Indigenous leaders from Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador are taking their campaign against illegal mining, logging and drug trafficking in the Amazon to a United Nations conference on transnational organised crime in Vienna, which opens on Monday, the Associated Press reports via PBS NewsHour. More than a dozen representatives are attending the 19 to 23 October meeting.
They want governments to target the financial networks behind environmental crime and to give Indigenous peoples a larger role in protecting their land. Leaders described mercury pollution of rivers, coca plantations in ancestral forests and threats from armed groups; a Kakataibo leader said six of the community's leaders have been killed since 2020. Global Witness counted 105 land and environmental defenders killed in Latin America in 2025. Countries may consider opening talks on a new protocol on environmental crime.
Source: PBS NewsHour (Associated Press)
