Illegal loggers murder Peruvian forest campaigner

Illegal logging isn't just an environmental crime; sometimes it's a crime against people too.

Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth...

In Peru, authorities say prominent forest campaigner Edwin Chota was murdered by illegal loggers, along with three other men.  They were shot in front of their fellow villagers.

The murdered men were all members of the indigenous Asheninka tribe, which lives in the remote Peruvian Amazon near its border with Brazil.  

Chota, a community leader in the Ucayali region, fought to expel illegal loggers who raided their forests.  He was well known internationally, having been featured in reports by National Geographic and the New York Times. 

Chota had received a number of death threats from the loggers he fought, and had repeatedly asked for protection from the Peruvian authorities.

A local indigenous leader told a newspaper that illegal loggers bound and shot Chota and his companions in their village in front of its inhabitants.  He said the loggers were seeking revenge after having been reported to the authorities.

According to The Guardian, Chota's widow and other villagers had to travel for six days by river to report the crime to authorities. 

A leader with Peru’s largest indigenous federation, Aidesep, called on the Peruvian government to do more to protect indigenous people from criminal mafias.  “These logging mafias can kill our brothers with impunity,” he told The Guardian.

A 2012 World Bank report -- which you can download free here -- estimated that as much as 80% of Peru’s logging exports are harvested illegally. 

Globally, illegal logging is thought to cost developing nations around $15 billion in direly needed revenues annually.  This figure approaches $60 billion annually if the environmental costs of illegal logging are included.

Illegal logging is increasingly dominated by large criminal gangs or mafias, some of which do not hesitate to assassinate those who stand in their way. 

In recent years scores of forest guards, campaigners, and concerned citizens have fallen.