Key Takeaways for Enhancing Safety Governance in the Amazon
The Amazon faces a variety of security challenges, ranging from historical issues such as high homicide rates, theft, illicit trade, and violence against women to new threats to the region’s rich biodiversity, including deforestation, unauthorized logging, unregulated mining, and land grabbing. Considering the complexity of these problems and the diversity of actors involved in seeking solutions, an effective governance agenda has become urgent.
This publication seeks to address a gap in the discussion regarding initiatives that can enhance coordination among entities responsible for identifying, preventing, and combating environmental offenses in the Amazon region. It analyzes practical governance experiences and identifies key attributes that can improve the performance of national and subnational institutions in addressing misconduct and unlawful activities. Additionally, it examines four governance cases that stand out in one or more of these key attributes, bringing relevant practices and lessons learned to strengthen security governance in the Amazon.
In this context, where the Amazon region is subject to the alliances and conflicts that are inherent to organized illicit networks and their intersections and exchanges with environmental offenses, we analyze alternatives for enhancing state (or institutional) capacities and provide recommendations for implementing security governance in the Amazon at three levels: local (municipalities), subnational (states), and regional. These measures aim to address the cross-border challenges of unlawful practices and insecurity.
Learn more about this topic in the study Operation Curupira: An Integrated Approach to Combat Deforestation in Southern Pará and Stolen Amazon: the roots of environmental crime in Bolivia
