Caraza and other officials with captured turtle shells and other trafficked animal products in Peru. (Photo courtesy of Alberto Caraza)
Mongabay: Why is combatting organized crime such an important part of the larger fight to protect the environment?
Alberto Yusen Caraza: I believe that when we talk about environmental crimes, it’s often born out of organized crime, because the mere act of cutting down a tree is not something one person does. The illegality of the crime, what makes it an environmental crime in Peru, needs the organization — a collection of roles and functions from the top, the leader, the one who finances it and organizes it and can handle the money. In order to transport wood, you need a lot of money, you need to hire boats, hire tractors, hire a lot of people … After that, you have to go to a sawmill that doesn’t have any kind of authorization or license. So we recognize there are predetermined roles and functions that are needed to commit environmental crimes. And that’s just talking about wood. Something similar happens when it comes to wildlife. For fauna, you need financial backers to send someone to get [the animals] out of the forest … I consider them the last link in the chain of illegal wildlife trafficking. They don’t just play a role at the end of the production chain.
…So if the question is whether environmental crimes are connected to organized crime, of course they are. What we have to do is really carry out serious investigations, investigations with police officers who can carry out the good work of putting up a fight against these crimes. That’s been our weakness. Our weakness as a prosecutor’s office is that we don’t have specialized police officers to develop serious investigations and interventions to bring down environmental crime.
Mongabay: Is that a budgeting issue?
Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche: It’s a question of logistics. It’s a question of how little attention the Peruvian state is giving to implementing the necessary measures for combating these environmental crimes.
Mongabay: Your jurisdiction shares an international border with Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. Does that complicate the fight against organized environmental crime?
Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche: Peru is a large territory, really immense, and for us prosecutors it’s quite difficult to move around remote areas. The remote places are often around the border, including Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil…Cross-border environmental crimes are already happening at a very intense level in Colombia, especially illegal mining. It’s come and settled in Peru. We have cases linked to the rivers that connect Peru and Colombia in the Peruvian Amazon … The area has a high incidence of illegal mining that’s gotten more complicated. We’ve started dialogues with the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office and I hope soon we can carry out binational operations for crimes related to wildlife [trafficking].
We’ve had some problems on the tri-border area of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. We’ve carried out quite successful operations on the Peruvian side because unfortunately there is no state presence when it comes to the armed forces, the military, police, the navy, and that’s why illegality spreads into Peru and it’s very easy for [people in] neighboring countries like Colombia and Brazil to simply take a boat and come in. The only thing that divides the border of Peru, Colombia and Brazil is the [rainforest] and the river. They come through and that’s where all this illegality happens, both for wood and for wildlife. We’ve tried to coordinate with Colombian prosecutors and I think that it’s going well. At the end of this year and the start of 2023, we’re hoping to have meetings for carrying out a binational operation in the area.
Mongabay: The country has gone through a lot politically in recent years. Last month, former President Pedro Castillo was impeached for trying to dissolve congress, leading the way for the inauguration of his vice president, Dina Boluarte. Has this political fragmentation contributed to the state’s inability to combat environmental crime?
Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche: We’ve gone through six presidents in five years. Peru has a tremendous amount of political instability and coupled with political instability is economic instability. This economic instability is reflected in the economic budget assigned to each public institution. Currently, the Public Ministry has requested a budget to continue working through 2023 and former President Castillo gave the Public Ministry only 60% of what it asked for. That means we won’t even be able to make it through the middle of 2023 if this continues the way it has. It’s going to go from bad to worse. But I believe the new president has all the desire in the world. She’s been in meetings with all the major entities [of the government]. Let’s hope that all this progresses in a better way.
Editor’s Note: This interview was translated from Spanish and lightly edited for style and clarity.
Banner image: Rainforest in Loreto, Peru. Photo courtesy of Anna & Michal/Flickr.
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Amazon Logging, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, environmental justice, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Forests, Illegal Logging, Illegal Timber Trade, Indigenous Peoples, Law Enforcement, Rainforest Logging, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking
Amazon, Latin America, Peru, South America
Source link : https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/fighting-wildlife-trafficking-in-peru-qa-with-prosecutor-alberto-caraza/
Author :
Publish date : 2022-12-26 03:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.