- The department of Loreto, in northeast Peru, shares a nearly uninhabited border with Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, making it ideal for illegal logging and wildlife trafficking.
- A law passed in November allows prosecutors to treat wildlife traffickers as organized crime groups with harsher sentences.
- Loreto prosecutor Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche, who specializes in environmental crime, spoke to Mongabay about protecting the department’s vast Amazonian rainforest, and how Peru’s recent political upheaval impacts that work.
He was sent to prison and Vice President Dina Boluarte was sworn in as the country’s first female president. Protests across Peru have continued throughout the month, with residents demanding new elections and more accountability in the political system — there have been seven presidents since 2018, some ousted because of corruption scandals and others by constitutional crises.
In Loreto, the largest and one of the most rural departments of Peru, the environment has been suffering from this political unrest. The national government has underfunded environment-related work, which gets pushed back by every change of head of state.
Logging and wildlife trafficking are on the rise, much of it at the hands of organized crime groups that know how to circumvent environmental regulations. That’s especially worrying in Loreto, which hosts around 35 million hectares of Amazonian rainforest, making it one of the most biodiverse areas in Peru.
Loreto, located in the northeast, also shares massive, uninhabited borders with Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia, which even with cross-border cooperation can be almost impossible to monitor fully.
In November, a law was passed making the penalty for trafficking flora and fauna much stricter. It also allowed prosecutors to treat people involved in trafficking as an organized crime group. The law faced backlash in congress after it was passed, with some lawmakers claiming, among other things, that it unfairly targeted artisanal fishermen who fish out of season. However, repeal efforts have failed so far.
Mongabay spoke to Loreto Prosecutor Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche about the new wildlife trafficking law, environmental crime trends in the Peruvian Amazon and how the country’s continued political turmoil is impacting wildlife trafficking and logging.
https://news-mongabay-com.cdn.amppr...n-peru-qa-with-prosecutor-alberto-caraza/amp/