Category: Wilderness Defence

Hun­dreds of indige­nous peo­ple deep in the Peru­vian Ama­zon are block­ing a major Ama­zon trib­u­tary fol­low­ing what they say is the government’s fail­ure to address a social and envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis stem­ming from oil oper­a­tions.

Kich­wa men, women and chil­dren from numer­ous com­mu­ni­ties have been protest­ing along the Riv­er Tigre for almost a month, bar­ring the riv­er with cables and stop­ping oil com­pa­ny boats from pass­ing.

Oil com­pa­nies have oper­at­ed in the region for over 40 years, and have been linked by local peo­ple to pol­lu­tion that has led the gov­ern­ment to declare “envi­ron­men­tal emer­gen­cies” in the Tigre and oth­er riv­er basins.

“The Tigre is the most con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, but the gov­ern­ment has done noth­ing seri­ous,” says Jose Fachin, a Kich­wa leader. “This is a protest by the whole Kich­wa peo­ple. They’re ready to die for it. The price of oil is low, but the pain caused is extreme­ly high.”

The oil con­ces­sion where the protest is tak­ing place, Lot 1‑AB, is Peru’s most pro­duc­tive, but the con­tract, held by Plus­petrol, expires in August. The gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to reli­cens­ing it and con­sult­ing the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties involved, but lead­ers say the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and oth­er issues must be addressed first.

“What we want is reme­di­a­tion, com­pen­sa­tion, and to be con­sult­ed, accord­ing to inter­na­tion­al norms, about the reli­cens­ing,” says Fachin. “We won’t per­mit anoth­er 30 years of work oth­er­wise.”

The Kich­was are protest­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty called Nue­vo Rema­nente. The community’s head, Ronal Chu­je San­di, told the Guardian two years of dia­logue with the gov­ern­ment “hasn’t achieved any­thing” and now they are demand­ing 100 mil­lion Peru­vian nue­vo soles, from Plus­petrol, for “com­pen­sa­tion after almost 45 years of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.”

“The state declared an envi­ron­men­tal emer­gency, but hasn’t done any­thing,” says Guiller­mo San­di Tuituy, from indige­nous fed­er­a­tion Feconat. “It must find a solu­tion to this prob­lem if it wants to reli­cense the con­ces­sion.”

Hun­dreds of oth­er indige­nous peo­ple are also protest­ing in Lot 1‑AB along an adja­cent riv­er, the Cor­ri­entes. Accord­ing to Puina­mudt, a col­lec­tive of indige­nous fed­er­a­tions, 400 Achuar from a com­mu­ni­ty called Pam­pa Her­mosa have protest­ed for over a week, paralysing oper­a­tions at 19 wells and shut­ting down one field.

Achuar leader Car­los San­di, pres­i­dent of indige­nous fed­er­a­tion Fecona­co, says they will not allow Lot 1‑AB to be reli­censed if their demands are not met. Pluspetrol’s part­ner in Lot 1‑AB, which account­ed for almost 25% of Peru­vian oil pro­duc­tion in 2013, is the Chi­na Nation­al Petro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion.

Raul Sosa Rodriguez, from Fecona­co, told the Guardian that Pam­pa Her­mosa is demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for land use, ful­fil­ment of an agree­ment with Plus­petrol, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work for sub-con­trac­tors, in addi­tion to exist­ing demands such as clean-up.

“This is a lever to pro­pel the fight for all the indige­nous peo­ples in the region,” he says. “If these demands aren’t met, they’ll close the con­ces­sion.”

Anthro­pol­o­gist Alber­to Chirif says the gov­ern­ment is deter­mined to reli­cense Lot 1‑AB.

“What the indige­nous peo­ple are ask­ing for isn’t dif­fi­cult to sat­is­fy,” he says. “These are basic rights: ter­ri­to­ry, health, edu­ca­tion, the clean-up of impact­ed areas, and con­trol so there are no new envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters.”

Peru’s coun­cil of min­is­ters (PCM) issued a state­ment say­ing it has sent a com­mis­sion to the region and urg­ing the Kich­was and Achuars to sus­pend their protests.

Plus­petrol took over Lot 1‑AB from Occi­den­tal in 2000. It did not respond to requests for com­ment.