Introduction #

This report presents a comparative assessment of the enabling conditions for civil society engagement with governments to combat Nature crime across eight Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

The assessment draws on country profile research conducted by ILP through its global network of pro bono legal experts, including contributions from leading international law firms and country-based legal practitioners. This legal research was complemented by qualitative inputs from interviews with civil society organisations (CSOs) and environmental practitioners active in each jurisdiction, providing ground-level evidence on enabling conditions for collaboration with governments and the continuity of nature crime enforcement across different administrations (see Annex I for a complete overview of each country’s legislation).

The report examines five dimensions of the enabling environment for civil society engagement:

• Civil society status – the legal space in which CSOs operate, including freedom of association, transparency, and implementation of the Escazú Agreement¹.

• Institutional landscape – the public authorities responsible for monitoring, enforcement and prosecution, and how their mandates interact.

• Legal pathways – the administrative, criminal and constitutional mechanisms through which CSOs can hold the State accountable and compel enforcement.

• Remote sensing evidence – the admissibility of satellite-derived evidence, a growing area of CSO contribution and a key determinant of effective cooperation.

• Challenges in engagement with authorities – the structural, procedural and political constraints that limit cooperation in practice.

In line with the broader framework within which this report sits, the analysis focuses on three prevalent manifestations of Nature crime in the Amazon: illegal deforestation; environmental degradation linked to extractive and land-use activities; and threats or violence against environmental defenders. This report follows the same categories of nature crime as presented in Chapter I, but for the purposes of this assessment they are grouped into three illegal deforestation; environmental degradation linked to extractive activities — encompassing illegal logging, illegal gold mining and the mercury contamination it generates; and threats or violence against environmental defenders. The grouping follows the logic of the assessment itself, since logging, mining and mercury pollution share the same legal pathways, institutional counterparts and remote-sensing evidence base, and so present a single enabling-environment profile, whereas deforestation and defender violence each map onto a distinct assessed dimension.

This report consists of two parts: (i) a comparative assessment of the eight countries across the dimensions listed above and (ii) detailed “country profiles”, with more detailed information relevant in their respective national context under these same dimensions, concluding with case examples of notable litigation and the use of remote sensing evidence.

Methodology #

The research for this report combines legal analysis, desk-based research, and qualitative inputs to map available legal routes, assess enabling conditions for collaboration, and identify patterns and gaps at both national and regional levels.

The assessment was developed and implemented in partnership with the International Lawyers Project (ILP), whose expertise in comparative environmental and human rights law underpins the legal and institutional dimensions of this component. ILP activated its global network of pro bono legal experts to conduct preliminary legal research on the legal routes, mechanisms, and remedies available to CSOs and Indigenous communities to defend environmental rights and challenge nature-related crimes. This research focused on each Amazonian country as a pilot jurisdiction and involved contributions from both leading international law firms and country-based legal practitioners.

ILP’s legal partners conducted a comprehensive review of domestic, regional, and international legal frameworks applicable to nature crimes and associated human rights violations. The analysis mapped administrative and judicial remedies available to CSOs and Indigenous communities, including environmental enforcement mechanisms, constitutional and administrative litigation, criminal law provisions, and access to regional and international human rights systems. Particular attention was given to identifying which legal routes appear most promising in practice, based on recent case law, patterns of government action or inaction, and judicial receptiveness to environmental claims.

The four dimensions assessed together describe the structural conditions under which civil society can engage with public authorities on Nature crime. Each dimension captures a distinct enabling condition; taken together, they shape whether monitoring data, legal expertise and community testimony can move along the evidence-to-accountability pipeline described in Chapter II. The order in which the dimensions are presented reflects a rough sequence of preconditions: the legal and physical space for CSOs to exist (civil society status); the existence of governmental counterparts to engage with (institutional landscape); the procedural mechanisms through which engagement can produce outcomes (legal pathways); and the admissibility of the most distinctive form of evidence civil society contributes in the Amazon today (remote sensing).

Civil society status #

This dimension assesses the baseline conditions for CSO existence and operation: whether organisations can register, operate and receive funding without disproportionate barriers; whether defenders and partner communities face threats, criminalisation or violence; and whether the State formally recognises environmental democracy obligations, including through the Escazú Agreement. The Agreement presents four pillars (access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, access to justice in environmental matters, and the protection of environmental defenders) which map directly onto the conditions a CSO needs in order to function. A State’s posture towards Escazú, whether it has signed, ratified and begun to implement the Agreement or has remained outside it, therefore serves as a reliable proxy for its broader willingness to recognise and protect civil society’s role in environmental governance. This formal posture is the strongest available indicator of a State’s declared willingness, but formal commitment and operational reality regularly diverge. Chapter II shows that effective cooperation frequently rests on trust-based relationships with individual prosecutors. The de facto axis introduced below precisely capture that gap.

Institutional landscape #

Civil society engagement on Nature crime depends on having functional counterparts in government. This dimension assesses the legal mechanisms available to CSOs and affected communities when environmental violations are detected. It considers whether constitutional, administrative, civil and criminal routes provide accessible standing, remedies, enforcement tools and opportunities to obtain restoration or accountability.

Legal pathways for civil society action on Nature crime #

The legal toolkit available to CSOs and affected communities determines what they can do when potential environmental violations are detected: how accessible the mechanisms are and how broadly they grant standing to non-State actors decides whether documentation translates into enforcement, restoration, precedent, or recognition of rights violations. This is also where regional diversity is most visible across the Amazon, with the civil-law systems of Brazil and Colombia, Guyana’s common-law tradition, Ecuador’s rights-of-nature constitutionalism, and Suriname’s Dutch-law heritage differing substantively in architecture even where they converge on similar outcomes.

Admissibility of remote sensing evidence #

Across the Amazon, the scale of territory and limited state presence make satellite and other remote sensing data foundational to detecting Nature crime. This dimension assesses whether satellite and other remote sensing data can be used in domestic proceedings. In a region where vast territories and limited state presence make remote monitoring essential, admissibility determines whether CSO-generated evidence can support enforcement or remains limited to advocacy and international reporting.

Comparative findings across dimensions

This section summarises the findings of the country profiles across five dimensions of the enabling environment for civil society engagement on nature crime. Of these, only three lend themselves to a comparative assessment of performance, and the classification developed here is confined to them: the status of civil society, the legal pathways available, and the admissibility of remote-sensing evidence. The remaining two dimensions, the institutional and regulatory landscape and the challenges of engagement with authorities, are treated descriptively in the profiles rather than ranked, because neither reduces to a defensible single scale of performance.

For each dimension, the section first defines the thresholds used to classify countries into three categories, as defined below, and then allocates each of the eight countries assessed to its corresponding category. Thresholds are grounded in the conditions documented in the country profiles, and reflect both formal legal-institutional features and observable patterns of practice. A summary table below consolidates the assessment across all five dimensions and provides a colour-coded overview.

Summary comparative table #

The table below consolidates the assessment across the five dimensions for the eight countries assessed. Green denotes a highly enabling environment, orange a moderately enabling environment, and red a challenging environment. The thresholds applied to each dimension are those set out in the corresponding subsections above.

1. Civil society status #

For this dimension the assessment is built on two axes rather than a single rating: the de jure legal status of civil society organisations and the de facto civic conditions in which they operate. The two are scored separately because across the region they frequently diverge, as a protective legal framework can coexist with severely adverse operating conditions. Each axis is classified on the same three-tier scale: Highly protective, Moderately protective, and Challenging.

1.2. Civil society – de jure: legal status of CSOs #

THRESHOLDS. The present assessment combines two components. The first is the regulatory regime for CSOs, the rules on NGO registration, funding, foreign cooperation, advocacy and dissolution, which determines how freely organisations can constitute themselves and operate. The second is the substantive environmental-rights framework, assessed against the core guarantees of the Escazú Agreement: access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, access to justice in environmental matters, and specific protection for environmental defenders, together with the formal commitment signalled by signature, ratification and a national implementation roadmap. This axis does not assess the practical effectiveness of those mechanisms, which is addressed separately under the de facto axis.

Highly protective: no restrictive NGO, funding or foreign-cooperation legislation in force, and a developed environmental-rights framework providing access to information, broad legal standing, public participation and specific protection for defenders, whether anchored in a ratified Escazú Agreement or in an equivalent domestic framework, supported by a formal implementation commitment.

Moderately protective: a generally functional legal framework for CSO operation, without restrictive legislation, but with significant formal gaps in the environmental-rights framework, such as non-ratification of Escazú and absence of a national roadmap, the lack of a dedicated statutory protection mechanism for defenders, partial or absent freedom-of-information guarantees, or residual discretionary powers over registration, reporting or dissolution.

Challenging: restrictive NGO, funding or foreign-cooperation legislation in force or recently enacted that formally constrains the registration, operation, financing, advocacy or dissolution of CSOs — regardless of the state of the environmental-rights framework, since such legislation directly limits the actors the framework is meant to enable.

RESULTS: #

HIGHLY PROTECTIVE: Colombia and Ecuador. Colombia has ratified and incorporated Escazú into domestic law, recognises constitutional rights to association, expression and participation, and has formal protection mechanisms such as the National Protection Unit. However, Article 77 of the 2022–2026 Colombian National Development Plan introduces registration and reporting obligations that have received criticism from CSOs because it could lead to the automatic dissolution of organizations that fail to comply with registration requirements. Ecuador is a party to the Escazú Agreement, has freedom-of-information legislation, recognises broad legal standing through the Rights of Nature framework, provides public participation in environmental matters, affords specific protection for environmental defenders through Decree 77, and submitted an implementation roadmap in 2023.

MODERATELY PROTECTIVE: Brazil, Suriname and Guyana. Brazil has a generally enabling framework for civil society organisations, including the Regulatory Framework for Civil Society Organization (Law 13.019/2014) and broad associational standing, but it has not ratified the Escazú Agreement and its protection programme for defenders remains weak in practice. Suriname does not have a restrictive NGO regime, but it remains wholly outside the Escazú Agreement and lacks a statutory protection mechanism for defenders. Guyana was the first State Party to ratify the Escazú Agreement and does not have restrictive NGO or funding legislation, however, there is neither a dedicated protection mechanism for environmental defenders nor an implementation roadmap.

CHALLENGING: Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. Bolivia’s Law 351 and its implementing decrees require organisations to align their statutes with government-defined economic and social development policies under threat of de-registration. Peru’s Law 32301 classifies the use of international cooperation funds for actions against the State as a very serious infraction, while proposed expansion of APCI powers and non-ratification of Escazú further narrow the formal legal space for CSOs. Venezuela presents the most restrictive de jure framework, with the 2024 Anti-NGO and Anti-Solidarity Laws formally constraining civil society operation, financing and advocacy, alongside neither signature nor ratification of Escazú.

1.3. Civil society – de facto: operational conditions for CSOs in practice #

THRESHOLDS. The de facto axis assesses the actual civic conditions in which CSOs, environmental defenders, Indigenous leaders, community monitors and other civil society actors operate in practice. It focuses on the incidence of lethal and non-lethal violence against environmental defenders; threats, intimidation, harassment and criminalisation; state retaliation against monitors; and the practical ability of CSOs to conduct monitoring, advocacy, litigation and engagement with authorities without systematic risk.

This dimension incorporates the evaluation derived from CIVICUS Monitor, a platform launched in 2017² that rates the conditions for the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression in 198 countries and territories, drawing on national CSOs, regional researchers, international human-rights indices and its own analysts. Each country is placed on a five-point scale running from the full enjoyment of these freedoms to their complete closure: open (rights enabled and protected), narrowed (broadly respected, with isolated violations), obstructed (legal and practical constraints, with CSOs undermined and journalists self-censoring), repressed (critics risk intimidation, detention or worse, and CSOs face de-registration), and closed (civic space shut, where exercising basic freedoms can bring imprisonment, injury or death). For the Amazonian countries analysed in this report, no country has been classified as “open”.

Highly protective: civic space is open or narrowed, and there is no systematic pattern of lethal violence, state retaliation, criminalisation or intimidation against environmental defenders, CSOs or community monitors.

Moderately protective: civic space is narrowed or subject to documented pressure, with threats, intimidation or sector-specific tensions affecting CSOs or defenders, but without a systematic pattern of lethal violence, state retaliation or closed/repressed civic space.

Challenging: civic space is classified as obstructed, repressed or closed; and/or there is a systematic pattern of lethal violence against environmental defenders; and/or there is documented state retaliation, criminalisation or severe harassment against monitors, defenders or CSOs.

RESULTS: #

HIGHLY PROTECTIVE: Guyana. #

Guyana presents the most favourable de facto civic conditions among the countries assessed. Civic space is classified by CIVICUS as “narrowed” (the second-best category after “open”), and there is no documented systematic pattern of lethal violence against environmental defenders. While rising pressure linked to the oil-and-gas sector is an emerging risk, the available evidence does not yet indicate a broader pattern of repression, state retaliation or systematic violence against environmental CSOs.

MODERATELY PROTECTIVE: Suriname. #

Suriname’s civic space is also classified as “narrowed” by CIVICUS. While threats have been reported against Saamaka leaders following the April 2024 concession, the country does not present the same systematic pattern of lethal violence, closed civic space or state retaliation documented in the more challenging cases and occupies a middle ground.

CHALLENGING: Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. #

Colombia is classified by CIVICUS as “repressed” and has recorded the highest number of environmental defender killings worldwide, with 501 killings since 2012. This violence is closely linked to conflicts over land, illegal economies, armed groups and the post-conflict reopening of frontier areas.

Brazil is classified as “obstructed” by CIVICUS and has recorded 413 killings since 2012, concentrated in the Legal Amazon. The Brazilian case illustrates the gap between a relatively developed legal and institutional framework and the risks faced by those who expose illegal deforestation, land grabbing, illegal mining and violence in forest territories. Indigenous leaders, rural communities, local associations and environmental CSOs may have formal avenues to report violations, but in practice their work often takes place in territories where criminal networks and powerful economic actors exercise significant pressure.

Ecuador is classified as “obstructed” and has one of the highest per-capita rates of lethal attacks against environmental defenders in the region, against a backdrop of rising political violence since 2024. Peru has recorded the murder of 33 Indigenous leaders in the Peruvian Amazon over the past decade, with most cases unresolved, and has been evaluated as “repressed” by CIVICUS. Bolivia has been evaluated as “obstructed” by CIVICUS, as it presents documented state retaliation against environmental monitors, including the dismissal and prosecution of a park ranger who reported forest fires. Venezuela is classified as “closed” by CIVICUS and Centro de Defensores de la Justicia recorded approximately 979 attacks on defenders in 2024, making it the most restrictive de facto civic environment among the countries assessed.

2. Legal pathways for civil society action on Nature crime #

Thresholds. This dimension assesses the availability of routes to accountability through constitutional, criminal, civil and administrative mechanisms through which CSOs and affected communities can hold the State accountable, compel enforcement, and obtain reparation for environmental harm. What distinguishes the categories is not the number of mechanisms a country can list but whether they combine into a usable pathway, that is, the breadth of the toolkit and of legal standing, and whether those mechanisms have been shown to function.

Robust: the toolkit is comprehensive across the constitutional, criminal, civil and administrative domains, standing is broad enough for CSOs and communities to activate it, and the pathway is demonstrably functional with landmark precedents showing these mechanisms producing enforceable accountability rather than existing only in principle.

Partial: most mechanisms available but with key gaps – narrower legal standing, recent legislative rollback eroding pre-existing protections, narrower toolkit, or untested mechanisms.

Restricted: no functional route to accountability survives, either because a framework that exists on paper is neutralised by judicial politicisation, or because the toolkit is so narrow, and precedent so absent, that no effective pathway exists.

Classification. #

ROBUST: Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.

Colombia offers the richest toolkit in the region: a fast constitutional injunction to protect fundamental rights (tutela), a collective action defending shared interests such as a healthy environment (acción popular), an action to force public authorities to apply the law (acción de cumplimiento), a class action for damages (acción de grupo), criminal prosecution under a 2021 Environmental Crimes Law, and litigation to overturn unlawful permits. Its courts have gone furthest in recognising nature itself as deserving protection, declaring both the Colombian Amazon and the Atrato River “subjects of rights” that the State is legally bound to conserve and restore.

Ecuador rests on the most advanced constitutional foundation in the region: since 2008 its constitution grants nature itself enforceable rights, shifts the burden of proof onto those accused of environmental harm, allows anyone to sue in Nature’s defence, and provides dedicated constitutional remedies. Two Constitutional Court rulings show this is more than principle, one halted mining in a protected cloud forest (Los Cedros), the other upheld an Indigenous community’s say over mining on its land (Sinangoe).

Brazil’s strength is procedural and institutional rather than rooted in any recognition of the rights of Nature, which its constitution does not grant. Civil society can act through two main channels: the ação popular, a constitutional suit open to any citizen to challenge acts that damage the environment, and the more powerful ação civil pública, a collective action in defence of shared environmental interests that public prosecutors, the public defender’s office and qualifying civil-society associations can bring on the public’s behalf. These are reinforced by strict-liability rules, a dedicated 1998 Environmental Crimes Law, binding settlements in which offenders commit to repair the damage (termos de ajustamento de conduta), and a well-resourced federal enforcement and satellite-monitoring apparatus.

PARTIAL: Bolivia, Guyana, Peru and Suriname.

Bolivia provides constitutional protective suits (the popular action and amparo) and criminal offences against natural resources, but their effect is undercut by recurring amnesties (“perdonazo”) that periodically forgive past illegal clearing and by penalties so low – as little as US$0.20 per hectare cleared – that they fail to deter.

Peru has the mechanisms, constitutional amparo, a popular action, environmental offences in the penal code, and even a 2024 ruling granting the Marañón River legal personhood, but recent legislation is rolling protections back: one law retroactively legalised past illegal deforestation, another restricts civil society’s use of foreign funding to act against the State.

Guyana’s common-law system allows constitutional motions to enforce the right to a healthy environment, judicial review of official decisions, and public-interest litigation before a receptive regional court (the Caribbean Court of Justice). The toolkit works but is narrower than some of the civil-law systems alongside it.

Suriname relies on civil claims for unlawful harm, a Constitutional Court operating only since 2019, criminal proceedings, and rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights affirming the land rights of its Indigenous and Maroon peoples. The framework’s reach was shown by a 2024 injunction halting activity across 535,000 hectares of their territory. As with Guyana, the toolkit works but is narrower than some of the civil-law systems alongside it.

RESTRICTED: Venezuela.

Venezuela’s formal framework is, on its face, ambitious, as Articles 127–129 of the 1999 Constitution recognise environmental rights, Article 120 establishes the right to prior consultation, and the 2012 Ley Penal del Ambiente introduces objective criminal liability for environmental offences. In practice, however, the politicisation of the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia and the contentious administrative courts has rendered domestic remedies structurally unavailable to CSOs and Indigenous communities. As the country profile observes, Venezuela offers no example of successful domestic CSO litigation on nature crimes, and international mechanisms (the IACHR, the UN Fact-Finding Mission and the ICC) appear to be the only available pathways for some form of accountability.

3. Admissibility of remote sensing evidence #

Thresholds. This dimension assesses the extent to which satellite-derived and other remote sensing evidence is admissible in domestic administrative, criminal and constitutional proceedings, and whether institutional and technical capacities are in place to interpret and validate such evidence.

Firmly established: higher courts have confirmed admissibility of remote sensing evidence in nature crime cases, established institutional infrastructure (e.g. national satellite monitoring), demonstrated formal cooperation between technical CSOs and public authorities, and emerging training programmes for prosecutors and judges.

Emerging: admissibility recognised under general evidentiary rules, with at least one successful case precedent, but no specific framework or systematic training programme; capacity to interpret evidence concentrated in specific units or partner CSOs.

Untested: domestic admissibility unclear or untested; remote sensing evidence used primarily to trigger international mechanisms rather than domestic remedies.

Classification. #

FIRMLY ESTABLISHED: Brazil and Colombia.

Brazil can be classified at the higher end of the scale because it combines advanced technical capacity with increasing judicial acceptance of geospatial evidence. The country benefits from one of the most developed satellite-based deforestation monitoring systems in the region, particularly through the IBAMA/INPE/PRODES infrastructure, which allows authorities to identify, document and respond to illegal forest clearing with a high degree of technical precision. Brazilian courts have increasingly recognised satellite imagery and official geospatial data as valid forms of evidence in environmental cases. A resolution from the National Justice Council (Conselho Nacional de Justica) has provided guidance for the judicial use of geospatial evidence, consolidating the practice. However, this model is now contested by a proposed bill of law (PL 2.564/2025), approved by the Chamber of Deputies in 2026. If voted by the Senate, the new law would bar federal regulators from embargoing deforested areas on the basis of remote detection alone, requiring prior on-site verification and a right of reply. Such requirements could hamper the effectiveness of remote sensing evidence as a tool in the fight against Nature crime, including remote sensing evidence provided by civil society through its monitoring platforms (see Chapter I).

Colombia’s classification is supported by the fact that remote sensing evidence can be admitted under the country’s general evidentiary framework and has already been used in significant environmental cases. In the Atrato River litigation brought by Tierra Digna, satellite imagery helped demonstrate the extent of mining-related environmental destruction, including approximately 17 km² of affected territory. This illustrates that geospatial evidence can move beyond monitoring and advocacy to support legal arguments in court. Colombia also shows signs of institutionalisation through cooperation between Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible (FCDS) and the Fiscalía, which provides a pathway for civil society-generated evidence to inform prosecutorial action. For this reason, Colombia should not be assessed only on the formal admissibility of satellite evidence, but also on the existence of practical precedents and collaborative mechanisms that connect CSO monitoring with state enforcement.

EMERGING: Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname.

In Bolivia, remote sensing evidence is admissible under the general principle of freedom of proof, and agro-environmental jurisprudence has confirmed that satellite-based material can be used in environmental disputes. The Chiquitanía coalition case, which arose from the devastating forest fires that affected the Chiquitanía region and other parts of eastern Bolivia in 2019, illustrates that civil society actors are already able to deploy satellite imagery in a sophisticated way to document large-scale environmental harm. In that case, environmental organisations and researchers used satellite data to identify the extent and location of burned areas and to support claims regarding the environmental impacts of the fires. However, this practice remains only partially institutionalised, and Bolivia has not yet developed the kind of dedicated procedural guidance, specialised training or consistent judicial practice that would place it in the established category.

Ecuador also has a workable evidentiary basis for the use of geospatial evidence. Its civil and criminal procedural codes, the COGEP and COIP, allow documentary, expert and technical evidence to be assessed within ordinary proceedings, while the Constitution reverses the burden of proof in environmental matters. This gives particular practical value to well-documented satellite, drone or mapping evidence. The Sinangoe case shows how this can work in practice: in response to mining concessions and illegal mining activities that threatened rivers, biodiversity, Indigenous territory and community life, the Sinangoe Indigenous Guard carried out its own monitoring over several months, collecting photographs, drone footage, satellite images, GPS data and audiovisual material. This evidence supported a constitutional action arguing that the State had violated rights to prior consultation, water, health, territory and a healthy environment.

Guyana also represents an emerging case: while its technical forest-monitoring capacity is comparatively strong, its judicial use of community-generated remote sensing evidence remains limited. The country has a national forest monitoring, reporting and verification system, which gives it a developed technical basis for tracking forest loss and land-use change. In parallel, Indigenous communities and civil society partners have developed monitoring initiatives in regions such as Rupununi and Upper Mazaruni. These initiatives combine satellite-based forest-loss alerts with field verification by trained Indigenous monitors, allowing communities to identify suspected deforestation or mining incursions and document them on the ground. The resulting evidence has been used in advocacy submissions to institutions such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, and in international advocacy concerning mining-driven environmental harm in Indigenous territories. However, these datasets have not yet formed the evidentiary basis of a concluded criminal or administrative proceeding.

Peru It is also classified as an emerging country because it has already established an important criminal precedent in the use of satellite imagery, but the formal framework surrounding the admissibility of such evidence remains uneven. In the landmark “Cacao del Perú Norte” case, the prosecution used satellite imagery to demonstrate that primary forest had, in fact, been cleared, directly contradicting the company’s claim that the area contained no primary forest. The court ruled in favor of the prosecution, sentenced the company’s general manager to prison, and imposed significant fines and reparations. However, Peru remains an emerging country because there are still no specific technical standards for remote sensing evidence, beyond general requirements such as authenticity, traceability, integrity, and expert support, and a program of systematic training for FEMA prosecutors and judges has not yet been institutionalized. It is worth noting that considering the use of satellite imagery as evidence in judicial proceedings strengthens the evidentiary tools available to environmental prosecutors and judges in combating environmental crimes.

Suriname likewise shows important but still nascent developments. Remote sensing evidence is admissible under the general rules of civil and criminal procedure, but the country has not yet developed detailed procedures for the treatment of geospatial evidence. Recent developments nevertheless show growing capacity. In 2023, the government certified officials from 19 ministries and public institutions in geospatial analysis, indicating an effort to build state capacity to understand and use remote sensing data.

UNTESTED: Venezuela. The Venezuelan profile records the most striking gap in the region: extensive remote sensing work by SOS Orinoco, Wataniba and partner Indigenous organisations has documented the dramatic expansion of mining-driven deforestation, but this body of evidence has been deployed almost exclusively to trigger international mechanisms (the November 2024 IACHR/REDESCA statement on the Yanomami people being the most prominent example). Domestic acceptance of CSO-generated remote sensing evidence in nature crime proceedings is effectively non-functional.

4. Cross-cutting observations and recommendations #

The country profiles assembled in this chapter point out that the formal legal architecture is not per se the binding constraint on civil society engagement with Nature crime. Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru all possess sophisticated legal frameworks that produce genuine accountability outcomes when conditions align. What determines whether civil society can actually engage the State, and whether that engagement translates into enforcement, are the conditions that surround the law: the engagement of government with the idea of civic participation, the security of those who do the work, the institutional capacity to act on the evidence produced, and the continuity of the legal framework itself. Five conclusions can be drawn from the information presented in this report:

The implementation of the Escazú Agreement is bearing fruits. The countries that have signed or ratified it show better enabling conditions for civil society. They have developed, or are developing, the access-to-information frameworks, participation mechanisms and access-to-justice tools through which civil society engages environmental authorities. It is noticeable, then, that Suriname and Venezuela, outside the Agreement entirely, show the widest gaps in enabling conditions. Ratification can, however, be actively undermined by subsequent legislation, such as has happened with Peru’s Law 32301/2025. This regulation aims to restrict the use of international cooperation funds for action against the State and cuts directly against Escazú’s access-to-justice and defender-protection commitments, making Peru a cautionary example of how a normative gain can be reversed.

The strongest legal frameworks coexist with the gravest risks to environmental defenders. The countries with the most developed enforcement and litigation tools — Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador — are also those recording the highest numbers of defender killings, yet protection of defenders remains the least developed part of an otherwise sophisticated architecture. This gap is precisely what the division between the de jure and de facto axes was designed to expose: Colombia and Ecuador both rate highly protective in law yet challenging in practice, a divergence that a single blended score would have concealed. Each has a formal mechanism –Colombia’s National Protection Unit, Ecuador’s Decree 77, Brazil’s Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Communicators and Environmentalists – but these operate poorly adapted to the specific risk profile of environmental defenders, who are exposed on isolated frontiers, targeted by criminal organizations, and often attacked in the very act of producing the evidence the State relies on. The basis to close this gap already exists, as protection of defenders is the fourth pillar of the Escazú Agreement, and the commitment that has proved hardest to operationalise. Closing this gap requires treating defender protection not as a parallel human-rights concern but as an integral component of environmental accountability, and monitoring whether the mechanisms that exist actually reach those most at risk

Remote sensing evidence is a critical tool for civil society to engage with governments, but its admissibility rests on fragile practice rather than firmly established norms. As seen in Chapter II, a great number of CSOs dedicate their efforts to constructing evidence through the monitoring and detection of illegal environmental activities. In all eight countries remote sensing evidence is admitted under general evidentiary rules, but none has enacted a dedicated statutory framework for it. Brazil’s CNJ Resolution 433/2021 is the closest regional analogue to a formal protocol, however, it has come under pressure from PL 2.564/2025, which would bar federal regulators from imposing embargoes on the basis of remote detection alone, and which has been approved by the Chamber of Deputies and is pending before the Federal Senate. The practical consequence is that admissibility remains unpredictable in most contexts, and that state-generated data often carries greater evidentiary weight than the same material generated by civil society.

This is where the relationship between CSOs and the State proves the most decisive. Cases such as the cooperation between the Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible and the Fiscalía in Colombia, the participation of Conservacion Amazonica – ACCA to the Sistema Nacional in Peru and the Sinangoe community monitoring model in Ecuador, show that CSO-generated geospatial evidence can be effective at compelling enforcement when a formal channel exists to receive it. Formalising these partnerships, through cooperation agreements and admissibility protocols, is among the highest-return investments available for strengthening the enabling environment.

The recognition, whether by law or by jurisprudence, of the rights of Nature, can significantly widen the scope for legal action from civil society. Where it has taken hold, this framework has widened legal standing, enabled constitutional actions on behalf of nature, and created powerful hooks for international advocacy. Yet recognition without enforcement is insufficient; Colombia’s 2018 Amazon ruling where the Court recognised the Colombian Amazon as a subject of rights entitled to protection, conservation and restoration by the State was historic but the action plans were drawn up under very tight deadlines, coordination across national and territorial entities proved weak, and net deforestation has not been halted; the same happened with Ecuador’s Los Cedros precedent, where the Court clarified that the rights of nature apply across the entire national territory, not only inside protected areas. Even so, extractive and infrastructure pressures continue to test its reach, enforcement of the reparation measures has been uneven, and the broader application of the standard to other concessions has been resisted, so that the strength of the doctrine on paper has not translated into uniform protection on the ground.

Across the Amazon, legislative rollback is threatening to undo the collaboration built over years between civil society and government authorities. In several of the countries studied, legislation is being passed or prepared that either retroactively legalises past environmental harm or narrows the scope for cooperation between CSOs and government agencies acting on Nature crime. Landmark jurisprudence – that recognize the contribution of civil society to the evidentiary process or validate their role as active litigants – can be reversed through such legislative changes. Agribusiness, mining and petroleum interests yield substantial influence over legislators in Amazonian jurisdictions and are often playing an active role in the development of these bills of law.

The recommendations below are addressed in turn to donors, to civil society organisations, and to regional mechanisms, and are organised around the set of enabling conditions reviewed in the report. They are intended as practical priorities rather than an exhaustive programme, and should be read alongside the country-specific recommendations set out in each profile.

For civil society organisations #

• Advocate for Escazú accession, ratification and implementation across the region. The Escazú framework remains an effective regional normative tool for enabling civil society engagement. Also, implementation monitoring is an important channel for engagement by CSOs, since ratification alone is insufficient and can be eroded by subsequent legislation.

• Combine administrative, criminal and constitutional routes strategically. The most successful cases in the region deploy several mechanisms at once: an administrative complaint to create an official record, a criminal complaint to trigger investigation, a constitutional action for interim relief, and an international submission to generate accountability pressure.

• Use rights-of-nature frameworks proactively where they exist. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, rights-of-nature provisions offer the broadest standing, the most powerful constitutional remedies and the strongest hooks for international advocacy. They remain underused in Bolivia and are under practical pressure in Ecuador, and warrant more deliberate strategic deployment.

For regional cooperation among governments (through IACHR, CCJ, ECLAC/Escazú COP, OTCA) #

• Develop a regional protocol on remote sensing evidence admissibility. The Escazú COP is well placed for actors to develop a technically grounded protocol on the admissibility of satellite and geospatial evidence in Court. Given that no country in the region has a dedicated statutory framework, such a protocol would have immediate and practical effect on the effectiveness of measures against nature crime.

• Continue to develop a regional framework for cross-border environmental crime. Illegal gold mining, timber trafficking and the criminal networks behind them operate across borders, while enforcement remains national. Recent efforts such as the creation of public safety commission under ACTO (the CESPIT) and a center for police coordination in the Amazon (CCPI).

• Monitor compliance of existing rulings. The persistent non-implementation of landmark decisions of regional bodies shows that judicial victories without follow-through deliver little in practice. The IACHR and domestic apex courts should dedicate more sustained attention and resources to monitoring whether their orders are actually carried out.

Annex I. Table of nature crimes³ #

Notes #

1. Bolivia: ratified in 2019; Ecuador: ratified in 2020; Guyana: ratified in 2019; Colombia: ratified in 2024; Brazil: signed in 2018, but did not ratify; Peru: signed in 2018, but did not ratify; Suriname: never signed; Venezuela: never signed.

2. CIVICUS Monitor: https://monitor.civicus.org/about/how-it-works/methodology/ .

3. This material was developed by International Lawyers Project.