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An underground gold war in Colombia is ‘a ticking ecological time bomb’

Joshua Collins 31 Dec 2024

High-flying concessions: Clandestine airstrips, coca crops invade Ucayali’s forests

Mongabay Latam 16 Dec 2024

Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon

Mongabay Latam 9 Dec 2024

15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities

Mongabay Latam 4 Dec 2024

The illegal runways exposing the Kakataibo people to drug violence in Peru

Mongabay Latam 29 Nov 2024
The Putumayo is a long Amazonian river that begins in Colombia and flows into the Brazilian Amazon. Photo courtesy of Michelle Carrere.

Women in Putumayo turn to fish farming and away from the coca industry

Iñigo Alexander 28 Nov 2024
Carlos’ fellow guardians carry his coffin

The underreported killing of Colombia’s Indigenous land guardian, ‘The Wolf’ (Photos)

Tony Kirby | Anna Abraham | Cesar Quiroz 7 Nov 2024
Image by Aram Kazandjian via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Conservationists mobilize to save Sierra Leone national park and its chimpanzees

Mohamed Fofanah 4 Nov 2024
An Indigenous group in a boat in the Ucayali River.

Report links killings to environmental crimes in Peru’s Amazon

Aimee Gabay 12 Sep 2024
A farmer walks with his cattle past agricultural farms.

Colombia’s coca substitution program failing to help farmers or slow deforestation

Aimee Gabay 9 Aug 2024

Narco activity takes heavy toll on Colombia’s protected forests, satellite data show

Morgan Erickson-Davis 31 May 2024

Ecuador’s Los Lobos narcotrafficking gang muscles in on illegal gold mining

Arturo Torres, Dan Collyns 28 May 2024

In Amazon’s tri-border Javari region, teens fall prey to drug gangs’ lure

Ivan Brehaut, Rodrigo Pedroso, Victoria Carlos 24 May 2024

Photos confirm narcotraffickers operating in Peru’s Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve

Yvette Sierra Praeli 17 May 2024

Etelvina Ramos: From coca farmer to opponent of the illegal crop

Diana María Pachón 26 Apr 2024

Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers

Nelfi Fernández Reyes 6 Mar 2024

Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation

Iván Paredes Tamayo, Nelfi Fernández Reyes 1 Mar 2024
Portrait of Quinto Inuma. Image courtesy of Quinto Inuma.

Safety of Peru’s land defenders in question after killing of Indigenous leader in the Amazon

Geraldine Santos, Gloria Alvitres 7 Dec 2023
Deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

As Colombia’s coca economy crashes, new opportunities — and threats — arise

Mie Hoejris Dahl 15 Nov 2023

Drug trafficking imperils national park and Indigenous reserves in the Peruvian Amazon

Enrique Vera 3 Nov 2023

Drug trafficking fuels other deforestation drivers in the Amazon: report

Maxwell Radwin 14 Jul 2023

Guatemala national park nearing ‘collapse’ amid land grabbing, deforestation

Maxwell Radwin 4 May 2023

Colombia, Ecuador announce alert system to protect Indigenous Awá from armed groups

Maxwell Radwin 10 Mar 2023

‘Panic’ sets in as armed groups occupy, deforest Colombian national park

Astrid Arellano 12 Dec 2022
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs Inc. captured October 2022 shows several recently cleared areas in the territory of the Indigenous community of Puerto Nuevo.

Indigenous communities in Peru ‘living in fear’ due to deforestation, drug trafficking

Yvette Sierra Praeli 2 Dec 2022

Indigenous community in Peru losing forests to timber, drug, land trafficking

Yvette Sierra Praeli 21 Nov 2022
A member of an indigenous community in Putumayo watches over his community’s territory. Photo courtesy of Michelle Carrere.

As gangs battle over Peru’s drug trafficking routes, communities and forest are at risk

Michelle Carrere 8 Nov 2022
Drying farmed cannabis.

Legal and illegal cannabis: A cause for growing environmental concern

Sean Mowbray 2 Jun 2022
Coca plantation on a hillside near Caranavi, western Bolivia.

All coked up: The global environmental impacts of cocaine

Sean Mowbray 4 Apr 2022
A group of community workers from the Ejido Santa Ana rest after a day working in the forest. Image courtesy of UCDFI Topia, S.C.

Opium production down as communities in Mexico’s Golden Triangle turn to forestry

Rodrigo Soberanes 29 Mar 2022

Drug trafficking threatens Indigenous Shipibo communities in Peru

Enrique Vera 3 Sep 2021

Drug trafficking and illegal logging threaten Indigenous communities in Peru

Gloria Alvitres 26 Aug 2021

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