Zooming in on the Peruvian jungle, many hectares of deforestation can be seen amid the thick vegetation, like huge scars hidden among the foliage. They’re dispersed between the forests in the departments of Ucayali, Loreto, Huánuco, Madre de Dios, Pasco and Cusco. Some are very close to rivers, others just meters away from tracks or roads, and many are in the middle of protected areas.

After more than 10 months of research, a team coordinated by Mongabay Latam confirmed that these openings in the middle of the jungle are clandestine airstrips. Many of them are built in or around native communities’ territories, close to protected areas or inside Indigenous reserves.

With information obtained from the Peruvian police’s antinarcotics unit, DIRANDRO; the departmental government of Ucayali, GORE Ucayali; OpenStreetMap; and an AI algorithm, we identified a total of 128 illegal airstrips across six departments in the Peruvian Amazon. We confirmed the presence of 76 of these through approximately 60 interviews with Indigenous leaders, community members, prosecutors, experts and civil servants. Of this number, 45 are in Ucayali and were built for drug trafficking.

“We found drug laboratories and clandestine airstrips mostly in the [province] of Atalaya [in Ucayali],” said Pedro Velásquez, deputy prosecutor of the Ucayali Special Prosecutor’s Office for Illicit Drug Trafficking. “Drug traffickers often use native communities or hard-to-access areas with no land registry and position themselves there; they know which areas have airstrips. This is their modus operandi.”

One of the most revealing pieces of information detected by the algorithm is that 10 of the airstrips built in Ucayali are hidden inside nine forest concessions — areas that are meant to be for the protection or sustainable management of the forest, but which have instead been taken over by drug traffickers. These illegal airstrips are distributed between the provinces of Atalaya, Coronel Portillo and Padre Abad. In some cases, the concession holders themselves have reported the problem, only to be ignored by the authorities.

“There are many timber concessions in Atalaya. When clandestine airstrips or illegal coca crops appear, most concession holders report them first to FEMA” — the Special Prosecutor for Environmental Matters — “which refers the cases to us,” Velásquez said.

What’s happening in Ucayali’s forest concessions? Who are the owners and how have drug traffickers managed to enter these lands?

High-flying concessions

Satellite images of the illegal airstrips detected inside Ucayali forest concessions and illicit coca plantations — identified by the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (DEVIDA) through 2023 — show that the 10 illegal strips are located inside nine forest concessions; six of them are located in the middle of coca fields.

Analysis reveals there are at least 27 hectares (67 acres) of illicit crops around seven of the strips, considering plantations detected within a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) radius. This amounts to coca crops spanning an area almost 38 times the size of the National Stadium of Peru.

Of the 10 clandestine airstrips used for drug trafficking, as we confirmed with local sources and officials, three are located in the province of Atalaya, five in Coronel Portillo and two in Padre Abad. Who are the legal representatives or owners of the concessions? Using information from the database of OSINFOR, Peru’s forest and wildlife monitoring agency, we identified eight companies as being either the legal representatives or owners of the concessions: Explotadora de Negocios Amazónicos S.A.C., Forestal Mendoza E.I.R.L., Forestal La Merced S.R.L., Jones Forestales S.A.C., Forestal Imiria S.R.L., Empresa Forestal El Aguajal, Ucayali Wood, and Proyecto World Green Perú. Only one of the concessions is in the name of an individual: Mauro Radegundo Villacorta.

According to OSINFOR, only four of the 10 forest concessions are active, that is, they have current license agreements. These licenses allow concession holders to log in natural forests, and can be valid for up to 40 years. Concessions are awarded through a public tender process carried out, in this case, by GORE Ucayali, the departmental government that also approves concession holders’ management plans.

The companies with current license agreements are Forestal Mendoza E.I.R.L., which has two concessions, Forestal La Merced S.R.L., and Ucayali Wood. Explotadora de Negocios Amazónicos S.A.C. also has a license valid until 2042, but its concession is located on private property.

The Ucayali Wood case

Teddy Arbe Rengifo, a representative of Ucayali Wood, told Mongabay Latam that he went to DIVINCRI, the police’s criminal investigation division, eight years ago to report illegal airstrips in the company’s concession.

“I sent photos of the plane, of the airstrips, to the intelligence police, but they never got back to me. It didn’t go any further. It seems obvious to us now: report it to avoid any problems,” Arbe said. “They need to create a headquarters in Ucayali like they did in VRAEM” — the region encompassing the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers — “because the situation is untenable. We’ve learned to coexist: as long as they don’t do anything to us, we don’t get involved.”

The company was awarded a 9,000-hectare (about 22,200-acre) concession in Tahuanía district, Atalaya province, an area ravaged by drug trafficking. The latest DEVIDA report, from 2023, shows that Tahuanía accounts for 57% of the land used for coca production in Ucayali, or 1,909 hectares (4,717 acres).

Access to the area is almost impossible without a police escort. A team from Mongabay Latam was able to confirm that the place is practically a no-man’s land. Some 20 minutes from the Ucayali Wood concession, the team found plastic drums, used to process coca, dumped next to a river.

However, the problems in the concession aren’t new; they began nine years ago. The first logging contract with the state was signed in 2002 by Said Abensur de Brito, then legal representative of the company Forestal Anita. According to OSINFOR monitoring reports, the concession holder first lodged a complaint with FEMA’s Atalaya office in 2015 after noticing the presence of “third parties” growing coca in its concession.

In their 2018 report on the concession holder’s 2017-2018 environmental operating plan (EOP), OSINFOR agents used satellite date to confirm the presence of “large areas planted with agricultural crops including coca,” as well as an illegal airstrip.

A year later, in August 2019, the concession was taken over by Ucayali Wood, represented by Arbe. Since then, Arbe has submitted various complaints, to OSINFOR and FEMA Atalaya, regarding the presence of coca crops and illegal airstrips.

In August 2021, Arbe sent OSINFOR a copy of the first complaint he lodged with FEMA, adding new information: “Amendment of complaint due to increase in deforestation and burning carried out by coca producers, dated August 6 [of 2021].” The document included images of the affected areas, a map locating the spaces deforested by coca producers, and videos dated Aug. 6, 2021, showing the forest burning.

It wasn’t until January this year that FEMA Atalaya revised the report prepared by OSINFOR in 2023 about the case. According to the prosecutor’s office, Arbe claimed he had found 20 areas of illegal logging and deforestation for illicit coca crops in the concession, three of them measuring up to 10 hectares (25 acres). The 20 areas occupy a combined 98.57 hectares (243.6 acres).

Consequently, in February 2024, FEMA launched a preliminary investigation into alleged crimes against forests or forest structures to find out who was responsible. However, it later shelved the case after failing to identify the perpetrators, despite the concession holder reporting that the deforestation had been for the purpose of coca cultivation and the latter had increased in the past year.

“We found illegal activity. First, we reported it at the police station in Atalaya, and arranged a time for them to visit. Then the prosecutor’s office shelved the case; they shelve everything. They ask for my statement, I say, ‘Look, yes, these are the areas, this is what happened,’ and then they go after whoever is responsible, but can’t identify them,” Arbe said.

According to OSINFOR, so far, no loss of forest has been identified this year to suggest the advance of illegal activity inside the concession. However, for Arbe, the danger is constant due to the presence of drug trafficking in the area, which is why he said he’ll continue to report what’s happening in his concession so as not to lose his license, valid until 2042.

Impact of the pandemic

How did drug traffickers manage to build airstrips inside the concessions? One of the underlying problems was the absence of the authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to FEMA Atalaya, environmental crimes like deforestation, illegal logging and trafficking of timber products have risen substantially since 2020. In this context, it was very easy for gangs to encroach on protected area.

The Forestal Mendoza E.I.R.L. concession is a case in point. The logging concession was awarded in 2002 for an area of 19,798 hectares (48,922 acres) in Masisea district, Coronel Portillo province. It was expanded to 23,534 hectares (58,154 acres) following an addendum to the contract in 2008. According to the contract, the company’s legal representative is a Juan Simón Victor Mendoza de Souza, now deceased. However, it also mentions his brother, Francisco de Asís Mendoza de Souza — the current mayor of Atalaya province.

According to information accessed by Mongabay Latam, the mayor was reported for money laundering in 2014 and 2021 in Ayacucho department. He was also investigated by prosecutors in Satipo province, in neighboring Junín department, in 2017 and 2019 for crimes of usurpation (for which he was charged) and abuse of authority (for which he was acquitted). In Ucayali, prosecutors have investigated him for embezzlement, money laundering, extortion, environmental contamination and misuse of his position. In addition, FEMA Atalaya launched an investigation into him in 2018 for alleged crimes relating to solid waste management and environmental contamination, but eventually shelved the case.

The algorithm used by Mongabay Latam detected two clandestine airstrips in Mendoza de Souza’s concession: one built in June 2018 and the other in June 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the prosecutor’s office, criminal organizations took advantage of the lack of official oversight during this period to engage in more deforestation.

OSINFOR confirmed, in response to a request for information, that both airstrips remain active. The agency was able to verify this information through monitoring via satellite images, and as a result now plan a visit to the area. According to FEMA, the concession holder reported the presence of these illegal strips and deforestation in the area back in 2018.

Asked about his participation in the Forestal Mendoza concession, Mayor Francisco Mendoza de Souza said that in 2004 he sold the company to his brother, Juan Simón, and that after the latter’s death, it was inherited by his children. He said that during the time that he held the concession, between 2002 and 2004, he neither identified nor reported the presence of airstrips in the area.

“I haven’t been the concession holder since 2004. I sold the company to my brother who died in 2004. Things were different at that time. In recent years there have been bigger problems like illegal mining, of which there is a minimal amount, and drug trafficking in Ucayali,” he told Mongabay Latam.

He also denied any connection with alleged drug trafficking. “I’m not connected to drug trafficking or coca. We make roads for people, not for drugs. When you’re a politician you get reported for all sorts [of things], but I have a track record and I’ve never been connected to this kind of thing,” he added.

During the pandemic, a clandestine airstrip was also built in a concession located in Tahuanía district, Coronel Portillo province. Satellite images show an illegal strip in the middle of the concession held by Forestal La Merced S.R.L., whose legal representative is Maritza Ángeles Heliz. The concession was awarded in 2003 for 10,757 hectares (26,581 acres), and concealed in its forests is an airstrip built in June 2020. OSINFOR confirmed, in response to an inquiry by Mongabay Latam, that this isn’t the only airstrip in the concession; the agency has detected another through its monitoring system.

According to sources from FEMA Atalaya, community members reported the presence of illegal coca crops and the appearance of clandestine airstrips in the concession in 2020, but that case too was shelved. FEMA confirmed that it’s due to visit the area.

Hidden airstrips in abandoned concessions

With the help of an AI algorithm, Mongabay Latam managed to identify another six clandestine airstrips in the concessions awarded to Empresa Forestal El Aguajal, Jones Forestales, Imiria, Proyecto World Green Perú, and Mauro Radegundo Villacorta. According to OSINFOR, these companies’ licenses have expired; they’re waiting for the Ucayali government’s forest and wildlife authority, ARFFS, to carry out the necessary procedure so that new licenses can be awarded through public tenders.

In the case of Jones Forestales, the license agreement for the concession was terminated in 2008, six years after the contract was agreed, due to serious administrative offenses including noncompliance with the forest management plan. In its monitoring reports, OSINFOR identified that the concession holder had included false information in its environmental operating plan and extracted timber from outside its authorized area.

According to FEMA Atalaya, there was a complaint against Jones Forestales for using a forestry tractor to carry out activities inside the territory of the Indigenous Diobamba (Ashéninka) community in Tahuanía district. The case is awaiting trial. Inside this concession, which is under investigation by the prosecutor’s office, a clandestine airstrip was detected, built in December 2019. The strip is in the middle of a concession that’s due be put out for tender.

Another of the companies whose license agreements has expired is Empresa Forestal El Aguajal. The contract for this concession was signed in 2002 by José Luis Maguiña Paredes, former mayor of Padre Abad, a district in the province of the same name. The company’s managing director, Macelo Maguiña Paredes, was arrested in 2023 for alleged corruption of public officials. The license for the concession expired in 2015 and, according to OSINFOR, an airstrip was identified in the area in 2022.

However, satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch shows that the clandestine airstrip was built in December 2020. It also affects an Indigenous community located nearby, as the concession occupies a portion of this territory. According to OSINFOR monitoring reports, there have been disputes concerning borders with the native community, which also has a concession in the area.

Leaders of Ucayali Indigenous federations, who spoke as representatives of the Indigenous communities in the area, confirmed the existence of the airstrip inside their territory and recalled that it was the Ucayali departmental government that had awarded the forest concession over the land. “Currently, most of the territory is threatened by illegal coca cultivation and drug trafficking,” one of the leaders said. He also said they no longer report such activities to the authorities because “they don’t listen to us and can’t be trusted.”

Before the license expired, Empresa Forestal El Aguajal reported to department authorities that it had found a pit filled with coca leaves, known as a maceration pit for the preparation of coca paste, inside its concession, as evidenced in OSINFOR reports from 2012. The report included photographs showing illegal logging, with 60 hectares (148 acres) of forest lost. A year earlier the company had also reported the presence of coca producers. The clandestine airstrip and illegal coca plantations are still operating in the area.

A similar case is that of Imiria, a company that acquired a concession in 2002 that appears to have expired in 2007. The concession area overlaps with the territory of the Indigenous Camtesari Quipatsi community. In 2020, a narcotrafficking strip appeared in the middle of the forest concession.

Another two clandestine airstrips were found in the concessions of Proyecto World Green Perú and Mauro Radegundo Villacorta, in Padre Abad and Coronel Portillo provinces, respectively. In the case of Radegundo Villacorta, the concession was revoked after OSINFOR concluded that the holder had failed to carry out a forestry census or tree marking according to the management plan, for which he was fined the equivalent of about $67,000.

The monitoring report for Radegundo Villacorta’s 2008-2009 environmental operating plan mentions the presence of illegal loggers. According to the concession holder, the criminals entered his concession when he wasn’t there.

What happens next? According to OSINFOR, once administrative sanction proceedings have been brought against a concession holder and the license agreement is due to expire, the Ucayali departmental government is responsible for holding another public tender for the respective concessions. Meanwhile, the illicit coca crops and clandestine airstrips continue to occupy these state lands. OSINFOR said that it carries out monitoring of forests, but inspections are planned using route maps coordinated with the Ucayali government.

Franco Navarro, a representative of the Ucayali forestry and wildlife agency, said his office carries out monitoring of areas for which concessions haven’t been awarded yet after the previous licenses have expired. He said the process of awarding a new concession takes three months.

“If a concession expires, we carry out monitoring so that we can put the areas out for tender, so that parties interested in taking over the concession can present us their documents,” Navarro told Mongabay Latam. “Once potential concession holders have carried out a census to see if it will be profitable, we select a new bidder and revise their plans.”

Who must take action?

OSINFOR said one of the problems it has identified in the supervision and monitoring of forest concessions is the time it takes for departmental governments, like Ucayali’s, to provide information about successful bidders. This delay, the agency said, undermines the planning of due diligence and monitoring that should be carried out in the area.

Since 2019, each departmental government has had access to a repository of digital files so that it can approve, scan and upload documents directly to the system, which is shared with OSINFOR. The aim of this platform is to speed up the process.

OSINFOR employees said concession holders can also report the presence of illegal activities such as illicit coca crops and clandestine airstrips via an alert system in order to activate emergency protocols. “We also determine and analyze loss of forest cover using satellite technology that didn’t exist eight years ago,” the agency said in response to a request for information.

Navarro from the Ucayali government told Mongabay Latam that in 2023 they managed to detect the presence of 63 clandestine airstrips in the region. Of these, 21 were located in forest concessions, and all information about overflights was forwarded to the relevant authorities.

“First we refer the case to the prosecutor’s office and the ecological police,” Navarro said. “If it’s about illegal crops, deforestation or [land-]use change, we can do something, but other institutions are responsible for forestry crimes. Concession holders themselves come to us to say that their staff discovered deforestation at such and such coordinates … If it’s close to a native community and if there’s a hydrographic basin, it’s for a crop, but in remote areas we presume it’s for drug trafficking. We notify the concession holder and refer the case to DIRANDRO, etc. They manage these areas.”

However, despite evidence and reports presented to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, neither DIRANDRO, the police’s antinarcotics unit, nor the Ucayali Special Prosecutor’s Office for Illicit Drug Trafficking are currently investigating the appearance of clandestine airstrips in forest concessions.

“I have yet to receive a single document from a company with a forest concession that mentions an airstrip in these areas,” an agent from the police’s antinarcotics tactical division in Pucallpa, the Ucayali departmental capital, told Mongabay Latam. “What’s more, while we can destroy them, we can’t do much else because most airstrips are in areas where we can’t hold anyone accountable; they have no owner. Even if an investigation is launched, we look in the public registry and it turns out the land has no owner.”

When forest concessions expire, the departmental government is responsible for monitoring the area until it’s awarded again. The Ucayali government said it doesn’t take longer than three months to award the concession to a new bidder, but OSINFOR said the process can take years. In the midst of this misgovernment, more narcotrafficking strips are built, and it’s the communities themselves who end up protecting the forest in the absence of the authorities.

Banner image: The airstrips are built clandestinely in the depths of the forest. Image courtesy of AIDESEP.

This story was first published by Mongabay Latam in Spanish here on Nov. 12, 2024.

Credits

Mongabayauthor Editor

Topics

Artificial IntelligenceBiodiversityConflictConservationDeforestationDrug TradeForestsIllegal LoggingIndigenous CommunitiesIndigenous GroupsLoggingMongabay Data StudioMongabay investigationRainforestsSatellite ImageryTropical ForestsAmazonLatin AmericaPeruSouth America

See Topics