Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest and grow coca. To combat the drug trade, a new report calls for titling Indigenous territories along major trafficking routes.
Since 2020, 27 Indigenous leaders in Peru have been assassinated, it is believed, for defending their land, including more than a dozen who were murdered in connection to drug trafficking, according to a new report published by Amazon Watch.
“We, the Indigenous defenders, face threats from drug traffickers when we speak out,” said Marcelo Odicio, an Indigenous Kakataibo leader. “We are calling for real change in how this crisis is addressed.”
Drug traffickers are able to seize land through organized invasions and cement their holdings with fraudulent contracts. More than 270 Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are at risk of being attacked and uprooted by drug traffickers, the report said. To protect native lands and stem the loss of forest, it called for titling Indigenous territories.
Until recently, the U.S. Agency for International Development had been supporting Indigenous groups in Peru in combating deforestation related to the production of cocaine. But the recent dismantling of the agency, under President Donald Trump, has threatened to reinvigorate the drug trade, the Associated Press reports.
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