On 1 July 2025, Raphael Hoetmer and Sofia Jarrín in Amazon Watch report on the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, staying that governments and UNODC must include Indigenous Peoples in anti-crime and environmental policies
Organized crime now dominates 70% of Amazonian municipalities across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Networks of illicit economies – or “Amazon Crime” – have diversified and expanded the territorial control and political power of criminal gangs, posing existential threats to biodiversity, ecological integrity, and Indigenous rights across the Amazon, much like in other critical ecosystems worldwide. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2025/02/17/colombia-and-brazil-the-worlds-deadliest-countries-for-environmental-activists/]
For Indigenous communities, these expanding criminal economies mean more than environmental degradation. They are direct assaults on their lives, health, and sovereignty. Illegal activities such as logging, mining, and coca production for international markets contaminate rivers with mercury, destroy food sources, deteriorate health, and displace communities from their ancestral lands. These burgeoning criminal markets, coupled with weak or complicit state institutions, have led Indigenous leaders to warn that criminal groups are increasingly taking over local government structures and exerting territorial control.
This deepening crisis makes the Amazon one of the most dangerous places in the world for environmental defenders. Indigenous organizations often face these threats alone, without adequate support from governments or international institutions. As Indigenous Peoples themselves underscore, these violent criminal economies kill leaders, recruit their youth, and spread fear through their communities…
This year a delegation of Amazonian Indigenous leaders delivered a clear and urgent message: organized crime and illegal economies are devastating the Amazon and threatening the survival of Indigenous Peoples. They called on the Forum to include strong recommendations urging the international community and governments to step up their efforts to support Indigenous territorial governance, protect human rights defenders, and ensure Indigenous Peoples are included in shaping policies to prevent and contain organized crime.
“The Permanent Forum must formally recognize that organized crime and illegal economies such as drug trafficking and illegal mining are an existential threat to our peoples. We must be included in drafting the international protocol on environmental crimes, and protection mechanisms for Indigenous defenders must be created, along with funding for Indigenous-led economic alternatives. If these measures are not taken, ongoing military and police interventions in our territories will continue to put our lives at risk. Without dignified livelihoods, we cannot safeguard our culture or our territories.”
The Permanent Forum’s conclusions this year directly responded to these urgent appeals. Its final document, published earlier this month, presents a wide range of concerns, recommendations, and proposals related to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with this session explicitly addressing the impacts and expansion of criminal economies.
In conclusion 87 of the document, the Forum urges governments and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – the leading global institution on anti-crime policies – to integrate Indigenous Peoples meaningfully into the design and implementation of anti-crime and security strategies. This recommendation is particularly relevant in the ongoing process to discuss a new Protocol Against Crimes that Affect the Environment, which must include the voices of Indigenous Peoples – as the principal stewards of global biodiversity and primary victims of the violence tied to these crimes.
The Forum’s conclusions also emphasize the urgent need for the international community and governments to:
- take necessary measures to ensure the rights, protection, and safety of Indigenous leaders and human rights defenders,
- end impunity and prosecute those who commit violence against Indigenous Peoples,
- acknowledge and protect Indigenous women and children from the disproportionate impacts of war and violence on their lives,
- ensure Indigenous participation in peace negotiations and peace-building processes,
- assess the impacts of mercury on the health, culture, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples under the Minamata Convention,
- and repair the damage from toxic metals on Indigenous lands and territories, including restoring sites and water sources, with special attention to the severe impact on the health of Indigenous women and children.
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.