On April 13, 2025, members of the community forest monitoring committee from the Kakataibo Indigenous community faced an attack while carrying out a routine patrol of their ancestral territory in Mariscal Cáceres province, Peru. The team had set out to monitor forest conditions, inspect areas flagged for deforestation and oversee the integrity of the community’s boundaries. But while surveying an area near a neighboring settlement, they discovered that approximately one and a half hectares (3.7 acres) of land within their territory had been illegally cleared. As the committee prepared to establish a temporary camp in the area to continue their work over the next four days, a group of people from the nearby settlement arrived, armed with stones, sticks and machetes, and forcibly expelled them from the site. Kakataibo Indigenous communities, such as Unipacuyacu, are vulnerable to land invasions and deforestation. Image by Christian Ugarte/Mongabay Latam. As a result, three members of the Kakataibo community were injured and had to be taken to the health post in the Indigenous community of Yamino, the closest location to where the attack occurred. They were later transferred to the health center in the city of Aguaytía, in the province of Padre Abad, Ucayali. On this occasion, there were no serious injuries, and those wounded recovered quickly. However, delays in response and the obstacles often imposed by the justice system itself worsen the situation faced by environmental defenders in Peru, say civil society organizations. According to the country’s Ministry of Justice and Human Rights,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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