Amazon Countries Shouldn’t Have to Fight Environmental Crime Alone

On August 22, leaders from the eight Amazon countries gathered to take stock of current efforts to protect the world’s largest rainforest and river basin. The meeting came at a time when the Amazon faces unprecedented threats from illegal logging and mining, unchecked expansion of ranching and farming into protected areas, uncontrolled megafires, and rising levels of crime and violence. 2024 was the fifth worst year on record for deforestation in the Amazon region, with over 4.3 million acres of forest lost. Meanwhile, illegal gold mining in the Amazon has doubled since 2018, expanding into increasingly remote and ecologically sensitive areas and threatening the safety and well-being of local communities.

In the balance hangs the future of one of the most special and biodiverse places on Earth. The Amazon is home to a staggering 3 million species, including flagship species such as jaguars, pink river dolphins, and some of the largest eagles in the world. Beyond its incredible biodiversity, the Amazon rainforest plays a key role in our global defense against climate change, absorbing one-fourth of the carbon dioxide absorbed by all the land on Earth.

The Amazon is also critically important as a home to an estimated 40 million people (roughly the population of Canada), including an estimated 400 Indigenous groups speaking 300 languages. Amazon residents are facing complex threats including rising levels of violence and insecurity, mercury contamination from illegal mining, extreme weather events such as droughts and wildfires, limited state presence, and insufficient economic opportunity. Many of these challenges stem from the rising role of environmental crime in the region, which threatens local livelihoods, contaminates food and water sources, and empowers criminal organizations operating with increasing levels of violence and sophistication.

As leaders gathered at the Fifth Presidential Summit of Amazon Countries in Bogota, Colombia, it was clear to many of us attending that the stakes were high. On balance, the results of the summit were positive. Those of us working to combat environmental crimes were pleased to see countries formally commit to crucial issues, including:

• Addressing mercury use;
• Strengthening security cooperation in response to cross-border illicit activities in the Amazon Region, including environmental crimes, threats to environmental defenders, and human rights violations; and
• Increasing technical cooperation among member countries for the exchange of information, experiences, and best practices related to gold traceability.

While these commitments mark progress, much more is needed. Some of the commitments are quite vague, particularly around illegal mercury use. With over 200 tons of illegal mercury trafficked into the Amazon region over the past five years, and emerging accounts of Amazon children who cannot speak or walk due to exposure to this toxic substance, countries need to commit to far more than “advancing the development of initiatives that allow addressing” this deadly harm.

Yet the region will have a hard time addressing these challenges without cooperation from the countries that serve as the destination for products and profits deriving from the Amazon’s destruction. Our work at the FACT Coalition has shown how the profits from environmental crimes in the Amazon flow to financial hubs outside of the region, notably the United States.

Take gold, for example. Our research has shown that the United States is a major destination for both illegally sourced gold and the illicit funds associated with its sale. Other global financial and trade centers play similarly important roles. The United Kingdom is among the world’s largest gold centers and is home to influential standards-setting bodies such as the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), and Switzerland is a global hub for gold refining. Could the Amazon region reasonably be expected to address illicit gold trading without engagement from these multibillion dollar markets?

The US should also resume recently-cancelled funding for international projects related to combating environmental crimes.

This is an important reminder that the devastating, rapidly growing environmental crimes threatening the Amazon with illicit extraction of natural resources do not occur in a vacuum. Illegally sourced natural resources from the Amazon region often enter global markets—and the illicit wealth they produce ends up far from the banks of the Amazon river, secreted away in shell companies, real estate, and other opaque structures.

While progress among Amazon countries is laudable, we also need countries from outside the region to take a stand against environmental crimes, illegally sourced natural resources, and illicit financial flows stemming from environmental destruction. They can do this by closing loopholes in their trade and financial systems, prosecuting environmental criminals, and cracking down on shell and front companies, the preferred financial getaway vehicle for environmental criminals.

Specifically, the US should address corporate and financial opacity in its own markets by implementing key reforms. This should include:

• Addressing the outsized role of US anonymous shell companies in environmental crimes by fully implementing the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA);
• Making transnational environmental crimes—such as those committed in the Amazon rainforest—an underlying offense for money laundering, which would help US prosecutors go after billions of dollars in dirty money driving environmental destruction;
• Requiring the same documentation needed to bring $10,000 in cash into the United States for $10,000 worth of gold, thereby closing a major loophole that is currently used by environmental criminals;
• Passing the bipartisan United States Legal Gold and Mining Partnership Act, which would establish a multi-year strategy to reduce the environmental and social impacts of illegal gold mining in the Western Hemisphere; and
• Ensuring that US government agencies working to protect the Amazon and combat environmental crimes have the resources they need to effectively do their job.

The US should also resume recently-cancelled funding for international projects related to combating environmental crimes. This should include support for formalization efforts for local workers, such as artisanal gold miners, helping to connect them with environmentally friendly techniques and responsible consumer markets.

It’s great to see Amazon countries committing to new measures to combat environmental crime. But they shouldn’t have to do it alone—especially when partnership from global allies could make all the difference.