At the lawless triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru, drug trafficking, illegal logging and gangs jeopardise the ecological and social fabric of the rainforest
Bram Ebus
The area of the Amazon where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet – referred to as Tres Fronteras (triple frontier) – brims with wildlife and natural resources. It is also a hotbed of illicit activity. Criminal groups are clearing the forest to plant coca and erect laboratories to turn the crop into cocaine. In the process of making coca paste, these labs discharge chemical waste – including acetone, gasoline and sulphuric acid – into rivers and soil.
Increasingly, these outfits are branching into illegal logging, gold dredging and fishing, in part because these activities allow them to launder money made from drug trafficking. These activities compound the environmental harm the groups are inflicting.
The consequences of this criminal activity reverberate far beyond the Tres Fronteras. The Amazon is a pre-eminent carbon sink, absorbing substantial atmospheric carbon dioxide. Through its central role in the hydrological cycle, the Amazon also profoundly influences global weather and precipitation patterns. Its unparalleled biodiversity is essential for maintaining ecological balance. In sum, the planet’s environmental health hinges in part on what is happening in this corner of the world.
The assassination of Dom Phillips, a Brazil-based British journalist and Guardian freelance contributor, and his local guide and Indigenous rights defender, Bruno Pereira, brought the region’s high level of violence to international attention. Well before these killings, however, criminality had been on the rise across the region.
The Tres Fronteras has some of the highest rates of violence in Latin America, which itself is the region with the world’s highest homicide rate. Communities in the area have faced death and displacement threats, while criminal groups have stepped up their recruitment of minors….
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