Criminal networks threaten the Amazon. Indigenous leaders want the UN to act

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon are taking their fight against illegal mining, drug trafficking and deforestation to a United Nations conference in Vienna starting Monday.More than a dozen Indigenous representatives from Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador are participating in the Oct. 19-23 U.N. conference on transnational organized crime, known as COP13.The leaders want governments to tackle the financial networks behind environmental crimes while giving Indigenous peoples a greater role in protecting their ancestral territories and shaping a proposed international agreement.Criminal networks threaten Indigenous territoriesGalois Flores, a representative of Peru’s Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, told The Associated Press that illegal gold mining, logging and drug trafficking are putting growing pressure on Indigenous communities.“Deforestation and pollution in the Amazon are no longer just environmental problems, but a crisis o