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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
A farmer cuts cacao pods from the tree in Colombia.

Delectable but destructive: Tracing chocolate’s environmental life cycle

Sean Mowbray 1 Aug 2022

Peru’s Amazon rainforest is threatened by an ecosystem of environment crime (commentary)

Carolina Andrade, Robert Muggah 4 Jul 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

Illegal mining in Colombia’s Amazon threatens Indigenous communities

Carol Sánchez 24 Aug 2021

Indigenous Amazonian communities bear the burden of Ecuador’s balsa boom

Diego Cazar Baquero 17 Aug 2021

Drugs, fire, settlers poised to wipe out one of Paraguay’s most biodiverse forests

Aldo Benítez 27 May 2021

In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs

Ashoka Mukpo 13 May 2021

Drugs and agriculture cause deforestation to skyrocket at Honduran UNESCO site

Karen Paredes, Leonardo Guevara, Lesly Frazier 30 Apr 2021
Photo by the members of the community of Santa Martha.

Indigenous Cacataibo of Peru threatened by land grabbing and drug trade

Enrique Vera 15 Jan 2021
Despite the fear instilled by the armed narco-terrorist groups, the Indigenous Siona have organized to monitor their territory and prevent further deforestation. Photo: Mateo Barriga Salazar / Amazon Frontlines

Colombian and Ecuadorian Indigenous communities live in fear as drug traffickers invade

Ana Cristina Basantes 8 Jan 2021

Cocaine production driving deforestation into Colombian national park

René Mora 7 Jan 2021

Illegal deforestation rises in South America’s Indigenous territories, parks

Vanessa Romo 29 Dec 2020

A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it

Edward Carver 21 Dec 2020

Palm oil, coca and gangs close in on Colombia’s Indigenous Nukak Makú

Tatiana Pardo Ibarra 10 Dec 2020

Technology innovations look to change the cacao landscape in Colombia

Aurora Solá 10 Nov 2020

In Colombia, a protected park is buffeted by social, environmental conflicts

Antonio José Paz Cardona 7 Aug 2020

Understaffed and under threat: Paraguay’s park rangers pay the ultimate price

Aldo Benítez 5 Aug 2020

No choice: Why communities in Paraguay are cutting down forests to survive

Aldo Benítez 31 Jul 2020

Double blow to Colombian Amazon and Indigenous groups from armed militants, COVID-19

Dimitri Selibas 31 Jul 2020

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