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Victory in prospect for Peru’s Kichwa People after 40 years of oil pollution Updated for 2026

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Hundreds of of Kichwa indigenous people living along the River Tigre in the remote Peruvian Amazon are demanding over 100 million Peruvian nuevo soles ($32 million / £21 million) from oil company Pluspetrol in the “environmental damages” they have sustained over 40 years of oil drilling.

The Kichwa men, women and children blockaded the River Tigre for most of January with two cables – stopping two boats contracted by Pluspetrol to carry equipment, materials and supplies upriver to oil dilling sites.

The blockade was only suspended last Friday after Fernando Melendez Celis, President of the vast Amazonian region of Loreto, paid a visit to the protesters, camped by the side of the river on land belonging to Kichwa community Nuevo Remanente.

“Loreto now has a president that will fight for your rights”, Melendez Celis told the Kichwas. “I’m here to tell you the regional government will fight for you. These territories belong to you.”

The blockade is the latest manifestation of a new militancy among the indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. Last December the Matsés people whose territory straddles Peru’s border with Amazonas, Brazil threatened at attack any oil workers entering their lands.

Oil pollution an ‘environmental emergency’

Pluspetrol’s concession, Lot 1-AB, is Peru’s number one oil producer. Operated in partnership with PetroChina, it yielded almost 25% of all Peruvian oil in 2013.

But operations there have led to severe contamination leading the government to declare an “environmental emergency” in the river Tigre basin in late 2013. Water samples from the Tigre and its tributaries revealed dangerous levels of lead, nickel, iron and aluminium – leaving local communities no water fit for human consumption.

The Kichwas are also demanding compensation for land use, environmental clean-up, and to be consulted by the government about the concession contract which expires this August, among other things.

Numerous Kichwas say that the Tigre and other water sources are contaminated, meaning that they, as well as the game and fish they depend on to survive, are slowly being poisoned.

“Our fathers and our in-laws are dying”, said Edinson Munoz Moscoso, from Remanente. “We, the survivors, are fighting for the benefit of our sons and daughters.”

“There have been 45 years of contamination”, said David Inuma Sabaleta. “The Kichwas, the agoutis, the tapirs, the water … all poisoned. Our fathers and grand-fathers have died because of this.”

“We use the water for everything: to drink, to wash, to cook”, said Orlando Chuje Aranda, another Remanente resident. “It’s contaminated, but we have to use it because there’s no other option.”

“After 45 years of oil operations, we want to be able to drink water that isn’t contaminated”, said Carlos Huaya Luna, from the Vista Alegre community. “Here, we’re fucked. Boys, girls, women … how many people have had to suffer for us to reach this point? That’s why we’re protesting.”

Pluspetrol and Peruvian government forced to negotiate

The blockade was suspended after Melendez Celis agreed to broker a meeting in the nearest city, Iquitos, between Kichwa leaders, Pluspetrol, and the central government’s Council of Ministers (PCM).

And on the same day that Melendez Celis set off for Remanente, Peru’s Energy Minister said the government will invest 100 million soles in the Tigre and other rivers where environmental emergencies have been declared.

Calls were made by satellite phone to Pluspetrol and the PCM in Lima, and Melendez Celis committed to attempt to ensure that Peru’s Prime Minister Ana Jara would participate in the meeting too.

A PCM representative present in Remanente at the same time made various proposals to the Kichwas, including 3.5 million nuevo soles for land-titling, but they insisted on dealing with higher-level personnel.

“We don’t want a speech”, Fernando Chuje Ruiz, the newly-elected president of Kichwa federation FECONAT told the PCM representative, Jose Antonio Caro. “What we want is Ana Jara to be here.”

Melendez Celis, whose term as President of Loreto started last month, told The Ecologist the contamination made him feel like a “Kichwa brother”, that he is “assuming their fight” and will “protect them and their rights.”

“The state has been indolent”, he continued. “It has punished its indigenous peoples and forgotten them. No longer. My dream for Loreto is that policies are much more just.”

Melendez Celis also committed to ensuring more oil revenues are invested in the Tigre region, and to paying for studies estimating the financial value of the environmental damage.

If our demands are not met, the blockade continues!

FECONAT issued a statement last week laying out various demands, and stressing that compensation and consultation are rights recognised by law. “For the first time in our history the Kichwa people has risen up in defence of our rights“, the statement reads. “We’re with our families fighting to be heard.”

According to the statement Pluspetrol and Occidental, which operated Lot 1-AB from the early 1970s until 2000, have destroyed Kichwa lands and committed “genocide” while “the state has never defended us …

“We want to make it clear we are not against development or oil operations. But nor are we going to allow ourselves to be made extinct in the name of development.”

The meeting between the Kichwas, Pluspetrol and the PCM was initially scheduled for yesterday, but according to Melendez’s media officer, Leonardo Caballero, it will take place this week, “possibly Wednesday.”

The Kichwa protests are “unprecedented”, said Jorge Tacuri, a lawyer acting for the Kichwas, who accompanied Melendez Celis to Remanente. “Never have the Kichwas protested as they’re doing now. They’ve put the Tigre on the national and international agenda. The central government has agreed to sit down with them.”

Tacuri points out that the suspension of the protest may only be temporary, depending on the outcome of today’s meeting, adding that the Kichwas’ camp at ‘Base Tigre’, an old oil operations base, is built to last: “They brought all their stuff to live there. They weren’t joking when they said they would protest for a year.”

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets 

 




390049

Victory in prospect for Peru’s Kichwa People after 40 years of oil pollution Updated for 2026

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Hundreds of of Kichwa Indians living along the River Tigre in the remote Peruvian Amazon are demanding over 100 million Peruvian nuevo soles ($32 million / £21 million) from oil company Pluspetrol in the “environmental damages” they have sustained over 40 years of oil drilling.

The Kichwa men, women and children have blockaded the River Tigre for most of January with two cables – stopping two boats contracted by Pluspetrol to carry equipment, materials and supplies upriver to oil dilling sites.

The blockade was suspended on Friday after Fernando Melendez Celis, President of the vast Amazonian region of Loreto, paid a visit to the protesters, camped by the side of the river on land belonging to Kichwa community Nuevo Remanente.

“Loreto now has a president that will fight for your rights”, Melendez Celis told the Kichwas. “I’m here to tell you the regional government will fight for you. These territories belong to you.”

The blockade is the latest manifestation of a new militancy among the indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. Last December the Matsé people whose territory straddles Peru’s border with Acre, Brazil threatened at attack any oil workers entering their lands.

Oil pollution an ‘environmental emergency’

Pluspetrol’s concession, Lot 1-AB, is Peru’s number one oil producer. Operated in partnership with PetroChina, it yielded almost 25% of all Peruvian oil in 2013.

But operations there have led to severe contamination leading the government to declare an “environmental emergency” in the river Tigre basin in late 2013. Water samples from the Tigre and its tributaries revealed dangerous levels of lead, nickel, iron and aluminium – leaving local communities no water fit for human consumption.

The Kichwas are also demanding compensation for land use, environmental clean-up, and to be consulted by the government about the concession contract which expires this August, among other things.

Numerous Kichwas say that the Tigre and other water sources are contaminated, meaning that they, as well as the game and fish they depend on to survive, are slowly being poisoned.

“Our fathers and our in-laws are dying”, said Edinson Munoz Moscoso, from Remanente. “We, the survivors, are fighting for the benefit of our sons and daughters.”

“There have been 45 years of contamination”, said David Inuma Sabaleta. “The Kichwas, the agoutis, the tapirs, the water … all poisoned. Our fathers and grand-fathers have died because of this.”

“We use the water for everything: to drink, to wash, to cook”, said Orlando Chuje Aranda, another Remanente resident. “It’s contaminated, but we have to use it because there’s no other option.”

“After 45 years of oil operations, we want to be able to drink water that isn’t contaminated”, said Carlos Huaya Luna, from the Vista Alegre community. “Here, we’re fucked. Boys, girls, women … how many people have had to suffer for us to reach this point? That’s why we’re protesting.”

Pluspetrol and Peruvian government forced to negotiate

The blockade was suspended after Melendez Celis agreed to broker a meeting in the nearest city, Iquitos, between Kichwa leaders, Pluspetrol, and the central government’s Council of Ministers (PCM).

And on the same day that Melendez Celis set off for Remanente, Peru’s Energy Minister said the government will invest 100 million soles in the Tigre and other rivers where environmental emergencies have been declared.

Calls were made by satellite phone to Pluspetrol and the PCM in Lima, and Melendez Celis committed to attempt to ensure that Peru’s Prime Minister Ana Jara would participate in the meeting too.

A PCM representative present in Remanente at the same time made various proposals to the Kichwas, including 3.5 million nuevo soles for land-titling, but they insisted on dealing with higher-level personnel.

“We don’t want a speech”, Fernando Chuje Ruiz, the newly-elected president of Kichwa federation FECONAT told the PCM representative, Jose Antonio Caro. “What we want is Ana Jara to be here.”

Melendez Celis, whose term as President of Loreto started last month, told The Ecologist the contamination made him feel like a “Kichwa brother”, that he is “assuming their fight” and will “protect them and their rights.”

“The state has been indolent”, he continued. “It has punished its indigenous peoples and forgotten them. No longer. My dream for Loreto is that policies are much more just.”

Melendez Celis also committed to ensuring more oil revenues are invested in the Tigre region, and to paying for studies estimating the financial value of the environmental damage.

If our demands are not met, the blockade continues!

FECONAT issued a statement last week laying out various demands, and stressing that compensation and consultation are rights recognised by law. “For the first time in our history the Kichwa people has risen up in defence of our rights“, the statement reads. “We’re with our families fighting to be heard.”

According to the statement Pluspetrol and Occidental, which operated Lot 1-AB from the early 1970s until 2000, have destroyed Kichwa lands and committed “genocide” while “the state has never defended us …

“We want to make it clear we are not against development or oil operations. But nor are we going to allow ourselves to be made extinct in the name of development.”

The meeting between the Kichwas, Pluspetrol and the PCM was initially scheduled for yesterday, but according to Melendez’s media officer, Leonardo Caballero, it will take place this week, “possibly Wednesday.”

The Kichwa protests are “unprecedented”, said Jorge Tacuri, a lawyer acting for the Kichwas, who accompanied Melendez Celis to Remanente. “Never have the Kichwas protested as they’re doing now. They’ve put the Tigre on the national and international agenda. The central government has agreed to sit down with them.”

Tacuri points out that the suspension of the protest may only be temporary, depending on the outcome of today’s meeting, adding that the Kichwas’ camp at ‘Base Tigre’, an old oil operations base, is built to last: “They brought all their stuff to live there. They weren’t joking when they said they would protest for a year.”

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets 

 




390049

COP20 host Peru claims forest ‘leadership’ – while attacking forest protectors Updated for 2026

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As negotiators arrive at a crucial UN conference on climate change, a new report shows that, despite public commitments to protect Peru’s forests, the first Amazonian host of the UN COP is parcelling out vast areas of forest for destructive exploitation.

At the same time it’s failing to safeguard the rights of the main forest protectors – Peru’s indigenous peoples – although they occupy approximately one third of the Peruvian Amazon and offer the best chance of defending the country’s precious forests.

The report, Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous Perspectives on Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, was compiled by Peru’s national indigenous peoples’ organisation, AIDESEP, and an international human rights organisation, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP).

The findings are based on the analysis of Peru’s indigenous leaders and organisations, whose peoples, lands and livelihoods are threatened by deforestation on a daily basis.

Contrary to official discourses that blame migrant farmers for deforestation, the report suggests that the real drivers of current and future deforestation in Peru – but mysteriously ‘invisible’ to the government – include road construction, oil, gas and mining projects, palm-oil plantations, illegal logging operations and mega-dam projects.

The report revealed that official analyses of deforestation have placed disproportionate responsibility on migrants from the Andes, while downplaying the crucial role of decades of road construction and explicit colonisation programmes on the part of the government.

These schemes actively promoted immigration and were aimed at the economic integration and agricultural development of the Amazon. As a result, according to the authors, an estimated 75% of deforestation in Peru occurs within 20km of a road.

Indigenous defence of the Amazon undermined

Meanwhile, the contributions of indigenous peoples, who continue to protect their ancestral lands from invasion by colonists, illegal loggers and miners, are being disregarded or, at worst, undermined.

The threat to indigenous peoples and lands became all too real to Edwin Chota and other leaders of the Ashéninka community of Saweto in Ucayali when they were murdered in September 2014, allegedly by logging mafia, in reprisal for their longstanding efforts to protect their lands from illegal logging and to secure title to their territory.

“It makes me furious”, said Marcial Mudarra, the President of CORPI, an indigenous organisation in San Lorenzo, speaking about the murders.

“Selling off the jungle is a business for the state, but the price is the death of our Ashéninka brothers, who had been denouncing the loggers and protecting their lands. The government closed its eyes and became deaf, blind and dumb. Only when they were dead did it start to take action.”

The consistent failure of the Peruvian government to provide protection for Chota in the face of death threats and to legally recognise Saweto’s lands despite years of determined advocacy mirrors the experience of many other indigenous communities.

The report shows that the territorial demands of at least 1,174 indigenous communities remain pending, part of an estimated 20 million hectares of indigenous territories with no legal guarantees.

Instead, the Peruvian government continues to approve overlapping mining, timber and oil and gas concessions, and to undermine these territories with laws that violate Peru’s human rights obligations.

But indigenous peoples are succeeding nonetheless

Despite such challenges, Peru’s indigenous peoples continue to successfully protect their forests. The report documents their diverse efforts to resist land invasions, illegal logging and poaching and the imposition of oil and gas projects.

Many have also embarked on small scale initiatives to produce coffee and cocoa and practise low-intensity logging in harmony with their forests.

The report provides the latest data on deforestation in Peru. As reflected in recent global studies, rates of deforestation in indigenous territories are significantly less than overall deforestation rates, and more than 75% of all deforestation in Peru takes place outside the boundaries of indigenous territories and protected areas.

Although the government has acknowledged the contributions of indigenous peoples to forest conservation, its support for further recognition of indigenous lands and community forestry remains only on paper, while indigenous efforts to protect forests continue to be undermined by weak and contradictory laws and by political persecution.

Ignoring the real drivers of deforestation

The report estimates that, in 2013, at least 20% of deforestation in Peru was attributable to illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios and to oil-palm developments in Loreto and Ucayali.

These rates of deforestation are projected to increase massively, with at least 100,000 hectares of forest in Loreto requested for oil-palm development and over 50 major dams (each more than 100MW in capacity) in planning stages, and threatening to flood thousands of hectares of forest and displace its indigenous inhabitants.

“Despite this huge expansion, oil palm is not discussed much in these debates about deforestation”, said Alberto Pizango Chota, President of AIDESEP.

“It is ‘invisible’, just like the massive oil spills, the multiple dams that are planned, the super highways, the gold rush and the timber mafia. This official silence shows the need for this study – the need to make visible what is not spoken and to expose what is hidden.”

For indigenous peoples, who live in and depend on these forests, the impacts of this development model are often devastating, as shown by the health and environmental disasters recently declared in the Tigre, Corrientes, Maranon and Pastaza river basins, after 40 years of oil operations.

Corruption and criminality at the heart of government

Many of the new developments are taking place at the behest of powerful criminal organisations, often associated with corrupt government officials.

For example, a senior figure at the Ministry of Energy and Mines was exposed in 2012 for his part-ownership of a major gold exporter, which was sourcing gold from Madre de Dios, where an estimated 97% of all mining is illegal.

“In the La Pampa area, 30,000 miners are controlling the military commanders, the police and the judges”, said a leader of COHARIYMA, an indigenous organization in Madre de Dios. “The police earn miserable wages, yet now they have big houses and luxury 4-by-4s. Officials pretend they’re intervening, but in reality they do nothing.”

The report identifies systematic bias in Peru’s land-use planning, which consistently favours large-scale extractive developments, particularly oil, gas and mining projects over environmental considerations and the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples.

This is exemplified by the reduction of the Ichigkat-Mujat National Park in favour of mining interests in 2007, says Teobaldo Chamik, a Wampis leader from the Santiago River:

“MINAM [the Ministry of Environment] was created with the objective of protecting the forest but instead it is bargaining with these resources. Our territory and its resources have become a business to hand over to investors and capitalists. The government creates the protected areas … but the same government then overlaps these areas with mining and oil concessions.”

A genuine commitment?

As host to the COP20 Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, now under way, Peru is hoping to establish itself as a leading player in the fight to protect tropical forests and indigenous peoples’ rights as part of a broader commitment to mitigating climate change.

Indeed, the country has made unprecedented public commitments in recent years to protect its forests, including a pledge in 2010 to cut net deforestation to zero by 2020.

President Humala reiterated this pledge in September 2014 and announced a major agreement with Germany and Norway to finance and support this vision.

Nevertheless, the announcement came hot on the heels of a law (Ley 30230) passed in July to promote investment, while significantly weakening Peru’s already feeble environmental laws. More seriously, the new measure seems to allow the seizure of indigenous lands in order to facilitate large-scale development projects.

If Peru’s government really cares, here’s what it must do

The report outlines key steps that could be taken to address deforestation and the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights. These include:

  • Resolve indigenous peoples’ territorial demands, alongside respecting their right to determine their own development paths,
  • Provide legal, financial and technical support to implement this vision.
  • Close legal loopholes that continue to permit forest destruction, controlling illegal practices, and
  • Implement robust and independent planning mechanisms to ensure economic interests do not trump all other considerations.


“Peru is at a crossroads”, said lead author Michael Valqui from the University of Cayetano Heredia’s Centre for Sustainability. “The pledges have been made, the solutions exist, and the funds are available, but the will appears to be missing, as long as the government continues to ignore the real causes of forest destruction.”

Sadly, Peru is by no means a unique example. A detailed assessment of nine countries reveals a growing crisis in the world’s forests, and a spike in violations of the rights of indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities.

The findings suggest that climate change mitigation and conservation policies must place community land rights and human rights centre stage if they are to achieve the goal of effectively and sustainably reducing deforestation.

A review of the findings will be launched in Lima today, 8th December, at a hearing in the presence of the UN rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.

 

 

The report: Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous Perspectives on Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was compiled by Peru’s national indigenous peoples’ organisation, AIDESEP, and the Forest Peoples Programme.

 

 




386022

COP20 host Peru claims forest ‘leadership’ – while attacking forest protectors Updated for 2026

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As negotiators arrive at a crucial UN conference on climate change, a new report shows that, despite public commitments to protect Peru’s forests, the first Amazonian host of the UN COP is parcelling out vast areas of forest for destructive exploitation.

At the same time it’s failing to safeguard the rights of the main forest protectors – Peru’s indigenous peoples – although they occupy approximately one third of the Peruvian Amazon and offer the best chance of defending the country’s precious forests.

The report, Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous Perspectives on Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, was compiled by Peru’s national indigenous peoples’ organisation, AIDESEP, and an international human rights organisation, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP).

The findings are based on the analysis of Peru’s indigenous leaders and organisations, whose peoples, lands and livelihoods are threatened by deforestation on a daily basis.

Contrary to official discourses that blame migrant farmers for deforestation, the report suggests that the real drivers of current and future deforestation in Peru – but mysteriously ‘invisible’ to the government – include road construction, oil, gas and mining projects, palm-oil plantations, illegal logging operations and mega-dam projects.

The report revealed that official analyses of deforestation have placed disproportionate responsibility on migrants from the Andes, while downplaying the crucial role of decades of road construction and explicit colonisation programmes on the part of the government.

These schemes actively promoted immigration and were aimed at the economic integration and agricultural development of the Amazon. As a result, according to the authors, an estimated 75% of deforestation in Peru occurs within 20km of a road.

Indigenous defence of the Amazon undermined

Meanwhile, the contributions of indigenous peoples, who continue to protect their ancestral lands from invasion by colonists, illegal loggers and miners, are being disregarded or, at worst, undermined.

The threat to indigenous peoples and lands became all too real to Edwin Chota and other leaders of the Ashéninka community of Saweto in Ucayali when they were murdered in September 2014, allegedly by logging mafia, in reprisal for their longstanding efforts to protect their lands from illegal logging and to secure title to their territory.

“It makes me furious”, said Marcial Mudarra, the President of CORPI, an indigenous organisation in San Lorenzo, speaking about the murders.

“Selling off the jungle is a business for the state, but the price is the death of our Ashéninka brothers, who had been denouncing the loggers and protecting their lands. The government closed its eyes and became deaf, blind and dumb. Only when they were dead did it start to take action.”

The consistent failure of the Peruvian government to provide protection for Chota in the face of death threats and to legally recognise Saweto’s lands despite years of determined advocacy mirrors the experience of many other indigenous communities.

The report shows that the territorial demands of at least 1,174 indigenous communities remain pending, part of an estimated 20 million hectares of indigenous territories with no legal guarantees.

Instead, the Peruvian government continues to approve overlapping mining, timber and oil and gas concessions, and to undermine these territories with laws that violate Peru’s human rights obligations.

But indigenous peoples are succeeding nonetheless

Despite such challenges, Peru’s indigenous peoples continue to successfully protect their forests. The report documents their diverse efforts to resist land invasions, illegal logging and poaching and the imposition of oil and gas projects.

Many have also embarked on small scale initiatives to produce coffee and cocoa and practise low-intensity logging in harmony with their forests.

The report provides the latest data on deforestation in Peru. As reflected in recent global studies, rates of deforestation in indigenous territories are significantly less than overall deforestation rates, and more than 75% of all deforestation in Peru takes place outside the boundaries of indigenous territories and protected areas.

Although the government has acknowledged the contributions of indigenous peoples to forest conservation, its support for further recognition of indigenous lands and community forestry remains only on paper, while indigenous efforts to protect forests continue to be undermined by weak and contradictory laws and by political persecution.

Ignoring the real drivers of deforestation

The report estimates that, in 2013, at least 20% of deforestation in Peru was attributable to illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios and to oil-palm developments in Loreto and Ucayali.

These rates of deforestation are projected to increase massively, with at least 100,000 hectares of forest in Loreto requested for oil-palm development and over 50 major dams (each more than 100MW in capacity) in planning stages, and threatening to flood thousands of hectares of forest and displace its indigenous inhabitants.

“Despite this huge expansion, oil palm is not discussed much in these debates about deforestation”, said Alberto Pizango Chota, President of AIDESEP.

“It is ‘invisible’, just like the massive oil spills, the multiple dams that are planned, the super highways, the gold rush and the timber mafia. This official silence shows the need for this study – the need to make visible what is not spoken and to expose what is hidden.”

For indigenous peoples, who live in and depend on these forests, the impacts of this development model are often devastating, as shown by the health and environmental disasters recently declared in the Tigre, Corrientes, Maranon and Pastaza river basins, after 40 years of oil operations.

Corruption and criminality at the heart of government

Many of the new developments are taking place at the behest of powerful criminal organisations, often associated with corrupt government officials.

For example, a senior figure at the Ministry of Energy and Mines was exposed in 2012 for his part-ownership of a major gold exporter, which was sourcing gold from Madre de Dios, where an estimated 97% of all mining is illegal.

“In the La Pampa area, 30,000 miners are controlling the military commanders, the police and the judges”, said a leader of COHARIYMA, an indigenous organization in Madre de Dios. “The police earn miserable wages, yet now they have big houses and luxury 4-by-4s. Officials pretend they’re intervening, but in reality they do nothing.”

The report identifies systematic bias in Peru’s land-use planning, which consistently favours large-scale extractive developments, particularly oil, gas and mining projects over environmental considerations and the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples.

This is exemplified by the reduction of the Ichigkat-Mujat National Park in favour of mining interests in 2007, says Teobaldo Chamik, a Wampis leader from the Santiago River:

“MINAM [the Ministry of Environment] was created with the objective of protecting the forest but instead it is bargaining with these resources. Our territory and its resources have become a business to hand over to investors and capitalists. The government creates the protected areas … but the same government then overlaps these areas with mining and oil concessions.”

A genuine commitment?

As host to the COP20 Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, now under way, Peru is hoping to establish itself as a leading player in the fight to protect tropical forests and indigenous peoples’ rights as part of a broader commitment to mitigating climate change.

Indeed, the country has made unprecedented public commitments in recent years to protect its forests, including a pledge in 2010 to cut net deforestation to zero by 2020.

President Humala reiterated this pledge in September 2014 and announced a major agreement with Germany and Norway to finance and support this vision.

Nevertheless, the announcement came hot on the heels of a law (Ley 30230) passed in July to promote investment, while significantly weakening Peru’s already feeble environmental laws. More seriously, the new measure seems to allow the seizure of indigenous lands in order to facilitate large-scale development projects.

If Peru’s government really cares, here’s what it must do

The report outlines key steps that could be taken to address deforestation and the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights. These include:

  • Resolve indigenous peoples’ territorial demands, alongside respecting their right to determine their own development paths,
  • Provide legal, financial and technical support to implement this vision.
  • Close legal loopholes that continue to permit forest destruction, controlling illegal practices, and
  • Implement robust and independent planning mechanisms to ensure economic interests do not trump all other considerations.


“Peru is at a crossroads”, said lead author Michael Valqui from the University of Cayetano Heredia’s Centre for Sustainability. “The pledges have been made, the solutions exist, and the funds are available, but the will appears to be missing, as long as the government continues to ignore the real causes of forest destruction.”

Sadly, Peru is by no means a unique example. A detailed assessment of nine countries reveals a growing crisis in the world’s forests, and a spike in violations of the rights of indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities.

The findings suggest that climate change mitigation and conservation policies must place community land rights and human rights centre stage if they are to achieve the goal of effectively and sustainably reducing deforestation.

A review of the findings will be launched in Lima today, 8th December, at a hearing in the presence of the UN rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.

 

 

The report: Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous Perspectives on Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon was compiled by Peru’s national indigenous peoples’ organisation, AIDESEP, and the Forest Peoples Programme.

 

 




386022

‘It’s war!’ Peru-Brazil indigenous people pledge to fight Amazon oil exploration Updated for 2026

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Members of an indigenous people living on both sides of the Brazil-Peru border in the remote Amazon say they are prepared to fight with spears, bows and arrows if companies enter their territories to explore for oil.

The Matsés have publicly opposed operations by Canada-based firm Pacific Rubiales Energy for at least five years, but they say that neither the company nor Perupetro, the government body which granted the licences to two oil concessions in Peru, are taking any notice.

“It seems that the [Peruvian] state is a child”, says Dora Canë from the most remote Matsés village on the Peruvian side of the border, Puerto Alegre. “It doesn’t listen. We say no, but it just carries on. It wants to extinguish us.”

“We have told the company no, but it isn’t listening”, says Nestor Binan Waki, another Puerto Alegre resident. “Our patience is running out. We have nothing more to say. The only thing we have is our spears.”

“They should respect indigenous peoples’ rights, but in my view they’re not doing so”, says Lorenzo Tumi, also from Puerto Alegre. “We’ve been saying no for many years. The only weapon we have is to kill one of them. We could kill one of the company.”

Support promised from over the border in Brazil

The Matsés based in Brazil are equally concerned about the concessions – partly because they consider the Peruvian side of the border their territory too and partly because of the potential impacts on the Brazilian side where they live in the protected Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.

“We don’t want the oil company”, says Waki Mayoruna, the head of the remotest Matsés village, Lobo, in Brazil. “If they don’t listen to us, if they don’t understand our no means no, there’ll be conflict that’ll lead to people being killed. That will always be my position.”

“We’ll always fight against the invasion of our territories”, says José Tumi, from Sao Meireles in Brazil. “If they don’t listen, we could fight like we have done in the past, with bows and arrows. We could attack anyone who invades our territory. We’re not afraid of dying.”

“The government is not listening, not respecting, our decision”, says Juan Bai, another Sao Meireles resident. “One day our patience could run out. We have our limits. If they invade the only thing to do will be this [to fight].”

A violent past

Many Matsés stress that previous generations were forced to fight against rubber-tappers, loggers, road-builders and soldiers invading their territories, and that they could do the same again now.

“Before contact [in the late 1960s] there was always conflict in this region”, says Romulo Teca from Puerto Alegre in Peru. “It could come to that again. We are the sons of those fighters. We can defend ourselves with arms like they did. I’ll always fight to ensure no oil companies enter.”

“Our fathers had to defend our territories and fought with other tribes, mestizos and soldiers”, Felipe Reyna Regijo, from Remoyacu village in Peru, told a bi-national meeting held by the Matsés last month. “Why don’t we continue that position, given that we are the sons of fighting fathers?”

The bi-national meeting concluded with the “total rejection” by the Matsés of both oil concessions, and the signing of a statement saying the decision was “unanimous” and stressing the social and environmental impacts of oil operations elsewhere in Peru.

Raimundo Mean Mayoruna, from Soles village in Brazil and president of the General Mayoruna Organization (OGM), says that the Matsés don’t want conflict, but it is possible if their rights are not respected.

“We don’t want this, but if there is a lot of anger it could happen”, he says. “My message to the companies is that they respect our decision and understand we’ve lived here for a long time and want to live in peace. We didn’t come from any other place. We’re from here.”

Empty threats? Or are the Matsés for real?

Many of the most aggressive statements were made by Matsés men wielding and thrusting long spears or carrying bows and arrows – leading one man, Rafael Shaba Maya, a teacher in Puerto Alegre, to remark, “It’s true they will fight. When they say something, they do it.”

That opinion is shared by the former president of the Matsés community in Peru, Ángel Uaqui Dunu Maya, who stresses the potential environmental impacts and the Matsés’s past experience of oil operations in the 1970s when “many people died of illnesses” as a result.

“Yes, in my opinion, it’s certain that [this] is going to create a lot of conflict between the Matsés and the state”, he says. “Why? Because the Matsés don’t want hydrocarbon activities in their territories but the state wants to explore.”

Brazilian anthropologist Beatriz de Almeida Matos, who has worked with the Matsés for 10 years, says that “without a doubt” they will do “whatever it takes to defend their territory” from anything threatening their way of life and existence.

“It wasn’t so long ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were conflicts between Matsés and non-indigenous people in their territories, with deaths on both sides”, she says. “If they’re not consulted and their decisions not respected, they’ll understand dialogue is over and defend themselves by taking up arms again, rather than using the law.”

The Matsés say they were not consulted by Peru’s government before the two concessions were established in 2007 – as is their right under a legally-binding agreement ratified by Peru in 1994 – but Pacific Rubiales claims this right has only applied since 2012.

Billion barrel oil concessions overlap indigenous territories, protected areas

According to Peruvian NGO CEDIA, one of the concessions, Lot 137, includes 49% of the Matsés’s titled community land in Peru and 36% of a supposedly ‘protected natural area’ called the Matsés National Reserve, which they consider their territory too.

The other concession, Lot 135, also includes community land, the reserve, and other areas considered Matsés territory, as well as a huge chunk of a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in what Peruvian law and indigenous organizations call ‘isolation’ or ‘voluntary isolation’.

The eastern boundary of Lot 135 and part of Lot 137 is the River Yaquerana – which acts as the Brazil-Peru border and many Matsés from both countries rely on for drinking water, cooking, washing, bathing and fishing.

Together the two concessions cover almost 1.5 million hectares and have been estimated to hold almost one billion barrels of oil. Some exploration has already been done by Pacific Rubiales in Lot 135, starting in late 2012, which involved conducting seismic tests and drilling wells.

Pacific Rubiales says it “fully respects” the Matsés’s position and is therefore not currently “performing any exploration activities” in Lot 135 and Lot 137, but declined to respond to a question from The Ecologist why it still holds the licences to both concessions.

According to Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental, there are almost 3,500 Matsés – 1,700 of whom live on the Peruvian side and almost 1,600 on the Brazilian side, although movement across the borders is common.

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets

 

 




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‘It’s war!’ Peru-Brazil indigenous people pledge to fight Amazon oil exploration Updated for 2026

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Members of an indigenous people living on both sides of the Brazil-Peru border in the remote Amazon say they are prepared to fight with spears, bows and arrows if companies enter their territories to explore for oil.

The Matsés have publicly opposed operations by Canada-based firm Pacific Rubiales Energy for at least five years, but they say that neither the company nor Perupetro, the government body which granted the licences to two oil concessions in Peru, are taking any notice.

“It seems that the [Peruvian] state is a child”, says Dora Canë from the most remote Matsés village on the Peruvian side of the border, Puerto Alegre. “It doesn’t listen. We say no, but it just carries on. It wants to extinguish us.”

“We have told the company no, but it isn’t listening”, says Nestor Binan Waki, another Puerto Alegre resident. “Our patience is running out. We have nothing more to say. The only thing we have is our spears.”

“They should respect indigenous peoples’ rights, but in my view they’re not doing so”, says Lorenzo Tumi, also from Puerto Alegre. “We’ve been saying no for many years. The only weapon we have is to kill one of them. We could kill one of the company.”

Support promised from over the border in Brazil

The Matsés based in Brazil are equally concerned about the concessions – partly because they consider the Peruvian side of the border their territory too and partly because of the potential impacts on the Brazilian side where they live in the protected Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.

“We don’t want the oil company”, says Waki Mayoruna, the head of the remotest Matsés village, Lobo, in Brazil. “If they don’t listen to us, if they don’t understand our no means no, there’ll be conflict that’ll lead to people being killed. That will always be my position.”

“We’ll always fight against the invasion of our territories”, says José Tumi, from Sao Meireles in Brazil. “If they don’t listen, we could fight like we have done in the past, with bows and arrows. We could attack anyone who invades our territory. We’re not afraid of dying.”

“The government is not listening, not respecting, our decision”, says Juan Bai, another Sao Meireles resident. “One day our patience could run out. We have our limits. If they invade the only thing to do will be this [to fight].”

A violent past

Many Matsés stress that previous generations were forced to fight against rubber-tappers, loggers, road-builders and soldiers invading their territories, and that they could do the same again now.

“Before contact [in the late 1960s] there was always conflict in this region”, says Romulo Teca from Puerto Alegre in Peru. “It could come to that again. We are the sons of those fighters. We can defend ourselves with arms like they did. I’ll always fight to ensure no oil companies enter.”

“Our fathers had to defend our territories and fought with other tribes, mestizos and soldiers”, Felipe Reyna Regijo, from Remoyacu village in Peru, told a bi-national meeting held by the Matsés last month. “Why don’t we continue that position, given that we are the sons of fighting fathers?”

The bi-national meeting concluded with the “total rejection” by the Matsés of both oil concessions, and the signing of a statement saying the decision was “unanimous” and stressing the social and environmental impacts of oil operations elsewhere in Peru.

Raimundo Mean Mayoruna, from Soles village in Brazil and president of the General Mayoruna Organization (OGM), says that the Matsés don’t want conflict, but it is possible if their rights are not respected.

“We don’t want this, but if there is a lot of anger it could happen”, he says. “My message to the companies is that they respect our decision and understand we’ve lived here for a long time and want to live in peace. We didn’t come from any other place. We’re from here.”

Empty threats? Or are the Matsés for real?

Many of the most aggressive statements were made by Matsés men wielding and thrusting long spears or carrying bows and arrows – leading one man, Rafael Shaba Maya, a teacher in Puerto Alegre, to remark, “It’s true they will fight. When they say something, they do it.”

That opinion is shared by the former president of the Matsés community in Peru, Ángel Uaqui Dunu Maya, who stresses the potential environmental impacts and the Matsés’s past experience of oil operations in the 1970s when “many people died of illnesses” as a result.

“Yes, in my opinion, it’s certain that [this] is going to create a lot of conflict between the Matsés and the state”, he says. “Why? Because the Matsés don’t want hydrocarbon activities in their territories but the state wants to explore.”

Brazilian anthropologist Beatriz de Almeida Matos, who has worked with the Matsés for 10 years, says that “without a doubt” they will do “whatever it takes to defend their territory” from anything threatening their way of life and existence.

“It wasn’t so long ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were conflicts between Matsés and non-indigenous people in their territories, with deaths on both sides”, she says. “If they’re not consulted and their decisions not respected, they’ll understand dialogue is over and defend themselves by taking up arms again, rather than using the law.”

The Matsés say they were not consulted by Peru’s government before the two concessions were established in 2007 – as is their right under a legally-binding agreement ratified by Peru in 1994 – but Pacific Rubiales claims this right has only applied since 2012.

Billion barrel oil concessions overlap indigenous territories, protected areas

According to Peruvian NGO CEDIA, one of the concessions, Lot 137, includes 49% of the Matsés’s titled community land in Peru and 36% of a supposedly ‘protected natural area’ called the Matsés National Reserve, which they consider their territory too.

The other concession, Lot 135, also includes community land, the reserve, and other areas considered Matsés territory, as well as a huge chunk of a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in what Peruvian law and indigenous organizations call ‘isolation’ or ‘voluntary isolation’.

The eastern boundary of Lot 135 and part of Lot 137 is the River Yaquerana – which acts as the Brazil-Peru border and many Matsés from both countries rely on for drinking water, cooking, washing, bathing and fishing.

Together the two concessions cover almost 1.5 million hectares and have been estimated to hold almost one billion barrels of oil. Some exploration has already been done by Pacific Rubiales in Lot 135, starting in late 2012, which involved conducting seismic tests and drilling wells.

Pacific Rubiales says it “fully respects” the Matsés’s position and is therefore not currently “performing any exploration activities” in Lot 135 and Lot 137, but declined to respond to a question from The Ecologist why it still holds the licences to both concessions.

According to Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental, there are almost 3,500 Matsés – 1,700 of whom live on the Peruvian side and almost 1,600 on the Brazilian side, although movement across the borders is common.

 

 

David Hill is a freelance journalist and environment writer based in Latin America, writing for the Guardian, The Ecologist and other publications. For more details see his website: www.hilldavid.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidHillTweets

 

 




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Peru: indigenous leaders murdered for protecting their forests Updated for 2026

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A new report by Global Witness sheds light on what’s driving the high number of killings of environmental defenders in Peru, less than a month before the country hosts the UN climate talks in Lima.

Peru’s Deadly Environment calls into question the commitments of Peru to protect its carbon-rich forests and the people who live in them, in light of unfettered illegal logging, disregard for indigenous land claims, and new laws that favour industrial exploitation over environmental protection.

The report comes on the heels of the killings of four indigenous leaders in Ucayali in September, including prominent anti-logging activist Edwin Chota and three of his fellow Ashéninka leaders from the Peruvian Amazon.

“The murders of Edwin Chota and his colleagues are tragic reminders of a paradox at work in the climate negotiations”, said Patrick Alley, Co-Founder of Global Witness. “While Peru’s government chairs negotiations on how to solve our climate crisis, it is failing to protect the people on the frontline of environmental protection.

Environmental defenders embody the resolve we need to halt global warming. The message is clear, if you want to save the environment, then stop people killing environmental defenders.”

Since 2002, 57 eco-defenders killed

Peru is the fourth most dangerous country to be an environmental defender, behind Brazil, Honduras and the Philippines. At least 57 environmental and land defenders were killed in Peru between 2002 and the present day, more than 60% of them in the last four years, according to new Global Witness data.

Most of these deaths involved disputes over land rights, mining and logging. 72% of Peru’s indigenous communities still have no way of demonstrating their land tenure rights, and over 20 million hectares of land claims have not yet been processed.

Peru’s Deadly Environment was being launched yesterday at an award ceremony in which the Alexander Soros Foundation honoures Chota and his colleagues with its annual Award for Environmental Activism.

Diana Rios Rengifo, daughter of one of the murdered men, will accept the award on behalf of her father and their Ashéninka community, which has been fighting for more than a decade for the right to gain titles to its land.

“They may have killed my father and his friends, but I am still here”, said Diana, daughter of Jorge Rios. “And I will continue to fight for the rights to our territories and for the rights of the other indigenous peoples of Peru.”

Deforestation is rampant

Peru presides over an area of rainforest roughly the size of the US state of Texas, and recently committed to reduce net deforestation to zero by 2021 as part of a $300 million deal with Norway.

In 2012 deforestation rates in Peru doubled from the previous year and forest loss now accounts for nearly half the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Illegal logging is worth 1.5 times the value of legal timber exports in Peru, and allegations contained in Peru’s Deadly Environment hint at collusion between loggers and government officials.

Edwin Chota had received numerous death threats for his resistance to the loggers who were gutting his community’s forests, but his appeals to the authorities were ignored.

Before he died, Chota sent local police photographs of the illegal loggers who are now charged with his murder and the locations of their logging sites.

Peru shamed – but hosting December UN climate conference

Across Latin America, strengthening indigenous rights to their land has proven links to healthier forests and lower carbon emissions – evidence that will take centre stage at the upcoming Lima climate conference.

Meanwhile hosts Peru invoked a new law in July 2014 that grants extended land use rights to investors for the expansion of large-scale agriculture, mining, logging and infrastructure projects.

“Peru’s credibility as a forest protector hinges upon providing land and resource rights to the country’s indigenous and rural populations”, said David Salisbury, a University of Richmond professor who has spent time with Edwin Chota’s community of Saweto.

“If you want to keep forests standing, you have to invest in people who live in them, as they have the most at stake in the sustainable development of those areas. Saweto is a perfect example. The government should recognize there are people in the forests, and give them rights to them.

“How can you maintain standing forest, and mitigate climate change, if the defenders of the forest are being assassinated?”

 

 

The report: Peru’s deadly environment is by Global Witness.

 




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Assassination in the Amazon Updated for 2026

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Four Ashéninka Indian leaders, renowned for their work against illegal logging in the Amazon, have been murdered near their home in eastern Peru.

Edwin Chota, Jorge Ríos Pérez, Leoncio Quinticima Melendez and Francisco Pinedo were traveling from their community of Saweto on the Peruvian border to attend a meeting with other indigenous leaders in Brazil.

A search party reportedly found the men with fatal gunshot wounds on 1st September.

The widows of the men traveled for three days through the jungle, arriving in the regional city of Pucallpa late Monday night to demand immediate action by the Peruvian authorities to bring the killers to justice.

“The Ashéninka women of Saweto are now taking leadership of the community to continue fighting for territory for our children”, Ergilia Ríos told press.

Peru’s authorities ‘did nothing’

Edwin Chota was a well-known indigenous activist who had dedicated his life to preventing rampant illegal logging from destroying his Amazon home.

Chota had received death threats from loggers in recent years, but the authorities “did nothing” to protect him, according to Amazon Indian organization AIDESEP.

Peru’s Ministry of Culture has said a government team will travel to Saweto to investigate the murders.

In June Brazilian officials warned that uncontacted Indians faced were in grace danger, following a dramatic increase in the number of sightings in the Amazon rainforest near the Peru border, and by the Ashaninka of Simpatia village, who are acclimatised to contact.

José Carlos Meirelles, who monitored this region for the Brazilian government’s Indian Affairs Department FUNAI for over 20 years, said:

“Something serious must have happened. It is not normal for such a large group of uncontacted Indians to approach in this way. This is a completely new and worrying situation and we currently do not know what has caused it.”

Surviving centuries of conflict

The Asháninka have survived centuries of intense conflict since their land was first invaded by the Spanish in the 16th century. One of South America’s largest tribes numbering some 70,000, their homeland covers a vast region, from the Upper Juruá river in Brazil to the watersheds of the Peruvian Andes.

In 1742, the Asháninka defeated the Spanish in a revolt which closed off a large part of the Amazon for a century. But conflict flared up the the late 19th century when Peru conceded vast tracts of rainforest to foreign companies for rubber tapping and coffee plantations, forcing many to flee into Brazil’s Acre state.

Then in the 1980s the Indians were decimated in a violent conflict between ‘Shining Path’ Maoist guerrillas and counter-insurgency forces. In all some 70,000 people are estimated to have died or disappeared during the insurgency.

In a grim reminder of these events, the largest mass grave in Peru was discovered last June in the ancestral land of Asháninka Indians. by a team of government investigators.

The grave contains the remains of around 800 people, the majority believed to be Asháninka and Matsigenka Indians. Bodies from several other mass graves in Asháninka territory are currently being exhumed.

‘Illegal’ hydropower dam still on the official energy plan

Today, Asháninka land is under threat once again – from oil and gas projects, hydroelectric dams, drug trafficking and deforestation.

In 2003 the Asháninka of the Ene River valley in Peru were granted Communal Reserve rights to a portion of their ancestral lands, in the form of Otishi National Park.

But in June 2010 the Brazilian and Peruvian governments signed an energy agreement that allowed Brazilian companies to build a series of six large dams in the Brazilian, Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon.

In 2011, the 2,000 megawatt Pakitzapango dam, proposed for the heart of Peru’s Ene valley, was stopped by a legal action presented by the Central Ashaninka del Rio Ene (CARE). But it’s still listed on the government’s energy plan.

If the dam ever goes ahead it would drown Asháninka villages upstream that are home to an estimated 10,000 people, and open up other areas to logging, cattle ranching, mining and plantations.

Asháninka leader Ruth Buendía was this year presented with the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work with CARE against the Pakitzapango Dam.

 

 

Principal source: Survival International.

 




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