GameChangers 2025: The Unstoppable Rise of Environmental Crime
In 2025, environmental crimes spread into corners of the Amazon Basin that had so far largely escaped the rampant plunder of the forest and its inhabitants by criminal networks and regional elites over the past decade.
New illegal gold mining fronts were established in southern Ecuador’s Amazon and along the Puré River, on the border between Colombia and Brazil. Others multiplied throughout Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela during 2025, driven by record-high prices for the precious metal. This illegal mining is part of an ecosystem of illicit economies that includes land grabbing, planting illicit crops, illegal logging, and forest clearing for agricultural purposes. These criminal activities are driving deforestation and biodiversity loss in the region, eroding the Amazon’s role as a carbon sink and pushing it toward a point of no return.
Despite the central role of illicit economies in the climate crisis, a decade ago they barely registered on authorities’ radars and were not included on the list of urgent challenges related to climate change. At the United Nations COP30 climate conference, held in November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, the final declaration did not set out a clear roadmap to curb deforestation or address its drivers, including organized crime.
But over the past decade, organized crime has played an increasingly central role in the climate crisis facing the Amazon, and addressing it must be a priority.
https://insightcrime.org/news/gamechangers-2025-unstoppable-rise-environmental-crime-amazon/