Drug trafficking, black money and other illegal activities: the bloody truth behind deforestation in Latin America

Image credit: Leo Correa /AP/Shutterstock

Nearly 10 million hectares of forest are lost each year, as large as Iceland. The worst losses are in the tropics. Tropical forests store large amounts of carbon and are home to at least two-thirds of the world's organisms, so deforestation has catastrophic consequences for climate change and biodiversity conservation. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, slowing their buildup in the atmosphere — but when they are burned or cut down, the stored carbon is released, further exacerbating warming. Tropical forest loss produces nearly 50 per cent more greenhouse gases than all transport sectors combined.

Four consumer goods are the main causes of deforestation: beef, soybeans, palm oil, and wood pulp and paper products. These commodities cause nearly 5 million hectares of land loss each year. However, there is a fifth key element that is lesser known: organized crime, including drug trafficking and illegal gold mining. The author will first clarify the impact of the previous products.

In the Amazon, changes in land roles (grazing and crop cultivation) caused by cattle farming account for 80 per cent of deforestation. From 2000 to 2011, in tropical countries with high rates of deforestation, nearly 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of beef produced.

Together, soybeans and palm oil deforest nearly 10% (1 million hectares) are deforested each year. The reclamation of palm oil plantations has fueled massive rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia, where most of the world's palm oil is produced, destroying habitats for endangered species such as orangutans, elephants and tigers. Palm oil is the vegetable oil most commonly produced, consumed and traded. About 60% of the 66 million tonnes of palm oil produced worldwide each year is used to produce energy in the form of biofuels, electricity and heat. About 40% is used in food, animal feed and chemical products. Half of the product ingredients in supermarkets contain palm oil, including shampoo, some frozen foods and detergents.

The United States and Brazil produce nearly 70 percent of the world's soybeans (about 350 million tons of soybeans are produced globally each year). Over the past 30 years, Brazilian production has rapidly caught up with that of the United States, severely damaging tropical forests in the Amazon.

3. Wood products account for about 5% of the annual global deforestation, that is, about 5 million hectares per year. In low-income countries and rural areas, it is an important source of fuel for heating and cooking, as well as a major material for construction and furniture. Between 2001 and 2016, Indonesia felled a larger area of forest to build timber plantations than for palm oil.

Making supply chains for these four commodities more sustainable is an important strategy to reduce deforestation. But where we don't see it, there are many more factors affecting deforestation, such as organized crime. Lucrative black trade offers opportunities to launder money; in many parts of the world, the drug trade and black gold mining are destroying forests.

In South and Central America, drug trafficking organizations are at the forefront of deforestation. Drug dealers illegally cut down forests in the Amazon and hide cocaine in timber shipped to Europe. Drug dealers illegally cut wood in protected areas in Central America and operate ranches for money laundering and illegal profits. Other scholars estimate that 30 to 60 percent of deforestation in some areas is "caused by drug forests."

Legal and illegal activities are also intertwined by the commodity chains of palm oil and soybeans. ForestTrends, a U.S. nonprofit organization that promotes market-based approaches to forest conservation, estimates that nearly half of commercial products, such as cattle, soybeans, palm oil and wood products, are illegal for deforestation. According to the organization's analysis, exports related to illegal deforestation are worth $61 billion a year, or 25 percent of the world's total tropical deforestation.

The black gold business, a previously translated article by the Green Society, is driving the Amazon rainforest to a dead end丨 Green Society International Observation mentioned that nearly one-third of Brazil's gold production in 2019 and 2020 may be illegal or completely illegal, due to violence, deforestation and pollution. Many indigenous protected areas are even more so: the magical situation of not having a mining license but being an exporter of precious metals.

Not all large-scale illegal deforestation is linked to drug trafficking organizations or black gold digging. But chaos and backwardness are always with it. Promoting sustainable production and consumption and strengthening local enforcement are essential to halt global deforestation.

Text/Stan Review/YJ

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