Another Crisis in Brazil’s Amazon: Rising Crime
By
Robert Muggah
It’s not just the environment that's vulnerable to growing regional criminal groups, an expert writes.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s Amazon is home to almost 30 million people, most of whom live in rapidly growing cities and towns, like Belém in Pará state, which will host the COP30 climate summit next year. Many of these urban centers, like the deteriorating rainforests that surround them, are in trouble. Organized crime is increasingly contributing not only to deforestation in the region, but also to a surge of violence in Amazon cities. Today, the region's cities, peripheries, and hinterlands—rich in resources and rife with lawlessness—may have among the densest...
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