From the Amazon Basin comes the story of a remarkable collaborative effort between 5 countries to break up criminal exploitation of the forest and its peoples.
Thousands of live animals and tens of thousands of board-feet of illegally harvested timber were confiscated from trafficking operations across Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil as part of Operation Green Shield.
Organized by the UAE, Green Shield involved over 350 police raids coordinated in real time through data sharing and geolocation tracking. Two significant criminal enterprises are believed to have been disrupted, while the value of all the seizures totals $64 million.
“Environmental crime displaces communities, fuels violence against women and children, and erodes cultural heritage. These are not just crimes against nature—they are crimes against people,” Lt. Col. Dana Humaid, Director-General of the International Affairs Bureau at the UAE Ministry of Interior and Coordinator, told AP.
She added that the scale and speed of the results reflect not only the strength of regional cooperation, but also the growing resolve of governments to treat environmental crime as a top-tier security issue.
In the Amazon Basin, governments may have knowledge of illegal activities like logging and mining, but because of the remoteness of the territory, are unable to summon the force and will to go investigate.
In the case of Green Shield, it was an initiated by the UAE as part of the International Initiative of Law Enforcement for Climate (IILEC), an international platform launched 2 years ago to aid in multilateral policing on climate-related criminal activity.
1,500 officers were mobilized for the raids, which occurred in Brazil’s Mato Grasso and Ampaya states, Peru’s Amazonas Department, a dozen regions in Ecuador, and 22 in Colombia, including many of the most ecologically sensitive locations, such as Guaviare.
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94 arrests were made, over 500 vehicles were confiscated relating to logging, mining, and smuggling, 39,000 gallons of fuel, 2,100 live animals, including 1,600 in a single bust in Peru, over 6,000 poached animals, and 3,800 cubic meters of illegally-harvested hardwoods.
Busts are believed to have affected the operations of two major criminal syndicates, including Los Depredatores del Oriente, involved in trafficking wild animals in Peru, and Clan del Golfo, in Colombia.
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The UAE had experience in operations like this, having previously overseen a similar effort under IILEC in the Congo Basin, where they said miners and traffickers’ operations were degrading world heritage, as well as the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.
Col. Jorge Andres Bernal Granada, director of environmental protection at Colombia’s National Police said the raids “achieved real progress against illegal mining, fuel theft, and wildlife trafficking.”
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