Mongabay and Earth Genome detected 67 clandestine airstrips used for transporting drugs in the Peruvian regions of Ucayali, Huánuco and Pasco. The analysis used artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery cross-referenced with official sources and on-the-ground observation to verify that each airstrip is associated with narco activity. Thirty-one airstrips are concentrated in Atalaya, which has become one of the most violent provinces in the Amazon. Most of these illegal airstrips are located in and around Indigenous communities, reserves for people living in voluntary isolation and forest concessions. A distressed voice speaks on the other end of the phone, calling from an Indigenous territory in the Peruvian Amazon. “They are trying to take off again; please tell the Dirandro. Please, I do not want to have problems in my community,” an anonymous member of an Indigenous community says. The caller requests the presence of officials from the antidrug department of the Peruvian National Police (Dirección Antidrogas de la Policía Nacional del Perú, or Dirandro, in Spanish) while watching an unknown airplane in the distance, hidden in the forest. In the darkness, without anyone being able to see him, he anxiously recounts that a group of men prepared a shipment of drugs on an illegal airstrip built in his community’s territory. His desperation is evident, especially because he knows that his community is facing a gigantic monster embedded in Ucayali, a region that has become a new hotspot of drug trafficking in the country. This call for help is one of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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