A conservationist campaigning against the pillaging of the Amazon rainforest has been shot dead in the Peruvian jungle, authorities announced on Sunday.
Hipolito Quispehuaman was killed on Saturday evening while driving a goods vehicle along a section of the Interoceanic Highway near Santa Rosa in the Madre de Dios region, according to local judicial sources.
Quispehuaman was a member of the management committee for the Tambopata National Reserve.
Local prosecutor Karen Torres stated that the initial hypothesis suggests the murder was an act of retaliation against his environmental protection work.
“We demand justice for my brother’s death; such things must not happen,” Angel Quispehuaman said, speaking to the press.
Peru's Office of the National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH) condemned the killing and called for urgent and effective measures from the Peruvian government to protect human rights defenders.
“No more deaths! Enough of the killings!” the organisation declared on the social media platform X.
The Ministry of Justice, also on X, pledged to “work for the defence of the victims so that this crime does not go unpunished.”
Attacks on environmental defenders have increased in recent years in Peru’s Amazon regions, where national authorities are notably absent.
Indigenous communities face challenges from drug traffickers and illegal mining activities, which lead to deforestation in the Amazon regions.
According to Global Witness, an international NGO, at least 54 environmental defenders have been killed in Peru since 2012, more than half of them members of indigenous communities.
