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[MUSIC PLAYING]

ROBERT MUGGAH: The reality right now

is the Amazon is under threat.

It's being plundered from all sides

because the Amazon is an ecosystem

of extraordinary riches--

of timber, of gold, of coltan, of animals and livestock.

And right now, there is a gold rush, a scramble,

a plundering underway of all of its vast resources.

ROBERT MUGGAH: Under the current administration

all bets are off.

There is an opening up of deregulations.

There is an incentivization of land grabbing.

There is an easing of the penalties associated

with those who may be abusing existing legislation.

Our focus has been very much on trying

to set thresholds and limits around deforestation

without understanding the illegality

and the political economy that's driving that business

to begin with.

Around 80% deforestation in the Amazon is illegal.

Land grabbers occupy the land for cattle farming, soy,

and gold.

They might be financed by corrupt politician,

a local rancher, drug cartels, or militia.

And they often clear the land like setting fire

to the forest.

RICARDO SALLES: The fact is that the laws and regulations that

were enacted and used for the past, let's say 10, 20 years,

were so restrictive to the Amazon

that it has restricted development to those areas.

And, that in that sense, people go to the other--

to the 100% to the other side.

They go to the illegal activities--

to the criminal activities because they

don't have any other space to do something under the law

according to the regulation.

RICARDO SALLES: You cannot punish 20 million people.

You cannot push punish everybody.

We need to give them some sort of alternative.

What you have to give them is a reasonable path of work,

otherwise they go to the criminal side.

ROBERT MUGGAH: What we have right now

is a combination of players in this criminal ecosystem

in the Amazon.

A key issue is that they have a high level of impunity

because law enforcement is weak AND environmental fines are

seldom collected.

To that you can add collusion and corruption

among members of the police, enforcement

agencies, and the courts.

Corrupt officers can receive kickbacks

for looking the other way, or maybe more deeply involved,

even driving people off the land themselves

or running their own militias.

Once occupied, land titles for public land

can be illegally bought or forged,

and occupiers might expect to benefit from amnesties

like they did in 2004 and 2011.

As we've seen this gold rush and this timber rush

and the allure of the profits that the Amazon can yield

emerge, you've seen a massive migration of populations

from across the country.

And so many cities have ballooned in size

in the space of just a generation.

You get all sorts of forms of concentrated disadvantage

and poverty and inequality and that tends

to be a breeding pot for crime.

So it's not just the organised crime

groups that are manipulating and working in concert politicians

to drive this business, but it's also the ambient crime

that accompanies it.

And today many of the interior cities across the Amazon

are some of the most violent in the world.

ROBERT MUGGAH: Over the last two decades though,

there was a generally widespread improvement

in the overall stewardship of the Amazon.

There was introduction of several protections.

There is an expansion of the number of reserves.

There was legal regulations to safeguard

the rights of indigenous.

And what we saw was actually a decline in deforestation,

increasing management of some aspects of the mining

industries, and more corporate social responsibility

for many companies that were involved in these activities.

But the reality is right now, that without leadership,

without strong vision from the top trying

to set a conservation sustainable policy

for the Amazon, but instead the opposite, the opening up

to pillaging and plundering, we're

going to see the situation get much worse.