Bram Ebus: Power, poverty, and criminality in the gold industry (ep345)
“The people who make the most money when it comes to the gold trade are international gold refiners (global corporations), shipping companies (that add flasks of mercury to their cargo), but also gold traders on the local level who don’t really go to the mines that often and don’t get their hands dirty...”
In this episode, we welcome Bram Ebus, who has worked on resource conflicts, drug policies, and state-corporate crimes in Latin America since 2010. He holds a master's degree from the University of Utrecht in Global Criminology with a focus on environmental and state-corporate crimes.
In recent years, Bram has been active as an NGO consultant and investigative journalist, publishing for a variety of international media, and worked as the lead journalist for an award-winning interactive media production on mining conflicts in Venezuela.
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Transcript:
Note: *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into each resource and topic explored. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Bram Ebus: I grew up in a rural area of the Netherlands. Most people might [not] know a lot about the Netherlands besides Amsterdam, windmills, and the red zone. Besides that, it's a very urban small country where, to be frank with you, not a lot is going on.
Since I was a little child, I've always been diving into encyclopedias and atlases, and I developed a fascination for the Latin American continent without really knowing anything about it. When I was a student, I first got in touch with communities in Central America in Guatemala that were Indigenous communities who were confronting a Canadian mining multinational. When I was a student in the Netherlands, I decided to visit them.
Basically, I was very much motivated by the story of this small community that took on the fight against this global mining giant that wanted their water sources, their lands, and the gold that was hidden in the subsoils. But obviously, this mining multinational wanted to get the natural resources without thinking of how to benefit this Indigenous community. I found out that the environmental impacts of their operation were actually quite big and would change the natural environments of this local community for ages to come.
So I decided to visit them and to find out how this tiny community thought of resistance tactics and strategies to fend off this global power. That was the moment that got really, really struck by Latin America and the capacity of its people to mobilize and confront dynamics that are so much bigger than themselves. That's when I started working and traveling much more often to Latin America and basically, from a journalistic or an academic angle, started to cover what we call socioenvironmental conflicts.
Kamea Chayne: Thank you so much for sharing that. I first came across your work through the Vice documentary The Most Dangerous Black Market You've Never Heard Of, which tells the story of mercury trafficking across several countries in South America as the largely hidden back story enabling the booming industry and the expansion of gold mining. Though a lot of these gold mines are considered illegal and there are several layers of illegality throughout their supply chain, to start here, what is it about these mines that render a lot of them illegal? What are the driving forces behind their expansion nevertheless?
Bram Ebus: In Latin America, I've been working in several countries that have the presence of gold mining, so we can speak about legal gold mining, which oftentimes is done by foreign multinationals. These legal mines still can have a very large impact when it comes to local communities and environments. But since these global corporations have all the power in their hands to get some sway over local authorities, these are “legit” projects that don't face a lot of repressions from law enforcement.
Then, of course, you have the smaller mines that are oftentimes run by local communities, by people that do not have the means to achieve possession over legal land titles, environmental licenses, and therefore they're considered informal miners. But when we speak about illegal or criminal mining, we know that sometimes behind gold mining, we find non-state armed groups, which can be a paramilitary organization or a guerrilla outfit.
But we also know that organized crime has a lot of stakes in criminal or illegal gold mining in Latin America because gold mining is perfect to launder revenues from the cocaine trade or trafficking because it's very difficult to trace and track gold. To be honest, you can smelt gold from a mine in Colombia together with gold from a mine in Alaska and no one would know where the gold originally has been mined.
So when we started looking into gold mining, we were doing investigations about corporate crimes by global corporations. But we have also looked into the controversies behind small-scale gold mining or illegal gold mining, knowing that especially in the smaller mines, toxic liquid quicksilver is used because it binds with gold. That makes an amalgam and that's what makes it very easy to trap gold with this substance, which is called mercury, but mercury is impactful to human health, the environment, and the well-being of animals and ecosystems. So we know that mercury oftentimes is the substance that actually causes the harm, the harm isn't so much caused by the gold itself.
But since we're always speaking about gold mining, gold trafficking, and all the dark forces behind the gold mining sector, we started questioning ourselves why we never looked into the supply chain of mercury. Since mercury is so toxic and damaging, how is it that we don't know where the toxic quicksilver comes from and who gets rich because of its strength, and why is it so popular in mining?
Kamea Chayne: I wonder if the expansion in gold mining, legal and illegal, does it have to do with the global market for gold or global demand for gold increasing? Do we have any knowledge of what that looks like?
Bram Ebus: So the global demand for gold is, of course, the main driver behind the exploitation of the precious mineral gold as a commodity that's very much trusted as something that's that stable. So...
In times of crisis, be it a global pandemic, or an economic meltdown, we see that investors oftentimes turn to gold.
We know that gold is a finite resource and its exportation has this huge environmental impacts. But besides investing in gold, we know that gold is also used by the jewelry industry and it’s used as a method of speculation, but it's also used in technological applications. Each cell phone has tiny fragments of gold in it because it's such a good connector for calculations. Say you have 100 cell phones, you can basically extract enough gold from them to have a wedding ring.
But what we basically question is that our consumption models based on commodities are often so exaggerated with the demand that we need from a certain commodity. When it comes to gold, we know that a lot of it is just stashed away in banks in Zurich, Basel, London, or New York. Actually, all that gold that is stashed away in banks is pure speculation, and maybe some of that gold can be released on the market. Then, part of the demand for technology and jewelry can be covered so there is less necessity for a gold mine. But we see actually that as crisis adds to another crisis, the demand for gold from the banking world is rising so much that it is very well worth your endeavor if you want to start searching for gold in Latin America.
Kamea Chayne: Hmm. There are so many layers to this story, and I'm still thinking about what you said in regards to a lot of the “legal” mines essentially being the more corporate-led and corporate-run ones so they may have the access to be able to legitimize these practices, and the ones that are illegal a lot of times, they're the smaller scale, community-based ones where people do not have access or the ability to legitimize what they're doing.
So it leads me to wonder, there are a lot of these labels for quote-unquote “conscious consumerism” where people talk about ethical gold or responsible mining and things like that. Do we know how that ties into this picture of illegality and legality of the mining, as in are the once labeled ethical and responsible or with certain certifications, are those largely from the corporate-run mines where they have the legal papers to showcase that it's “legitimate” essentially, and are the ones that are more community-based that have been rendered illegal, are those less likely to receive these sorts of certifications of being ethical and responsible, even though they may actually be practiced at scales that are supporting people's livelihoods?
Bram Ebus: So we know about the initiatives when it comes to the ethically-sourced or certified gold. Most of the time, these labeling organizations try to control the whole supply chain, so they look for a small-scale mine that works with mercury with respect for labor standards, that doesn't deforest for mining expansions, etcetera.
Then they directly buy the gold from that mine or associations of miners that are working in that mine and then they ship it to two jewelry stores or global clients. But these initiatives can only work because they're very small scale. Basically, the consumers in Los Angeles, for example, have direct contact with the jewelry store that sources from the labor organization in the store to a certain mine in Colombia or maybe Ghana in Africa, and you know it's legit.
But investigations into these ethical supply chains have acknowledged that only a small percentage of the global gold supply can come from ethically-certified mines.
Because most of the gold is sourced from global corporate giants that have huge open-pit mines that are always responsible for enormous environmental impacts because there is no way to do large-scale mining without having a very severe environmental impact. These larger corporations don't bother with certifications because they know that they have their buyers internationally that won't question their business ethics.
I think that the market for ethically-sourced gold is also just not big enough at the moment to really start working on these initiatives. Then there are also some controversies about certain ethical mines where on the weekend, the miners work in illegal gold mines or where the tiny mine might not work with mercury but its surrounded by many other illegal gold mines that do work with mercury and contaminate basically the impact zone of, let's say, the ethical mine. So it's very difficult.
What also makes it difficult is that gold is basically impossible to trace because it doesn't have a DNA like a diamond. You can bring a diamond to a laboratory and investigate where it's possibly mined. But gold can be mixed with gold from other origins, and it's just very hard to track and trace.
Kamea Chayne: To go back to the mercury piece, so mercury is not necessary for gold mining, right, because you said there are mines that do not involve mercury and other ones that do. So how do the ones without mercury mine their gold? Is it just because it's more difficult to do and so a lot of mines will opt to use mercury?
Bram Ebus: Mercury is a cheap aid to extract a lot of gold when it has tiny concentrations in sediments, so it is possible to do small-scale gold mining without mercury, but you just won't make as much money.
We also know that oftentimes miners who, to be honest, can be uneducated people that grew up in jungle communities without having access to other alternative livelihoods. They know about mining because their father was a miner and their father knows about mining because their grandfather also did the mining.
There's basically some superstition that mercury is the best method to get gold out of the ground, and they just swear by it and basically deny all the harmful impacts mercury has on their health. For example, we've had miners that told us about how many children they're able to [have], and then they laugh all the critics against their irresponsible health practices away.
We know of miners who also need to use mercury because of project owners who just want to extract as much gold as possible.
Behind the whole mercury supply chain, there are huge interests. So gold has a profit margin that is quite small, but mercury, even though there's not so much money involved, has an enormous profit margin.
For example, the country Guyana [is] where we investigated part of the documentary that we did for Vice News. Guyana is one of the few countries that still legally imports mercury into Latin America, which made Guyana basically a trafficking hub because it can legally import mercury into Guyana, and then you just traffic it illegally to the neighboring countries.
The mercury that enters Guyana is worth about US$17 a kilo. But that same kilo of mercury is worth over US$200 when it reaches the mines.
So the profit margins are over 10 times as big between the importing and the wholesale of mercury in the mines. So we have these criminal players behind the mercury trade and mercury trafficking that also force people to continue to work with mercury in the mines so they have guaranteed buyers.
Kamea Chayne: To get to the basics, where does mercury itself come from? So in Guyana, it's legal, but where does the source come from?
Bram Ebus: We've seen mercury imports in Guyana coming from myriad countries, including Turkey, the UK, India. But we know that a lot of mercury, which is a metal, both a liquid metal or, as they say, quicksilver, is mined as well in very deep deposits, for example, in Indonesia or China. So the Chinese are also trafficking a lot of mercury into seaports in Latin American countries such as Surinam, Venezuela, and Guyana.
But in Latin America itself, the only country that we know of that is producing mercury on quite a significant scale is Mexico. There are a very large amount of small mercury mines. The people that are in charge of getting the mercury from Mexico illegally across the border are the cartels because they're the biggest criminal structures in the country. The Mexican cartels are able to traffic mercury through Guatemala and overseas to Panama and then into Colombia before its being distributed to, for example, the legal mines in Colombia itself or to the mines in Venezuela.
Kamea Chayne: Wow, so it's like a global network behind this.
Your project shares: "Gold mining is the driving force of the Surinamese economy, a small country in the northeast corner of South America... Much like Guyana, Suriname's gold industry is propped up by a black market for mercury, the toxic metal used in the extraction process. The country uses over 50 tonnes of mercury a year, and experts believe all of it now enters the country illegally."
I would love for you to speak more to the illegality of the use and trade of mercury itself, especially as it's so integral to gold mining. So has it been banned because of the toxic nature of its use on people's health and the environment? How does that connect to the industries that are so reliant on this metal?
Bram Ebus: So, mercury, because of its toxicity to human health, I mean, it destroys your nervous system and causes all kinds of other defects as well, even birth defects in newborns. But mercury also has a very significant environmental impact, for example, on wildlife and rivers. Mercury, when evaporated, also travels hundreds of kilometers through the air and contaminates people and animals over a large distance.
So, knowing that mercury is just bad news, whatever way you look at it, there is an international convention called the Minamata Convention that many countries signed up to basically phase out and ban mercury, especially when it comes to illegal mining. Because the widespread plans of mercury and illegal mining strategies mean that a lot of the mercury is just discharged into the environment after it's being used.
Mercury has become illegal in a lot of countries, but there is still such a big demand for it because the mining bonanza in Latin America never stops.
So we wanted to understand why people or destroying their own health still using mercury which is bad for them. We went to Guyana and Suriname and wanted to find out how this illegal underworld of mercury trafficking works. We met with mercury traffickers and trade are sometimes we pretended to be mercury buyers ourselves. We've been able to hang out with smugglers and also illegally cross the riverine border with them.
In the end, I think it was a very important learning process for us as investigators as well, because first of all, you go through one of these countries and you assume that the people who are the traffickers, who are the executors in the illegal trade of mercury, that they are rich guys having a great extravagant lifestyle.
But in the end, all these people in the mercury supply chain in these Latin American countries are dirt poor. They're just trying to make ends meet. They're taking mercury with small boats across the river or they are hiding it into small busses or even into Coca-Cola bottles and their backpacks when they go between the country’s capital, the port, and the mines. These are just people trying to make ends meet.
Oftentimes in these informal circuits or illicit economies, you expect to meet a few bad guys, but in the end, it's just subsistence miners, subsistence traders who want to be able to put some bread on the table of their families.
Then it becomes very difficult for us to criticize these people in a documentary or an investigative piece because you sympathize or understand their life decisions, even if they're not always the best life decisions. But when you start finding out more about the supply chains, you just know that there is a global demand by bigger financial structures of corporate players that swallow up all these people and informality and illegality [who are] just making small shekels in the supply chain.
But these are the people that expose themselves to the most risk because of their encounters with law enforcement, customs, police, but also risks for their own health because the miners are using mercury on a daily basis.
Kamea Chayne: Yeah, and to that point, I would ask, would it be accurate to say that those who are benefiting the most from these illegal activities, as well as those who fuel these markets, are often impacted least by their criminalization? The opposite is true as well. The people who are most reliant, who are also being exploited by this industry are the ones most affected by the criminal status of these activities.
Bram Ebus: Absolutely. I completely agree with you. The people who make the most money, when it comes to the gold trade, are international gold refiners, which are global corporations, shipping companies that are able to add some flasks of mercury to their cargo and get really rich off of it.
But also gold traders on the local level, for example, in Guyana, Suriname, there are guys who own villas in the capital cities and don't really go to the mines that often don't get their hands dirty. They're just living a luxurious life knowing that people are risking their lives to basically make sure that they earn their money.
Kamea Chayne: The people that potentially end up being locked up and arrested are the people who are actually most exposed to these toxic metals and are basically there a lot of times out of just needing to feed their families, so this really paints a picture of injustice. I'm sure this pattern can be seen in the wildlife trafficking space as well and the drug trade, and I'm sure it's a pattern that we can see throughout different markets and sectors.
I also wonder here if the banning of the use of mercury itself, then, just doesn't actually address the sources of the strain in this socio-ecological crisis, in terms of both what has been driving the boom in gold mining in the first place and also what has historically left many communities in these regions reliant on this industry to feed their families? So what else might you share about the broader historical, colonial, and social contexts that created the conditions leading to a lot of people's reliance on this health-threatening industry today?
Bram Ebus: What we observe when it comes to the illegal market of mercury is that government crackdowns and trade bans and prohibiting its use in commercialization is, of course, an easily defendable method to try to tackle this issue of the existence of mercury and all the harm that it's causing. But in practice? We've been speaking in different countries in Latin America: Suriname, Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, and Colombia. What they say is that after the global crackdown on mercury, nothing changed when it comes to supply or demand, only the black market prices increased a lot.
Small mine owners are illegal miners that already don't make a lot of money and now need to pay four times the amount of money for the mercury that was acquired more cheaply before all the government crackdowns. So while the markets demand and [supply on] offer hasn't changed, the profits increased very, very, very much, whilst the most impoverished shekels of the gold supply chain are earning less money now because they need to pay more for mercury. The money that's generated by the mercury trade increased revenues that reach the deep pockets of criminal stakeholders.
We think this is very dishonest and there must be a different way to address this issue. Something that you said before, Kamea, about maybe different sectors in Latin America that have the same dynamics as illegal gold mining. This is absolutely true when we look at illicit crop cultivation, for example, the coca plant in Colombia or even the legal timber trafficking, what we see is that...
The people who work in the countryside, who grow an illicit crop, who log, who trade, who mine for gold are oftentimes the most impoverished populations living in state-abandoned areas; they have no alternatives in life, they need to partake and participate in these informal and illegal economies.
Whilst global powers are benefiting from the prime materials that they are basically getting out of the Earth with their bare hands. But when a government or an international law enforcement agency needs to do something about this issue, they oftentimes go for the lowest shekels in the supply chain. These are the most vulnerable, marginalized communities, but also they are the easiest to replace.
What we see in Colombia is that there is a lot of illegal gold mining. Gold mining in Colombia finances conflicts because the revenues of illegal gold mining go to the coffers of rebel organizations, paramilitary groups, or even corrupt politicians with their own hit squads.
If law enforcement teams go after gold mining because it's being pushed on them for the environmental agenda, they always go for the people that are with their boots in the mud, lock them up, maybe blow up a retro-excavator. But meanwhile, the criminal investor is able to pay for another backhoe within the week, just contracts twenty other miners to send to the gold mining pits, and continues this project. All these people, the financiers of these environmental crimes, they're untouchable because they have some sway over local or maybe even national politicians.
So what we see in all these sectors, is that oftentimes in strategies to tackle environmental crimes, they go after these subsistence miners, loggers, and crop cultivators instead of going after the money that's financing the sector.
Kamea Chayne: Criminality, I know is a common thread that weaves through a lot of your work and ties a lot of things together. I wonder, given everything that we just discussed and all of the investigations that you've done, how have your perspectives on criminality shifted? How would you invite people to consider the complexity of criminality and how it relates to the broader political, economic, and social contexts of power and poverty?
Bram Ebus: I think it is always important to question the power structures behind a commodity or a crime or even behind the world “green” because we know there is a lot of greenwashing going on when it comes to commodities that are actually linked to illegal deforestation and violent conflicts.
So for me, as an investigator, this has been an ongoing learning process. I mean, we've had quite some impact from some of our investigations. For example, in Venezuela, we've been looking into the mining sector that was barely existent before the deep socio-economical and human rights crisis in Venezuela, which is a country that basically lifts [its] revenues from the oil bonanza during the last decades.
But as the crisis deepened in Venezuela and international sanctions [made] the Venezuelan oil trade difficult, we saw that the government shifted towards gold mining and basically tried to reap the illicit benefits from unrecognized gold mining projects.
These gold mining projects in Venezuela directly financed human rights abuses by the state, but also by non-state armed groups such as Colombian guerrilla organizations that operate in Venezuela. So we've been investigating gold trafficking in Venezuela because we really wanted to know if this gold is so tainted, and if this gold finances all these wrongdoings in Venezuela, we want to know who's buying it.
Then we basically found out that there are several trafficking routes: overland, by air, with boats on rivers in the Amazon, to bring the gold to neighboring countries where it subsequently legalized into illicit supply chains of the neighboring countries.
For example, Venezuelan gold is trafficked by Venezuelan refugees that are on the forks, recruited by non-state armed groups to walk across the border. Then it's just added to the mined production of Colombian gold mines as Colombian gold. But we also found out that a lot of the gold from Venezuela is trafficked to Aruba and Curaçao, which are two islands in the Caribbean that belong to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Both islands don't have a single gram of gold in their subsoils, but still, in free trade areas, with some legal trickery and chicanery, the gold suddenly is leaving Aruba and Curaçao as gold coming from Aruba or Curaçao, which is impossible.
So when we found out that this trafficking route exists and [that] each month, two or 3000 kilos of Venezuelan gold went to the Dutch Caribbean, we published about it, and with the first appearance with our publication, it basically halted all import and transit of Venezuelan gold.
We, as investigative journalists, were happy with this result because it was a very clear consequence of our reporting. But then we just saw that the gold routes moved from the Dutch Caribbean to Guyana and increasing amounts went to Colombia or to Brazil, so nothing changed.
So in the end, we thought, “Whoa, this has been a bit of a disaster,” because we can identify how these networks work, who is financing all these abuses, but then the market just changes and the supply and demand stays the same.
But then we actually found out that the gold bonanza in Venezuela was so much driven by the crisis in the country. There are more than five million Venezuelan refugees now abroad, but most of the Venezuelans still stayed in Venezuela. Many of them, including teachers, lawyers, and doctors, went to the gold mines south of the Orinoco River to make ends meet.
So the gold production is also a result of the severe crisis in Venezuela, and we know that most of these miners aren't getting really rich off it. They're not doing it because they like to be a miner. They hate it. They're miners and muddy pits surrounded by armed gunmen. They need to work with mercury, which is damaging their health. But since they have no alternatives, they must do so to survive.
Law enforcement crackdowns are useless, because markets will adapt to it, and oftentimes illegal gold mining is driven by a lack of alternatives.
If we really want to start solving these problems, we must have a solution for the people involved, which can be alternative employment, environmental conservation. Invest in development projects for people in the areas with a lot of illegal gold mining so that they have other life decisions that they can make because oftentimes gold mining is the only option for them. Instead of criminalizing these people, we should give them a hand and help find more sustainable solutions.
Kamea Chayne: Yeah, it definitely sounds like a more holistic understanding of what's going on is necessary. It all speaks to a need for deeper and more systemic changes. Another more recent investigation you've been working on is looking at deforestation and conflict in Colombia.
We had welcomed Dr. Christina Lyons on the show before, and she offered a brief backdrop for us on the conflicts in Colombia as they relate to the history of the U.S. war on drugs and the war on terror.
In that conversation, we focused a lot on the local and Indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers whose lifeways and ways of relating to their ancestral lands and soils have been disrupted in part by these conflicts and also the imposition of commodity crops for export and agriculture. So how does deforestation tie into this picture and what has been the intention and purpose behind this land conversion?
Bram Ebus: In Colombia, we acknowledge that its historical and ongoing conflict is related to the environment. The environment in Colombia, on the one hand, is a victim of conflict because of terrorist attacks against oil pipelines leading to oil spills. But also in the war on drugs, more than 1.8 million hectares were sprayed with a toxic herbicide called glyphosate.
But we found that Colombia, besides being a victim of conflict, is also a driver of conflict because the natural resources like gold, timber, coca crops, have financed non-state armed groups and have financed the violence they perpetrate. In the end, several non-state armed groups like the former FARC guerrilla, the current ELN guerrilla. But also [the] paramilitary organizations might have an ideological claim to why they exist and why they are fighting, but in the end, they've been so involved in all these illicit economies that reap the benefits from the environment and basically, greed rather than grievance becomes their motivation to perpetuate the violence and the conflict.
When there was a peace deal that was signed in 2016 between the Colombian government and the then-biggest guerrilla organization, the FARC, we saw this peace agreement actually was one of the greenest peace agreements that ever was written because the peace agreements in Colombia acknowledged the link between nature and conflict.
The peace agreement very clearly laid out that there is some need for sustainable, rural economies to basically separate people from illicit economies and their non-state armed groups. The peace agreements also urged for reintegration processes for former rebels, also with an angle on green, alternative, and sustainable economies. These agreements also acknowledge that we must stop deforestation in Colombia because it opens up land for other illicit economies.
So we very much applauded this, and then we even saw in 2019 that a transitional justice system, the GAP in Colombia recognized the environment as a silent victim of conflict. So we think that a lot of ground has been covered in Colombia.
Besides that, the current government isn't implementing the peace agreements. So instead of breaking or disrupting the relationship between conflict and environment in Colombia, this relationship reached more profound levels after the FARC demobilized. Then we started investigating how is it possible that in times of supposed peace, the deforestation rates in Colombia skyrocketed so fast, whilst when the FARC, as a guerrilla movement, still controlled large territories in Colombia, deforestation amounts were lower then.
Then we found out that the FARC guerrilla, in their former areas of influence, actually restricted deforestation. So they told communities to not raise more than five hectares of forest a year, not to plant more than three hectares of coca crops, for example. They banned other practices, such as commercial hunting or logging.
This has to be fairly well understood that the FARC not only restricted deforestation because of ideological reasons, but basically they also needed social control over all the people living in rural Colombia. They gained social control by just prohibiting things. The FARC also would have also very much needed jungle cover to move around troops and to set up camp without being detected from above by aerial intelligence. But when the FARC moved out, the government should have shown up in all these regions to basically work on state-building, work on development projects, education, justice, set up health clinics, etcetera.
But the government never did. So when the FARC left, we saw that other non-state armed groups like the ELN or paramilitary organizations, or other crime syndicates took up where the FARC left. They had a very different attitude towards the environment and started to incentivize large-scale forest raising to advance not only illegal gold mining or illicit crop growing, but also cattle ranching. Cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation in Colombia right now. Oftentimes experts say that OK, well, you have illicit economies that drive deforestation in Colombia, like illegal gold mining or coca crop cultivation.
But we actually argue that cattle ranching is also an illegal economy because we see that cows are grazing in protected environmental areas in Colombia. We see that commanders of non-state armed groups own large amounts of cattle, but also cattle ranchers pay some tax to these non-state armed groups. Therefore, cattle ranching is not only driving deforestation, but it's also directly financing conflict in Colombia. So we have been trying to understand...
What is the relationship between conflict and environment in Colombia? Why must it be broken down? How is it possible that in times of peace, deforestation is increasing?
In the end, that has a lot to do with a government in power right now that is not so interested in peace with a guerrilla organization and it rather [prefers to] confront it with military means.
Kamea Chayne: Well, as we are nearing the end of our conversation, what else do you feel called to share that I didn't get to ask you about? Amidst a lot of the grim pictures here, what has inspired you most from the resilience of the people and communities most affected by these layers of violence?
Bram Ebus: I have the luxury to live in Colombia and to be traveling to all these fantastic areas with mountains, jungles, beautiful rivers, and ecosystems, and in these beautiful natural habitats, we find people that are able to coexist with nature without logging too much or without having an impact. That's very big.
So when I hide behind my laptop to write studies or finish investigative reports, after a few weeks, you get disconnected and you just want to publish and get it over with. But then since I live here, for the next project, I can go back to the jungles and reconnect with these people that are trying to conserve their own forests.
They give me so much inspiration because they are facing multiple threats from criminal, corporate, and state actors, while they also need to cope with climate change. But still, these people have a very positive life attitude and are fighting to get ahead.
In the end, we know that Indigenous movements are the best forest stewards, and they show us how grassroots activism can safeguard certain ecosystems. So what I find very important to share is that you need to keep connecting with these people that can set an example for us on how to coexist with nature. There's nothing more inspiring than being in touch with them.
*** CLOSING ***
Kamea Chayne: What's an impactful publication you follow or a book that's been really profound for you?
Bram Ebus: I actually have this book in front of me which is a study book, so I hope it’s not too boring for your listeners, but this book has really opened my eyes when it comes to environmental crimes. Because oftentimes you think of the bad guy or the dirty miner or the drug trafficker or whatever. But I think in this podcast as well and in most of the things that we've said, I want to underline that there are bigger global dynamics that actually dictate the rhythm of the markets related to environmental crimes.
So there's this book is called State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business and Government, written by Raymond J. Michalowski, Ronald C. Kramer, who are both criminologists who are questioning global power dynamics and want to understand how companies and state governments work together. They, for example, say great powers and great crimes are inseparable. When economic and political powers pursue common interests, the potential for harm is magnified further.
When I read this book and afterward, traveled to Latin America, it was just so relevant to keep in mind the tandem of state corporate powers. They're responsible for many of these crimes, even though they're hiding at a very large distance from what's going on in the field.
Kamea Chayne: What is a personal mantra, motto, or practice you engage with to stay grounded?
Bram Ebus: To stay grounded. I think it's necessary to keep confronting yourself with the harsh realities. So if I'm studying environmental crimes or socio-environmental conflicts, I need to go to the areas where the impact is manifested, to be shocked again every few months, and I need to speak with the people that are basically putting their lives on the line to be environmental stewards and protectors.
Colombia is, for the second year in a row, the country where most environmental defenders are killed. In 2020, 65 environmental defenders were assassinated in Colombia by non-state armed groups, by corrupt police office officers, by mercenaries contracted by global corporations.
Still, if I travel to the most remote areas of Colombia, I find environmental defenders doing their utmost best on the community level to fend off intruders and raise their voices for nature conservation. I think meeting with these people is not so much a motto or mantra, maybe, but it's a way to keep motivating myself as well, that studying and giving a voice to these people is a necessary thing to do.
Kamea Chayne: My last fire round question is what is your greatest source of inspiration right now, if anything else on top of what you just said?
Bram Ebus: The biggest source of inspiration right now are definitely Indigenous movements who are proven to be the best forest stewards. Oftentimes these local communities are seen as an enemy because they're not participating in the formal society or state. But actually, these Indigenous groups are our biggest ally to conserve nature and to fight climate change and deforestation.
Meanwhile, for the sake of everyone who lives in the world, these Indigenous defenders and communities are facing enormous threats in their territories, coming from criminals and multinational corporations, state actors that want to promote another interest in the territory. They are just there, be it the Shuar in Ecuador, the Nasa Indigenous in Colombia, or the Yanomami in Brazil. These, in the end, are inspiring communities that are safeguarding the natural environment for all of us.
Kamea Chayne: Bram, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. What final words of wisdom do you have for us as green dreamers?
Bram Ebus: I think that green dreamers should continue to question the word “green” because oftentimes there are certification schemes that are actually laundering dirty products into a sphere of environmentality. But if you do your research actually you can find products from local communities, be it Indigenous groups or farming communities that actually support their cause and are actual green products.
