MAAP #188: Mennonite Colonies Continue Major Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon
August 31, 2023
In 2017, Mennonite colonies began appearing in various regions of the Peruvian Amazon. Mennonites are a global religious group starting around the 1600s and often rely on agriculture as an industrialized activity.
Based on a number of reports, Mennonites have now become one of the major drivers of deforestation across the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon. There is a significant amount of evidence showing that this mass-scale deforestation is illegal, and is being investigated by the Peruvian government.
Over 7,000 hectares (17,376 acres) have already been deforested by 5 Mennonite colonies since 2017, and an additional 1,600 burned. In total, more than ⅓ of this destruction has occurred from January 2022 to August 2023.
MAAP is currently using the information from these reports to identify specific colonies and gain more insight on the exact scale of negative forest impacts.
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