Forests Under Fire: Illegal Deforestation and the Security Crisis in the Amazon, Featuring Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown

Join SAIS Energy and Environment Club and SAIS Latin America Studies Club for a conversation on illegal deforestation in the Amazon and the global security, governance, and development challenges it presents on Wednesday, March 11, from 12:00–1:30pm at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Our distinguished guest speaker guiding us through these complexities is Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown.

The Amazon rainforest—often described as the “lungs of the planet”—sits at the center of global climate stability. Yet illegal logging, land grabbing, illicit mining, and wildlife trafficking continue to erode its ecosystems at alarming rates. Beyond biodiversity loss and carbon emissions, environmental crime in the Amazon fuels corruption, strengthens nonstate armed actors, undermines state legitimacy, and threatens Indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on forest protection.

As Latin American governments confront competing pressures—economic development, political fragmentation, criminal networks, and international climate commitments—critical questions emerge: Why do enforcement gaps persist despite national and international pledges? How do illicit economies entrench themselves in fragile governance systems? And what role can international institutions, foreign policy, and security cooperation play in countering environmental crime without exacerbating local vulnerabilities?


Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She directs the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-directs the Africa Security Initiative.

An internationally recognized expert on insurgency, organized crime, illicit economies, and governance in conflict-affected settings, Dr. Felbab-Brown’s research examines how criminal networks, armed groups, and weak institutions intersect to shape political order. Her work increasingly focuses on environmental crime—including wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and resource extraction—and the ways these activities undermine state capacity, security, and sustainable development.

She is the author of several influential books, including The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It and Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder. Her field research spans Latin America, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, and she regularly provides congressional testimony and expert analysis on transnational crime and governance.

Dr. Felbab-Brown received her PhD in political science from MIT and her bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University.

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