Drug trade, land grabs threaten Amazon communities on climate front lines

Against the backdrop of COP30 – the first United Nations climate conference held in the Amazon – Indigenous communities whose rainforest preservation efforts are key to climate solutions are facing new, violent threats as a UN carbon offset scheme struggles to take hold. In the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, Peru's first co-managed Indigenous area, the most immediate threat to the Amazon isn't global warming, but drug trafficking. Few in this community of 220 speak openly about the struggles they face trying to prevent valuable rainforest from being cleared, despite the early introduction of a UN carbon offset programme in the area more than a decade ago. “We are afraid to articulate anything publicly against the illegal things that are happening around here, because we are threatened,” says Silvia*, a member of the Harakmbut Indigenous community who requested anonymity. She speaks in whispers about crews clearing forests for coca production allegedly arriving from the central ...