Amazonia, organized crime and illegal deforestation: Best practices for the protection of the brazilian amazon

Abstract

This chapter examines the vigorous and focused enforcement the Federal Police of Brazil against the wide range of mass environmental crime in the country's Amazon region, which covers 60% of the entire rainforest Basin (the other 40% is divided among eight other countries). It concentrates on organized crime, of which environmental violations are a rapidly growing proportion, with a focus on criminal networks of deforestation and mining in Amazonas State, the world's ninth largest jurisdiction whose protection of the rain forest is almost singlehandedly responsible for Brazil's GHG reduction and a bulwark against the region's arc of deforestation.