When people in Europe hear about deforestation in the Amazon, they may think first about cattle, timber or mining. The role of illicit drug economies, and the effects of the policies used to confront them, are much less visible. What is the connection between drugs and deforestation-and why is what happens in the Amazon also a question for Europe?

This panel discussion reframes the Amazon’s environmental crisis as a shared-responsibility problem rather than a distant one. It argues that illegal mining, logging, land grabbing and wildlife trafficking are financed through the same economic networks as the global drug trade — networks whose financial flows extend to consumer markets in Europe. Bringing together diverse voices, the discussion moves beyond visible deforestation to the hidden financial and governance dynamics sustaining it, while centring Indigenous and community territorial governance as key to any effective response.

Moderated by Tyanif Rico Rodríguez, Assistant Professor at the Department of Gender Studies at the Central European University.