VIENNA — Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon arrived in Vienna to bring their fight against illegal mining, drug trafficking, and deforestation to a United Nations conference on transnational organized crime known as COP13, running from October 19 to 23. More than a dozen representatives from Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador are pressing governments to dismantle the financial networks driving environmental crimes and to secure a greater role in protecting ancestral territories and shaping a proposed international agreement.
Galois Flores, a representative of Peru’s Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, told reporters that illegal resource extraction and drug smuggling are escalating into a severe security crisis. Flores noted that mercury from illicit gold mining contaminates rivers relied upon for fishing and drinking water, while armed criminal networks intimidate local populations. In response, the Wampis have established two monitoring posts, each staffed by 14 Indigenous guards, though those resisting criminal elements continue to face threats and violence.
Similar pressures endanger the Kakataibo people in Peru’s central Amazon, where drug traffickers have built illicit coca plantations and processing laboratories within ancestral forests. Marcelo Odicio, president of the Federation of Native Kakataibo Communities, reported that six Kakataibo leaders have been killed since 2020, with community representatives facing routine threats. Across the border in Brazil, Ashaninka leader Francisco Piyako Apiwtxa described similar dangers from illegal logging, drug trafficking, and unauthorized roads. Piyako recounted an incident in July when at least five heavily armed, masked men entered an Ashaninka community to threaten families and search for leaders, noting that inadequate government protection forces Indigenous communities to confront criminal groups independently.
In Colombia’s southern Putumayo region, Indigenous leader Ingry Mojanajinsoy warned that armed groups traditionally reliant on drug trafficking are increasingly pivoting toward illegal mining. Even when operations occur outside official Indigenous territories, toxic runoff travels downstream, contaminating regional water sources and fish populations. According to data from environmental and human rights group Global Witness, at least 105 land and environmental defenders were killed across Latin America in 2025, representing 85 percent of the 124 global fatalities documented that year. Colombia recorded 39 killings, followed by Brazil with 26.
The Vienna conference gathers nations operating under a U.N. treaty against transnational organized crime, with governments considering the launch of formal negotiations for a new protocol addressing environmental offenses such as illegal mining, logging, and wildlife trafficking. Raphael Hoetmer, Western Amazon Program Director at Amazon Watch, criticized current government strategies relying heavily on military operations and raids, arguing they fail to address root causes and leave local communities exposed to retaliatory violence. Delegates are instead advocating for robust Indigenous land rights, direct support for community-led territorial protection, and formal consultation in international negotiations.
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime highlighted its ongoing collaborative efforts with Indigenous communities across Latin America, including a project in Brazil that aids local monitoring of illegal gold mining and strengthens cooperation with authorities. Alejandra Silva, a spokesperson for the agency, stated that the initiative has helped lay the groundwork for a national detection and response system, though the agency did not clarify whether Indigenous representatives would secure a formal seat in negotiating the proposed protocol.
Leaders emphasized that isolated police or military interventions remain ineffective because illegal operators routinely return once security forces withdraw, an observation echoed by soldiers during an August illegal mining raid in Peru. Flores urged authorities to treat environmental crimes with the same severity applied to drug and arms trafficking by tracking illicit financial flows and disrupting markets for illegally mined gold, while Odicio called for formal recognition of Indigenous territorial guards and enhanced protections for threatened community leaders.
