Exploitation to Resistance: Indigenous Struggles Against Environmental Organised Crime

In the Amazon, according to Greenpeace, illegal gold mining destroyed over 4,000 hectares of rainforest across four Indigenous territories in only two years, 2023-2024. This illustrates a growing global pattern, where environmental crime, along with acts of dispossession and forced displacement, increasingly threatens Indigenous human rights. The author briefly addresses the issue of environmental crime and its convergence with organised crime, tracking the patterns that environmental organised crime displays in the Indigenous territories, and how it affects the communities therein, including the particular impact on the female community members. Means of confronting the phenomenon by Indigenous Peoples, i.a., by legal, political, and social measures are discussed, along with the states’ responses to such crimes observed. Situating those within a broader context, the paper reveals gaps between legal frameworks and enforcement, and addresses the issue of some states prioritising economic interests over Indigenous rights. By connecting environmental organised crime to human rights and Indigenous resistance, the author argues that existing frameworks insufficiently support Indigenous communities. The paper concludes by proposing stronger recognition of environmental organised crime as a human rights issue and the promotion of Indigenous-led advocacy as tools to safeguard human rights protection in the 21st century.