Despite this, Prime Minister Denisse Miralles, serving under Peru’s recently seated interim President José María Balcazar, stated to the press: “There is enough fuel of all kinds: GLP, diesel, everything. Therefore, there should not be a price hike. Prices rise when there is a shortage, but that is not the case; what we have is hoarding and speculation.”

Nonetheless, repairs to the affected section of the disabled pipeline are being carried out. The cause of the incident is being investigated by Peru’s Supervisory Organism for Investment in Energy & Mining (Osinergmin). (Jurist, Andina, BNAmericas)

Photo: Ministerio de Defensa del Perú via Wikipedia

Backed by Interpol, the European Union through EL PACCTO 2.0, and a Dutch police unit specializing in environmental crime, “Operation Guyana Shield” involved over 24,500 checks on people and vehicles across remote border areas, and resulted in 198 arrests. Officers seized large quantities of cash, unprocessed gold, and mercury, as well as firearms, drugs and mining equipment. Authorities said organized crime networks behind these operations are linked to a major Guyanese gold exporting firm. The operation signals a new enforcement posture, marked by deeper cross-border collaboration to disrupt transnational networks that evade jurisdictional boundaries and exploit enforcement gaps across the Amazon border region.

“The surge in international gold prices in recent years has resulted in increased gold mining, making it the fastest-growing revenue stream for organized crime groups,” Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza said. Commenting on the collaborative nature of the operation, he continued: “At Interpol, we are committed to working with our partners to disrupt those networks and prevent more damage to this remote and environmentally fragile region.”

Authorities also seized over $60,000 worth of cylinders of mercury, which is commonly used in illegal gold mining to separate gold ore. It is extremely toxic and harmful to both the environment and human health, and can have devastating consequences for both when improperly transported and stored. Officers working on the border between Brazil and Guyana also intercepted a bus carrying undocumented migrants, including minors, who they believe to have been exploited for child labor or sexual abuse.

The Operation Guyana Shield task force was based out of Brazil’s International Police Cooperation Center (CCPI) for Amazonia in Manaus, and was comprised of officials from all four participating jurisdictions. The operation represented a single, coordinated push to disrupt organized crime networks in the Guyana Shield region, which is routinely plagued by illegal gold mining, cross-border smuggling, and related crimes that exploit remote borders and weak or uneven enforcement capacities.

With enforcement actions increasingly shaped by shared intelligence and coordinated deployments, officials framed Operation Guyana Shield as a test case for sustained regional cooperation against organized crime.

From JURIST, Jan. 23. Used with permission.

Photo: IBAMA via Flickr

The government’s Unidad de Análisis Financiero y Económico (UAFE) cited secret intelligence reports to justify the freezing of the funds. Among the groups affected was the indigenous organization Alianza Ceibo, representing the Waorani, Siekopai, A’i Cofán and Siona peoples, which has defended the economic, social, cultural and collective rights of these peoples for 10 years.

The groups were not notified of the decision beforehand. Furthermore, authorities did not disclose reasons for the freezes. UAFE officials cited the June 2025 Intelligence Law to argue that this information was confidential. After the cases were challenged in court, judges liftedsome of the freezes, finding that the agency did not provide sufficient substantial evidence for the bans.

In freezing the accounts, the UAFE applied a provision in Ecuador’s new Social Transparency Law. The law, passed in August, enables the agency to freeze accounts without a court order when it claims to have “objective, serious, and verifiable evidence” of suspicious activity, with any review only coming post factum. The law only limits the measure by stating its application should be “exceptional,” “proportionate to risk,” and “limited exclusively to the amount of the [suspicious] transaction.”

Both the Intelligence Law and the Social Transparency Law are incompatible with the Ecuadoran constitution, rights groups say, and have challenged them both in court. They say the actions by the agency interfere manifestly with the right to property, codified in the International Convention on Civil & Political Rights. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that limitations to the right to property must be necessary and proportionate to reach a legitimate goal.

Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa defended the measures publicly, saying that the funds were intended to “destabilize” his administration with demonstrations. The financial measures were implemented over the past two months, as indigenous groups protested against the government’s decision to cut diesel subsidies. Environmental groups meanwhile protested the decision to approve a mining project in the southern province of Azuay, which threatens the fragile ecosystems in the region. To curb the protests in October, authorities used what rights groups assailed as massive and indiscriminate force, resulting in injuries and deaths.

From JURIST, Dec. 11. Used with permission. Internal links added.

See our last reports on the crackdown in Ecuador, and the October protests.

Photo: Alianza Ceibo

The closing plenary on Nov. 23 saw nearly 200 parties endorse a political outcome that elevates adaptation and resilience as core pillars of the United Nations climate process, formally the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The package references the Global Goal on Adaptation in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and an expanded “action agenda” to scale finance for locally led projects such as resilient agriculture and “nature‑based solutions.”

However, efforts to secure a negotiated roadmap away from fossil fuels collapsed after days of deadlock. The final compromise text omits any explicit commitment to “transition away from” or “phase out” coal, oil and gas—despite sustained pressure from a large coalition of states and civil society groups to include such language.

The outcome is weaker on this point than earlier UN climate summits, including the 2021 Glasgow talks, where the resolution urged countries to phase out oil subsidies. In Belém, the major oil-producing countries resisted binding language, while many developing countries tied their support for any resolution to assurances on finance and equity.

In the run‑up to COP30, UN experts urged that climate action must integrate a human rights approach, warning that weak mitigation targets and under‑funded adaptation measures risk violating the rights of communities facing floods, desertification and displacement. Small island states echoed those concerns on the floor in Belém, arguing that a finance‑heavy deal without a fossil-fuel exit pathway jeopardizes the Paris Agreement’s 1.5° Celsius temperature limit.

Activists on the scene, many of whom had mobilized outside the previous climate summits in Dubai and Baku, pointed back to those campaigns, in which protesters demanded urgent climate action and faster fossil phase‑outs. In Belém, youth groups and indigenous leaders welcomed the adaptation funding pledge but described the absence of a fossil roadmap as a “failure of courage.”

The Belém outcome does not amend the Paris Agreement, but will guide its implementation by shaping expectations around national climate plans, adaptation strategies, and financial outlays. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in his opening speech to delegates on Nov. 10 that the credibility of COP30 will ultimately depend on whether parties translate promises on money, resilience and transition into enforceable laws and budgets once they return home.

From JURIST, Nov. 24. Used with permission. Internal links added.

The protesters mostly belonged to the Munduruku indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, who inhabit the states of Amazonas and Pará (of which Belém is the capital). They blocked access to the COP30 venue, which required the army to intervene to reinforce security. Protesters’ demands included increased representation of indigenous peoples in COP30 and the UN climate process, as well as an end to extractive activities that threaten Munduruku territories in the Tapajós and Xingu river basins.

Indigenous participants at COP30 expressed their support for the protest. A Chilean indigenous youth representing the Mapuche people, Emiliano Medina, asserted that such protests are a response to growing challenges faced by indigenous populations from miningand industrial activities, including land grabs and forced displacements.

Brazilian Environment Ministry official Ana Toni, executive director of COP30, affirmed that Brazil’s government is attentive to the concerns raised by the protesters. She emphasized that COP30 has seen an increase of 600 indigenous participants compared to the previous year’s conference in Azerbaijan. Toni stressed that selecting Belém as the venue for COP30 was intended to facilitate participation by indigenous peoples, and amplify their voices in the climate dialogue. She also stated that the Brazilian government permits diverse forms of protest and anticipates additional demonstrations during the conference.

The central themes of COP30 include strategies to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C, the submission of updated national action plans, and the evaluation of progress regarding financial commitments established at COP29, which climate activists have deemed insufficient.

In March, Transparency International urged the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to take measures to restore trust in the COP process and prevent fossil fuel lobbyists from hindering negotiations. In October, rights organizations called on Brazilian authorities to implement safeguards to ensure the protection of the rights of civil society members at the COP30, including indigenous people, who face life-threatening environmental risks due to mining and other extractive activities in their territories. Environmental activists are increasingly targeted with repressive measures worldwide, which the UN has described as a threat to both climate action and human rights.

From JURIST, Nov. 15. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Photo: Diego Herculano/UNFCCC via UN News

The 300-page report, Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples: at the Edge of Survival, states: “In particular, the rush by extractive industries and agribusiness to seize the resources of uncontacted peoples risks their total annihilation.”

About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon—especially in Brazil, home to 124 such groups.

The report offers testimonials of past and current harms. Alex Tinyú, an indigenous Nukakman from Colombia, was a child when his territory was invaded by missionaries, settlers and armed groups in the late 1980s. “My people, the Nukak, lived in peace in our territory—hunting, fishing and gathering as we had done for generations,” the report quotes him as saying. “But everything changed with contact. When the settlers arrived, they brought with them diseases we didn’t know about. Many Nukak got sick and were taken to hospitals.” More than half of his people died from disease and violence.

Shocorua, a Nahua man from Peru, recalls how his once-isolated group was impacted by oil exploration by the Anglo-Dutch transnational company Shell in the 1990s. His words are highlighted in the report: “My uncle and cousins died as they were walking… they started to cough, they got sick and died right there in the forest. Some were small children. They put all the bodies in a big hole and everyone was wailing and crying.” About half the Nahua died within just years.

Another group highlighted in the report as needing immediate protection is the Shompen people inhabiting the rainforest of Great Nicobar Island, India. The Shompen have already suffered catastrophic population loss due to diseases brought by outside settlers and they don’t want further contact. One Shompen woman, with “uncontacted” relatives, said in 2019: “Don’t come into our forests and cut them down. This is where we collect food for our children and ourselves. We don’t want outsiders in our forests.”

But the Indian government has its own plans. It aims to transform the island with a vast infrastructure program, turning Great Nicobar Island into the “Hong Kong of India.” If the Great Nicobar Project goes ahead, huge swaths of the Shompen’s rainforest home will be destroyed and replaced by a mega-port, city, international airport, power plant, military base, industrial park, and a huge surge in population. (Mongabay, AP)

Photo: Brazil’s indigenous agency, FUNAI, makes contact with the Awá people in 2014. Credit: FUNAI via Mongabay

From The New Humanitarian, Nov. 7. Internal link added.

See our last report on the UN climate process.

Photo: CounterVortex

The proposed Yavarí Mirim Indigenous Reserve would have protected 1.17 million hectares (2.9 million acres) of rainforest in Loreto region, an area a fifth the size of Ireland that’s home to several indigenous communities living in isolation. A commission reviewed anthropological evidence of the communities’ presence in the area but voted in line with the interests of business sectors and logging concessions.

“With this decision, the Peruvian state has chosen to favor economic and criminal interests over the [tribes’] right to live in peace and dignity,” the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon (ORPIO) said in a statement after the vote. “This represents a historic setback in human rights and an assault on the Amazon and its indigenous peoples.”

The commission voted eight against and five in favor.

Bands of the Matsés, Matis, Korubo, Kulina-Pano and Flecheiro indigenous peoples live in isolation on a border area with Brazil, leaving longhouses, gardens, tools and remains of campfires as anthropological evidence of their existence.

For years, Peruvian officials denied reports that the groups were real. It wasn’t until 2018 that they issued an official decree recognizing them. Today, there an estimated 640 people in their communities.

But full legal protection for the territory only comes with a demarcated reserve, advocates said.

The process involves filing a study with the Multisectoral Commission for Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI), part of the Ministry of Culture. The commission reviews arguments for why the reserve is necessary and where the boundaries would be drawn. If approved, officials have to create a management plan and other policies to protect the communities.

The Ministry of Culture already recognizes eight indigenous and territorial reserves in Peru, three of them at least partially in Loreto.

ORPIO and the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) first proposed the Yavarí Mirim Indigenous Reserve in 2003. But the studies kept getting rejected or postponed.

This time around, the commission postponed the meeting in January. Even after members of ORPIO met with President Dina Boluarte and her cabinet, the meeting was postponed again in June, leading to criticism from advocacy groups that the process had become corrupt and politicized.

The country’s PIACI law requires officials to create conditions for protecting isolated peoples, ORPIO leaders said.

“It’s necessary to categorize the reserve, it is absolutely necessary,” ORPIO legal specialist Federico Guaneryes Contreras Espinoza told Mongabay. “Not only from a population-protection perspective, but also because it is an obligation of the state.”

From Mongabay, Sept. 8

See our last report on Peru’s termed isolated peoples.

Photo: Pieritograbriel via Wikimedia Commons

The court concluded that “the current situation constitutes a climate emergency due to the accelerated increase in global temperature, resulting from several human activities, produced unequally by States in the international community, which increasingly affect and pose a serious threat to humanity and especially to those in a vulnerable situation.”

The court affirmed the existence of a human right to a healthy environment, elaborating on the obligations derived from that right within the context of the climate emergency. It reiterated that states have international and domestic human rights obligations to counter climate change and, in particular, protect those most vulnerable to its impacts.

In January 2023, Chile and Colombia jointly requested an advisory opinion on the obligation of states under the American Convention in response to the climate crisis. Following a procedure that included 263 briefs and two public hearings last year, the court notified member states of its advisory opinion on July 4.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also celebrated the opinion. Dr. Grethel Aguilar, the IUCN director general, stated, “This Advisory Opinion is key in reaffirming that states have an obligation under international law to address the climate emergency. It comes at a historic moment in which climate change redefining the limits of law and justice.”

Advisory opinions serve a consultative function, allowing the court to clarify matters with regard to international norms at the request of a member state. Although they serve as authoritative interpretations to the member states, they are not legally binding.

From JURIST, July 5. Used with permission.

Note: A similar advisory opinion is being sought from the International Court of Justice.

Photo: Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace via Mongabay

Meanwhile, there is growing cause for skepticism about some officially embraced measures to curtail forest destruction. The Republic of Congo has been supposedly protecting about half of its dense rainforests via the UN-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & forest Degradation (REDD+) framework since 2020, in exchange for payments from the World Bank. But an investigation by rainforest monitor Mongabay reveals that the Brazzaville government has granted nearly 80 gold mining and exploration permits in areas covered by the project, driving deforestation and negatively impacting local populations. (Mongabay)

Photo via Mongabay