abdon Nababan, one of Indonesia’s foremost indigenous rights activists, sought election for governor in his home province, he was provided an unprecedented insight into the corrupt inner workings of the nation’s electoral system.
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay and The Gecko Project, he explained how the odds are stacked against candidates who seek to turn their back on corruption and “money politics.”
- Previous stories by Mongabay and The Gecko Project, produced under the series Indonesia for Sale, have explored in depth how the nation’s democracy is straining under the weight of corruption linked to plantation industries.
- Millions of voters will return to the polls to select regional heads next week, with this system intact.
Madagascar: Yet another anti-trafficking activist convicted
- Christopher Magnenjika, an activist working to stem corruption and wildlife trafficking in northeastern Madagascar, was tried, convicted, fined $9 and released earlier this month.
- The charges against Magnenjika include “rebellion” and insulting local officials.
- Magnenjika’s supporters say his arrest and conviction were a pretext for keeping him quiet about the illicit trade in rosewood, a valuable tropical hardwood.
- Magnenjika is one of at least ten Malagasy activists who have faced imprisonment in recent years.
Activists fear for environmental protection under Indonesia’s revised Criminal Code
- Indonesian lawmakers aim to pass a long-awaited revision of the country’s Criminal Code this month, but already the draft has been widely criticized for rolling back personal freedoms and human rights.
- Activists say it also threatens to gut existing legislation on environmental protection, effectively going easy on polluters and other environmental violators.
- Problems identified include raising the bar for proving an environmental offense; more lenient sentencing prescriptions; and failing to hold the responsible parties accountable for environmental crimes.
Cerrado: Agribusiness boomtown; profits for a few, hardships for many
- Luís Eduardo Magalhães (LEM) is a soy boomtown, built on Cerrado agribusiness. Its population has grown fourfold since 2000, to 83,000 people, and is one of Brazil’s fastest growing cities. But LEM has suffered growing pains as the people from rural areas have rushed there seeking jobs and opportunities.
- Public services have failed to keep up, with most urban streets still dirt and sanitation services lagging behind population growth. Many new arrivals from the countryside, lacking specialized skills, have been unable to get good jobs or gain access to the highly mechanized and specialized industrial agribusiness economy. So they remain poor.
- Many have ended up in Santa Cruz, an impoverished neighborhood where drug trafficking and gang violence are a constant daily threat. Those with better skills and more luck may end up in Jardim Paraíso (Paradise Garden), a nearby upscale neighborhood marked by security fences and security alarms as protection against crime.
- Experts say LEM seems likely to follow the path of agribusiness boomtowns globally: population grows rapidly, but initial economic gains and urbanization aren’t followed by ongoing development and investment. Disorderly growth negatively impacts the environment, leading to more poverty and a concentration of land ownership and wealth.
Rhino poaching in South Africa dipped slightly last year, but ‘crisis continues unabated,’ conservationists say
- South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa announced in a press briefing today that 1,028 rhinos were illegally killed in the country in 2017.
- In Kruger National Park, which has typically been the epicenter of rhino poaching in South Africa, 504 illegal killings were recorded last year, Molewa reported. That’s a 24 percent reduction over 2016 — but these gains were offset by poaching in other regions, particularly KwaZulu Natal province.
- While the rhino poaching rate in South Africa has slowly decreased every year since peaking in 2014 with 1,215 animals lost, conservationists were not encouraged by the slightly lower number of rhinos killed last year.
Indonesia seeks to slap money-laundering label on illegal fishing
- Indonesia wants to include illegal fishing in a U.N. convention on transnational crime, in order to bring anti-money-laundering tools to bear on the problem.
- The government is intent on ending poaching and unsustainable fishing, and has already made waves for its public policy of seizing and scuttling illegal foreign fishing boats operating in its waters.
- Indonesian waters represent one of the world’s largest capture fisheries.
CITES rejects Madagascar’s bid to sell rosewood and ebony stockpiles
- The standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) had its annual meeting in Geneva November 27 through December 1.
- The committee rejected Madagascar’s petition to sell its stockpiles of seized rosewood and ebony that had been illegally cut from the country’s rainforests.
- CITES delegates agreed that while a future sale of the stockpiles might be possible, Madagascar was not yet ready for such a risky undertaking, which could allow newly chopped logs to be laundered and traded overseas.
- Other notable outcomes of the CITES meeting dealt with the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis), pangolins, and the critically endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus).
Indonesia to kick off 10-year plan to save critically endangered helmeted hornbill
- The Indonesian government is currently drafting a 10-year master plan to protect the endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), set to be launched in 2018.
- The program will comprise five action plans: research and monitoring; policies and law enforcement; partnerships; raising public awareness; and funding.
- The helmeted hornbill has been driven to the brink of extinction by poaching for its distinctive scarlet casqued beak, which is pound-for-pound three times as valuable as elephant ivory.
Madagascar petitions CITES to sell millions in stolen rosewood
- The Madagascar government has petitioned wildlife regulators under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for permission to sell its stockpiles of seized rainforest wood.
- Some campaigners warn that traffickers stand to benefit from any such sale and fear it could herald a “logging boom” in the country’s remaining rainforests.
- The CITES committee will consider the proposal at the end of this month.
Logjam: Inside Madagascar’s illegal-rosewood stockpiles
- Over the past six years, Madagascar has spent millions of dollars and devoted countless person hours to figuring out how to dispose of vast stockpiles of highly valuable, illegally logged rosewood, much of it cut from the country’s rainforests following a 2009 coup.
- To do so, the government must conduct a comprehensive inventory of the stockpiles, among other requirements issued by CITES. The World Bank has supported the effort with at least $3 million to $4 million in murky ad hoc loans.
- The current state of affairs, with untold thousands of rosewood logs still unaccounted for, and tens of thousands more stacked outside government offices, is widely seen as facilitating continued corruption and illicit activity.
- This is the sixth story in Mongabay’s multi-part series “Conservation in Madagascar.”
Another Madagascar environmental activist imprisoned
- Malagasy authorities have held Raleva, a 61-year-old farmer, in custody since September 27 after he asked to see a mining company’s permits to operate near his village.
- His arrest is at least the sixth such case of authorities targeting those opposed to wildlife trafficking or land grabs.
- Environmental activists say they face bribes and threats from traffickers on one side, and jail time and fines from the government on the other.
‘Then they shot me’: Land conflict and murder in Ucayali, Peru
- In September, six people were murdered in Bajo Rayal, Peru.
- A conflict over the possession of 450 hectares of forest appears to be the motive behind the killings.
- Mongabay Latam went to Bajo Rayal to investigate, and discovered around 300,000 hectares of forest in the region are under dispute and being considered for agricultural conversion.
Anti-trafficking activist held without trial in Madagascar
- Clovis Razafimalala has been working to end rosewood trafficking in Madagascar since 2009.
- He has been imprisoned since September on charges of unauthorized rebellion and burning state files and property during a protest he maintains he did not participate in.
- No trial date has been announced, although one is supposed to be set by May 26.
- Activists say his case raises concern for the civil rights of Malagasy environmental activists.
Illegal logging shows little sign of slowing
- The report was produced by a dozens of scientists and is the most comprehensive analysis of illegal logging to date.
- It finds organized crime and a lack of land tenure for local communities to be big drivers of illicit timber extraction in tropical countries around the world.
- Research indicates around a third of all tropical timber traded globally may come from illegal forest conversion.
- Those affiliated with the report underline the need for more cooperation between countries and sectors, as well as the development of effective policies, in the fight against illegal logging.
Controversial park plans in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve
- Mirador-Rio Azul National Park is one of the best-conserved protected areas in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, where illegal logging and agriculture, forest fires, looting, and drug trafficking have contributed to deforestation.
- A plan to increase tourism to the area and redraw the boundaries of the park and adjacent community forest concessions aims to prevent these threats from compromising the area’s rainforest and important archaeological sites.
- Yet the plan has drawn widespread opposition from local communities, environmental NGOs, and the government agency charged with managing the reserve. Opponents say the plan would threaten the region’s ecology, local livelihoods, and community forest concessions that have successfully protected the rainforest.
Communities lead the way in rainforest conservation in Guatemala
- The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which covers one-fifth of Guatemala, is one of the most important tropical forest areas north of the Amazon and contains dozens of ancient Mayan archaeological sites.
- The best way to protect the reserve’s rainforest—better than national parks—has turned out to be nine community concessions, forest allotments where locals earn a living from the carefully regulated extraction of timber and plants.
- However, the community concessions’ future remains unclear, with contracts set to expire in the coming years and powerful forces opposing them.
Environmental crime reaches new record of $258b, report finds
- A new report by Interpol and the UN raises estimates for the value of environmental crime, $70-213 billion for 2014 to $91-258 billion for 2015.
- Only drug trafficking, counterfeiting and human trafficking are thought to bring in higher revenues for transnational organized criminal groups.
- The report recommends strong new legislation and sanctions as a countermeasure, as well as the disruption of tax havens where much of the proceeds are laundered.
Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve
- The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which covers one-fifth of Guatemala, is one of the most important tropical forest areas north of the Amazon.
- The reserve is a gem of biological and cultural heritage, with more than 500 species of birds, numerous endangered and iconic wildlife species, and dozens of ancient Mayan archaeological sites.
- The reserve’s multiple-use zone has generally succeeded at reducing deforestation and providing sustainable livelihoods for communities living there. But deforestation remains a huge problem in the reserve as a whole, pushed along by complex factors, including illegal settlement by landless migrants, oil development, and the presence of drug traffickers, cattle ranchers, and other armed groups.
Battling India’s Sand Barons
- Tamil Nadu’s sand is in high demand for the construction industry, causing great damage to the Indian state’s extensive network of rivers. Profits and corruption are high, illegal mining is rampant, and attacks on those opposed to the industry are commonplace, according to S. Mugilan.
- Mugilan has been taking on polluters across Tamil Nadu for more than two decades, and has been attacked, arrested, and jailed for his work.
- He is currently in the hospital, fasting to protest the police preventing him from handing out voter pamphlets opposing two prominent political candidates.
Fiery end for the last of the toothfish pirates
- Toothfish, often sold as “Chilean sea bass” have long been targeted by poachers in the remote and hostile Southern Ocean.
- Poaching has not only harmed toothfish stocks, but rendered the study and sustainable management of them all but impossible.
- The conservation group Sea Shepherd launched a campaign in late 2014 to disrupt illegal toothfish fishing. With the scuttling of the Viking, six of the worst offenders have either been destroyed or apprehended.
Rogue cop-turned-logger recaptured in Papua after latest prison break
- Corrupt cop Labora Sitorus was convicted of illegal logging and money laundering in 2014. More than $100 million had passed through his bank accounts.
- Last week, Sitorus escaped from prison. It wasn’t the first time he had slipped away.
- On Monday he turned himself in and is now in solitary confinement in Jakarta.
Massive profiteering uncovered in Indonesian fertilizer distribution
- A yet-to-be published government report describes corrupt practices among state-backed retailers entrusted with selling subsidized fertilizers to small farmers.
- The retailers are also said to be colluding to sell the fertilizers at higher prices.
- The allegations were reported by Reuters, which claims to have seen parts of the government’s report.
Men who sold 8 Sumatran tigers arrested in Indonesia
- Police had been tracking the men’s activities for years but needed more evidence to build a solid case.
- Finally they were able to catch the men trying to sell tiger parts in a sting operation.
- Only a few hundred Sumatran tigers remain in the wild.
INTERPOL: Environmental crimes increasingly converging with crimes like murder and drug trafficking
- Environmental crimes are becoming increasingly complex, warns a recent report released by INTERPOL.
- Such crimes often intersect other offences such as murder, corruption, and the trafficking of drugs and weapons, authors write.
- Tackling such interwoven criminal activities would require a multi-agency approach and increased collaboration, the report notes.
From slave to student: Myanmar migrants find abuse, opportunity in Thailand
- Thailand’s growing economy and low unemployment rates have caused most Thais to turn away from low-paid, labor-intensive work, leaving a gap to be filled by migrants — especially in the country’s $7 billion seafood industry, which has been rocked by revelations of widespread slavery.
- Aside from living under constant threat of deportation, those lacking papers have no access to formal legal protection and are easily exploited by employers, landlords, authorities and traffickers.
- One migrant from Myanmar tells of being tricked aboard a slave boat and forced to work for years before finally escaping and trying to rebuild his life in Bangkok.
Want to save Africa’s elephants? Close all ivory markets
The only way to save the long-suffering elephants of Africa is to close every ivory market on the planet and destroy all ivory stockpiles, according to a bold new essay in Conservation Biology. Written by Elizabeth Bennett, the Vice President for Species Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the paper is likely to prove […]
Just how bad is the logging crisis in Myanmar? 72 percent of exports illegal
Just days before Myanmar, also known as Burma, implements a ban on exporting raw logs, the Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA) has released a new report that captures the sheer scale of the country’s illegal logging crisis. According to the EIA, new data shows that 72 percent of logs exported from Myanmar between 2000-2013 were illegally […]
Cocaine: the new face of deforestation in Central America
In 2006, Mexico intensified its security strategy, forming an inhospitable environment for drug trafficking organizations (also known as DTOs) within the nation. The drug cartels responded by creating new trade routes along the border of Guatemala and Honduras. Soon shipments of cocaine from South America began to flow through the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC). This […]
Conservation groups launch new whistleblower site for wildlife and forest crimes
Welcome to Wildleaks: a new website that aims to give the global public a secure and anonymous platform to report wildlife trafficking and illegal deforestation. The illegal wildlife trade has become one of the world’s largest criminal activities in recent years, decimating elephants, rhinos, tigers, primates, and thousands of lesser known species. Meanwhile, illegal logging […]
Obama announces new strategy to tackle wildlife trafficking, including toughening ivory ban
Yesterday, the Obama administration announced an ambitious new strategy to help tackle the global illegal wildlife trade, including a near-complete ban on commercial ivory. The new strategy will not only push over a dozen federal agencies to make fighting wildlife trafficking a new priority, but will also focus on reducing demand for wildlife parts and […]
Unlikely success: how Zimbabwe has become a global leader in rhino conservation
Raoul du Toit will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. With its collapsed economy, entrenched poverty, and political tremors, one would not expect that a country like Zimbabwe would have the capacity to safeguard its rhinos against determined and well-funded poachers, especially as just across the […]
Clinton Global Initiative pledges $80 million to combat elephant poaching
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on Thursday deployed their mother-daughter star power to help the effort to save African elephants, brokering an $80m effort to stop the ivory poaching which threatens the animals with extinction. The crackdown on 50 poaching hot spots in Africa involves several conservation groups and African governments. But conservation leaders, unveiling the […]
How YouTube has put the world’s only poisonous primates at risk
It all started with a video: in 2009 a Russian man uploaded a video of himself tickling his exotic pet (a pygmy slow loris) from Vietnam onto the hugely popular site YouTube. Since then the video has been viewed over half a million times. But a new study in the open source journal in PLoS […]
Zoos call on governments to take urgent action against illegal wildlife trade (photos)
Warning: some photos may be disturbing or graphic. In a single night in March, a band of heavily-armed, horse-riding poachers slaughtered 89 elephants in southern Chad, thirty of which were pregnant females. The carnage was the worst poaching incident of the year, but even this slaughter paled in comparison to the 650 elephants killed in […]
Report: nearly half the timber from Mozambique to China is illegal
Logs stacked in Mozambique. Photo © : EIA. Forty-eight percent of the timber making its way from Mozambique’s forests to Chinese companies was harvested illegally, according to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which blames the problem on widespread corruption and poor governance. The illegal logging cost Mozambique, the world’s fourth least-developed […]
Pledge to end wildlife trafficking for Wildlife Conservation Day
A forest elephant, which is considered by some to be a distinct species of elephant in Africa, in Gabon. Both forest elephants and savannah elephants are increasingly killed for their tusks. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) estimates that 30,000 elephants will be killed this year along for the black market trade. Photo by: Rhett A. […]
‘Exporting deforestation’: China is the kingpin of illegal logging
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Logs smuggled across the border from Myanmar to China. Photo © : EIA. Runaway economic growth comes with costs: in the case of China’s economic engine, one of them has been the world’s forests. According to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), China has become the number one importer of illegal wood […]
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