Di forest the forest
Allot of things are happening in the Amazon when it comes to logging… on the other hand when it comes to blogging… well that is a totally different matter, as I am moving from one river to another and talking to monkeys seems to be the best way to get a message around.
Many companies are trying to get wood, and carbon points, in a legal way from the native communities. The new approach is that “all” sides would win, but do they?
http://patrickbodenham.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/carbon-cowboys-in-the-peruvian-amazon/
The case there is quite complexed. Going there in a few weeks, but only as a friend.
In the meantime, today, the newspaper La Region publish an article about another contract being signed with another native community.
http://diariolaregion.com/web/2011/08/20/comunidad-nativa-atalaya-firma-primer-contrato-con-empresa-exportadora/
Interesting to look deeper into it. I might. No promises, as I want to get away from civilisation again ASAP.
About pictures and captions
Too small letters to manage the HTML from iPod touch. Sorry if it all looks a bit messy.
BTW, the spiky trunk is the 1.5 years old Lupuna Roja. Could you believe this??
On a personal note
[To Jules, Greg, Mette, Runar, Anwar, Purdie, Mai, Tal, Rahima and all the many many whom i love]
Got to the village, outside which I used to live.
Strange to be a part of a community I never wanted to be a part of.
At the port the neighbour came running asking me to come in his canoe. After 3 hours of river journey (best medicine) I already knew all which i had been missing and all about how much money each member of the community is not making (in other words, can we work for you in any way at all ?)
My house is no longer standing but the little kitchen for making medicine, which i have built with my bare hands is (made out of sacred sticks I was cutting, ropes made of bark, no nails, no floor- it has no value, so it is still standing.)
Three minutes after reaching the land I already had visitors bringing gifts in the form of fruits and asking for remedies for their alinements. It felt nice; the community, but I left my heart somewhere, in a none defined community in the SW of England. A level of friendship I seem to have developed a longing for (together with cliffs and waves).
My hummock is hanging in the big house, which was not taken down, a suitcase (I had to break into) with my plant medicines, plant books, Pharmacoteon in Spanish (the book- shelf was not touched. Not even for dusting), eagle feathers, a bag of clothes with monkey pee, my Crocs, paintings, maps and books from the petrol companies, sandpapers, natural resins and stuff I used to use to make art from ayahuasca wood (with coca and gold and such), a prayer of st Fracisco de Assisi I got from Charlotte in Mapia, a handmade Sami bracelet a mother of a lover made, a notebook with a letter to Greg I still did not read… Perhaps I should only go to places I have never been to before??
The trees are making sounds of rain but it is only their leafs singing. It is hot. The strong sun is drying my newly aired possessions (the big house is always fresh and humid). My improvised solar panel might work after all.
The water just went down after the highest level of flood since recorded history. Meaning, the well is full of mud and the water would come from the creek in which they wash their clothes and slaughter their chickens. I stick to coconut water for drinking.
I step back and observe the waves of my soul. I am peacefully healed and i wollow in pain in waves. Big and small waves. Yesterday pain turned into anger, which was refreshing. Angry with myself for always going out of my way helping others achieve the resolution of their wishes, never considering the price i am paying. I can keep doing exactly the same things, only with less efficiency and more self love.
Keeping a Magical Diary makes me face myself day after day. No running away. Learning to observe. Learning to accept me.
A gigantic spider is trying to climb the clock. It is decays this clock is showing the correct time twice a day.
No matches and no light-stick. I’ll have to use two pieces of wood…?
My baby Lupuna tree, that was 80 cm tall, is now 5 meters high.
The leaf roof is creeping with lizards (and holes). Dale Dale is growing everywhere, a potato-like root which is considered to be “the jungle’s Viagra”, and two massive palm trees are heavy with Aguaje fruits- hormone filled fruits accused of being responsible for all the pregnancies and all the girls being born in the area (apparently 6 girls for each boy and not a small number of the boys chose to be girls). A living pharmacy and no one to share the fun with.
Going to get a coconut, some sugar canes and some Lupuna Bark for my Husmbisa tobacco snuff.
A mosquito full beauty full clear night.
Carbon Cowboys
Carbon Cowboys are fighting over natives’ rights for their lands.
Stay tuned!
Election in Peru
It is all about fashion
Today is election Day in Peru. The choice is between a Japanese girl dressed up as a native, or the upper class dressed up like workers.
Peru is an emotional country, no need for content it’s all in the looks.
May the best PR adviser win.
Mother Earth
"Mother Earth", by David Hewsen
This beautiful latest (?) guilded painting by David Hewsen, Mother Earth, is 4 X 8 feet and was installed, on the 9th of January, in the entrance of a heart center for a hospital in the states. David Hewsen started it about a year ago and it was inspired by a doing a native ceremony outside of Cusco, Peru.
David Hewsen’s unique artwork carries within it the heart and beauty of the Amazon Jungle, in which he lives, and its inhabiters: plants, animals, people and mythological beings alike.
More of his art can be found on his web page amaruspirit.org together with links and information about the other aspects of the jungle… the uglier truths of contaminations, roads buildings, injustices and deaths. Well worth a visit!
Peru’s President denies the existence of Voluntarily Isolated Indigenous People.
Amazing new footage of a tribe under voluntary isolation from brasil.
One of the new threats to these tribes are the migration of Voluntarily Isolated Indigenous Peoples from Peru, escaping illegal logging and oil companies.
Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, has publicly suggested the Voluntarily Isolated Indigenous Peoples do not exist. In an article published in Peru’s El Comercio newspaper in october 2007, he is quoted saying:
“Against oil, they (the environmentalists) have created the figure of the ‘uncontacted’ native jungle dweller; that is, unknown but presumed, and thus millions of hectares cannot be explored, and Peru’s petroleum must remain underground while the world is paying US$90 per barrel. They prefer that Peru continue importing its oil and getting poorer.”
PLEASE watch the footage and sign the Petition urging Alan Garcia to Protect the “uncontacted” tribes of Peru!
Old Trees do not give Carbon Points!
There is a new trend in the jungle!
Cut trees and European megacompanies would pay you for carbon points! You can also sell the wood after, and so all sides gain. All sides apart from the jungle and, in extension, our survival on this planet.
What I met in my journeys in the jungle of Manu and on the Brasilian side, are big western companies, and private foreign companies, are cutting trees in order to gain Carbon Points.
Let us look a bit of where one gets ones credits from
It is interesting that in the UN-REDD website (United Nation Reducing Emission from Deforestation and forest Degradation in Developing countries) we find the following statement.
“(REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
It is predicted that financial flows for greenhouse gas emission reductions from REDD+ could reach up to US$30 billion a year….”
Looking into some more initials, we would find out hat in order to get your CER (Certified Emission Reduction)…
“The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) covers such projects in countries without targets, i.e. developing countries. Credits will only be issued for reductions if a project provides real, measurable and long-term climate change benefits. “ and BTW “Every CER, properly verified, represents a reduction of one tonne in the world’s net greenhouse gas emissions. “
You have to be a foreigner in order to have the amounts of money needed to pay the “independent designated evaluator” to validate you project and later on verify your CER. Do they count the Carbon emission when they cut down the trees?
The projects I have been to payed PHD student to come and tell them how to gain most carbon points. The result was clear. Fast growing vegetation captured the highest amount of carbon. Forget slow growing trees! Forget trees that are more than 10 years old! If you are not with us, you are against us!!!
The devastating situation is that companies buy the jungle and cut ALL the trees down, selling the big trees for wood and letting the other ones rot. Next stage is the planting of fast growing trees and vegetation that capture most carbon. In less than 10 years all would be chopped down once more.
I have met one company who bought more than 2000 hectares. And this is a small private company.
There are many nice people there. They call it Sustainability!
At the moment I would not post pictures or name companies. I need to think some more before I do that…
A MESSAGE FROM CHIEF ARVOL LOOKING HORSE
(from VISIONSHARE)
A Great Urgency
To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders
My Relatives,
Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer. We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great mess age for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.
The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill, which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.
I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.
I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc’l Maka).
We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.
As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.
So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children¹s future and well-being, and the generations to come.
Onipikte (that we shall live),
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
Wolakota Foundation
South America- Roads Under Construction (links)
The name of the game is INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DEEPER INTEGRATION IN SOUTH AMERICA. Also known as IIRSA.
“The Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) is a bold effort by the governments of South America to construct a new infrastructure network for the continent, including roads, waterways, ports, and energy and communications interconnections.Many of the projects seek to provide road and river outlets to ocean ports, with the goal of providing incentives to increase exports of primary materials such as soybeans and other grains, timber, and minerals. ” (from http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/latin-america/iirsa)
An integrated south America
Roads and rivers would be used to facilitate easier trade.
Dr. Pitou van Dijck, is stating in his article:
“The rise of China, however, not only contributes to Brazil’s export potential but may also jeopardize Brazil’s aspirations of becoming a platform for automobile assembly for the international market. Indeed, IIRSA’s plans for the construction of several transcontinental roads, linking the Atlantic side of the region with the Pacific, the so-called bioceánicas, not only facilitates Latin America’s export drive but may also contribute to competition in the regional market by emerging Asian exporting industries.”
amazonwatch.org is writing about one of the aspects of the IIRSA:
“The enormous Madeira River Complex, in the tri-border region of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil is one of the Integrated Regional Infrastructure for South America’s (IIRSA) anchor projects. It would transform the Madre de Dios-Beni-Mamoré-Itenez-Madeira river system into a major corridor for energy production and raw material export. The proposal includes the construction of four hydroelectric dams, most importantly the Santo Antônio and Jirau dams in Rondônia, Brazil. Together, these two dams would produce a projected 6,450 megawatts of hydroelectricity, totaling eight percent of the Brazilian energy matrix. By comparison, this is equal to half of the electricity produced by Itaipu dam in the Brazilian state of Paraná, the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant.”
The article at amazonwatch.org goes in depth into the problematic of the projects, while the pictures in Dr. Pitou van Dijck´s article are pointing on other problems.
logging
A personally painful project for me is IIRSA´s project “Road Interconnection: Pucallpa-Cruzeiro do Sul”. This road would be cutting through virgin rainforest where many uncontacted tribes still live.
uncontacted tribes in the Amaxon rainforest, between Brasil and Peru
From an open letter to Mr. Luis Alberto Moreno, President of IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) from BIC (Bank Information Centre) October 2009:
“In Peru the proposed road will cut through the Isconahua Territorial Reserve, an area created by the regional government of Ucayali to protect indigenous peoples that are uncontacted or living in voluntary isolation. This region has also been designated, in recognition of its national significance, as the Zona Reservada Sierra del Divisor.”
Oil Spillage
Oil spillage in Louisiana
OIl Spillage in Loreto, Amazon rainforest, Peru
Dying man lying down, Loreto Peru (picture by Feconaco)
Peru: Alan Garcia: “If they say no to one mine, then, from where shall we give resources?”
The Local, Madre de Dios´, new paper Don Jaque, quoted, on the 19th of, April Alan Gracia correcting (to whom? where? When?) his opponents “If they say No to the hydroelectric power, then they do not have a right to the electricity. If they say No to one mine, then, from where shall we give resources?”
lolling times
As I am on a travelling foot, stories are being gathered much faster than they would ever be told
At the moment I am telling stories of one community to another community passing knowledge from one part of the jungle to the other
so that one tribe´s experience
becomes another´s
and lies cannot be told
(ho.. how I wish..)
I would drop a line, or a picture, here and there
but am not likely to have much time to write before the end of July
Healing Light
Dear friend Connie Rios is going through a complicate operation in Spain, after which she would have many months of healing in front of her.
Please join the universal net of love and healing prayers that are holding us all together.
(Connie Rios is the amazing woman behind http://kahanapono.tripod.com/ )
Amazon Shelter (dot org)
Where the line between domestic and wild is redefined -
-
Pépe
Charley
Karen
Valentina
Plumitas
Hunt maps
Not sure how the future of this blog would look like.
Many topics and how would they all be put together at the end of the day?
at the moment Hunt oil is going Here.
Hunt Oil Peru: 782.740 km 2D seismic lines, most of which are illegaly inside a nature reserve
(Perhaps abit less, as Lines 4 and 11 were, I was told, cancled)
http://www.sjgs.com/exploration.html#3dseismic
What are siesmic lines?
according to the Alberta Centre for Boreal Studies (Nov., 2001) -
Conventional practices:
- Seismic (or geophysical) exploration is used to identify and map oil and gas deposits prior to drilling. The technique is based on analyzing how sound waves are reflected from subsurface structures.
- First, a long linear corridor, 6-8 m in width, is cleared using a bulldozer.
- Then truck-mounted drilling equipment is used to drill a series of holes at defined locations along the corridor for the placement of dynamite charges (the usual source of seismic sound waves).
- The dynamite charges are sequentially exploded and the reflected sound waves are recorded at the surface using portable recording equipment.
- In the final step a computer is used to amalgamate the sequential recordings into a seamless cross-sectional representation of the subsurface.
- A complete seismic survey of an area typically involves a series of seismic lines running parallel to each other, usually at a distance of 400 m or more between lines.
That is, of course, Alberta conventional.
Hunt Oil and Domus own Report EIA – Prospección Sísmica 2D en el Lote 76
is telling us that the area of the seismic lines investigation would be affected by:
782.740 km of lines (156.55 hectares)
166 helicopters
1984 discharging areas
166 flying camps
1 rear base camp
1 sub base camp
“Hunt signed a contract with Peru’s government to explore within Lot 76 in 2006 and later brought in the Spanish firm Repsol as a half-partner in the project. The lot overlaps with much of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve as well as 16 titled native communities-including those 10 that are adjacent to the reserve and jointly responsible for managing it with the national government. Hunt’s exploration work calls for 18 seismic lines with 20,000 detonation points across the southern part of the reserve. This work is to be serviced by 166 mobile camps with heliports, as well a main base camp. FENAMAD said these activities are to take place in the most sensitive part of the reserve, near the headwaters of the rivers that flow into the Río Madre de Dios.” (Bill Weinberg /NACLA nov 2, 2009)
I still did not find a nice way to upload big PDFs, but here are two options to see the sasme map
1_8_1_MAPA_USO_ACTUAL_A1 or here .
Becuase of the very delicate locations of the siesmic lines, there is no way to monitor the actions of the company, as, apart from the natives who historically have hunting rights in this reserve, no one is permitted access.
I am suggesting a project in which Native hunters would be given cameras and encouraged to take pictures of Hunter Oil’s work.
Would you help?
Peru: Hunt Oil Contract to Reignite Amazon Uprising?
Here is an excellent article by Bill Weinberg about a Texas based company, A Peruvian government and a Jungle.
Published November 2, 2009 by NACLA Report on the Americas.
By Bill Weinberg / NACLA
After the indigenous uprising in Peru’s Amazon region in June, the country is in many ways fundamentally changed. For the first time, indigenous leaders from the rainforest are in direct dialogue with the highest levels of government. For the first time, a powerful alliance has emerged between rainforest peoples, highland campesinos, and urban workers, who joined in the protest campaign. The days when Lima’s political elite could treat the rainforest as an internal colony seem definitively over.
Yet there has been a high price in human lives, and only the most controversial of President Alan García’s legislative decrees, which triggered the uprising, have been overturned. These decrees-promulgated under special powers granted to García by Peru’s congress in 2008 to ready the country for the new U.S. free trade agreement-would undo a generation of progress in protecting indigenous territorial rights in the rainforest, opening indigenous lands to oil drilling, logging, and other forms of resource extraction as never before.
The southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios was the scene of considerable unrest during the past two years’ worth of protests. In early July 2008, regional government offices in Puerto Maldonado, the regional capital of Madre de Dios, were occupied for three days. The city was paralyzed as the Native Federation of the Río Madre de Dios (FENAMAD), an indigenous Amazonian organization, joined the regional campesino union in launching the general strike. Campesino demands for land titles were united with indigenous demands for territorial rights, while federations representing small miners, Brazil-nut harvesters, Puerto Maldonado moto-taxi drivers, and other sectors also joined the strike, uniting in an Alliance of Federations.
Then the regional government offices were burned down. It remains unclear who was responsible, but indigenous protesters were accused. More than a year later, the burned-out shell of the building still stands, its walls scrawled with graffiti. The words have been painted over in an attempt to obscure them, but they are still readable: “La tierra es del pueblo” (The land is the people’s) and “No se vende, se defiende” (We don’t sell out, we defend ourselves). Some 25 were arrested, and Jorge Payaba, a former president of FENAMAD, was beaten and hospitalized. His successor, Antonio Iviche, went into hiding for several days before the charges against him were dropped.
Now it appears that an indigenous pledge to physically resist the operations of Dallas-based Hunt Oil on communal rainforest lands could reignite the uprising. In what is shaping up as an important test case, Hunt Oil is opening trails in preparation for seismic exploration within an indigenous reserve in Madre de Dios.
Hunt signed a contract with Peru’s government to explore within Lot 76 in 2006 and later brought in the Spanish firm Repsol as a half-partner in the project. The lot overlaps with much of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve as well as 16 titled native communities-including those 10 that are adjacent to the reserve and jointly responsible for managing it with the national government. Hunt’s exploration work calls for 18 seismic lines with 20,000 detonation points across the southern part of the reserve. This work is to be serviced by 166 mobile camps with heliports, as well a main base camp. FENAMAD said these activities are to take place in the most sensitive part of the reserve, near the headwaters of the rivers that flow into the Río Madre de Dios.
FENAMAD’s Iviche, a traditional Harakmbut leader, said the oil project threatens the forests and waters of the reserve, which was established in 2002 for the use of local Harakmbut, Yine, and Matsigenka communities.
“Our communities have decided not to allow these activities in the communal reserve,” Iviche said, charging that Hunt is operating without the consent of the area’s native inhabitants, most of whom oppose the oil company’s presence. “They have never consulted with the communities.” Failing to adequately consult indigenous communities on land-use issues in their territories is a violation of both international standards and Peru’s constitution.
The Amarakaeri reserve was created following years of petitioning by FENAMAD-and a march in April 2002 by some 1,000 indigenous people in Puerto Maldonado. Each of the 10 communities bordering the reserve has its own range within it for hunting and gathering, but indigenous residents cannot enter the zonas silvestres, or wild zones-yet this is where Hunt is now operating.
Additionally, Lot 76 borders (or nearly borders, separated by a strip barely two thirds of a mile wide) two national parks. On the north, it borders, and slightly overlaps with, a State Reserve for Peoples in Voluntary Isolation. This was created along with the Amarakaeri reserve to protect “uncontacted” Matsigenka bands believed to be living in this zone.
On September 9, FENAMAD sought an injunction against Hunt’s exploration work before the Madre de Dios Superior Court of Justice, the equivalent of a local district court. Said FENAMAD secretary Jaime Corisepa: “We have to attack on every level, using the courts, but we are ready to defend our territory physically.”
In 2007, Hunt began holding “information workshops” at FENAMAD’s offices in Puerto Maldonado and at some of the communities bordering the reserve. Corisepa denies these were consultations, saying the company representatives were just “announcing what they were going to do.”
One community, Shintuya, has signed an agreement with Hunt to accept $30,000 in compensation for allowing the company access to its titled lands. There is a dispute as to whether the community approved this decision by the two-thirds vote required under Peruvian law.
FENAMAD said Hunt is required at a minimum to compensate the two communities whose lands it seeks to enter-Shintuya and Puerto Luz, at the eastern and western ends of the seismic lines, respectively-and the Amarakaeri reserve’s governing council, known as the Administrative Contract Executive (ECA). Hunt has no deal with Puerto Luz, and a tentative deal with the ECA is now in question.
“Laws are being systematically ignored by the company and the government,” Corisepa charges. “The Peruvian state has a hydrocarbon policy that violates the rights of indigenous communities. This is what the Amazon uprising was about.”
*
At a September 13 meeting at FENAMAD’s Puerto Maldonado office, leaders from the 10 communities bordering the Amarakaeri reserve met privately to hash out their position, then invited three Hunt Oil representatives to receive their declaration. The atmosphere in the small thatched-roof conference room was tense.
Three communities, Shintuya, Puerto Luz, and Diamante, dissented from the decision to issue a declaration opposing the project. Nonetheless, the joint statement from FENAMAD and the ECA opposing the Hunt-Repsol presence in the reserve demanded that “this decision be respected by the state as well as the said companies.”
Anoshka, a Harakmbut leader from the community of Masenawa who is also a popular singer on the local cumbia circuit, gave the most impassioned statement. “I plead with you from my heart to respect our desire,” she said, directly addressing the Hunt representatives. “A majority of our communities have decided no. The conflicts you are sowing among us will not succeed, but you are already causing damage to our communities.”
Speaking of the Amarakaeri reserve’s management plan ostensibly drawn up with input from the 10 communities, she added: “The master plan said the communities favor the oil company. This is a lie and we will never accept this.”
The master plan, drawn up by the government natural-resources agency, is strongly contested. Although the ECA signed off on it, many Harakmbut charge the communities were not informed of last-minute changes that afforded oil companies easier access to resource exploitation in the most sensitive area of the reserve. Also at issue is the plan’s “recommendation” that the ECA accept any hydrocarbon contracts that the state permits in the reserve.
FENAMAD is especially concerned about the status of the high jungle in the south of the reserve, near the border with Cuzco region, which protects the watersheds of several tributaries of the Río Madre de Dios that run through the reserve. FENAMAD argues that under Peru’s Water Law, this area should be a strict protection zone, which would bar resource exploitation there. Instead, it was reclassified as a zona silvestre, affording a lower level of protection.
Equally controversial is the environmental-impact study produced for the Hunt project by the Peruvian firm Demus. In April, Demus workers in the community of Barranco Chico were confronted by local residents armed with clubs, who chased them from their lands. FENAMAD challenged the impact study before the Mines and Energy Ministry as what Corisepa calls a “plagiarism”-basically a cut-and-paste job from earlier studies elsewhere in the Amazon. Nonetheless, the ministry accepted it in June.
Hunt workers may be the next to be physically confronted. At the end of the meeting, Iviche announced that if Hunt doesn’t withdraw from the reserve, the communities are prepared to carry out a desalojo-eviction.
*
Silvana lay, a forestry engineer who serves as Hunt’s director of environmental health and safety for the Lot 76 project, defended the company’s position in comments outside the meeting at the FENAMAD office.
“We weren’t going to come in until the master plan was approved,” she said. “We waited two years, and during that period we met with the communities and gave information. We are working in the part where we are allowed to work under the rules that were put in the plan. The last thing we want is a dangerous situation for our workers or the communities.”
While the ECA did not have to sign off on the impact statement, Lay points out that public hearings on the study were held in the village of Salvación. “We held workshops with the communities on whose lands we are going to work, with the ECA invited.”
Lay insists that Hunt, in contrast to many resource companies in Peru, is committed to playing by the rules. “We have the [impact statement] approved. We have the master plan approved. We did workshops with the communities-all this before we started our work. We have the signatories of everybody saying the work can go ahead-within the rules, of course. And then we received a call saying the work cannot go ahead.”
She points out that the $380,000 offered in compensation to the ECA is nearly 25% of the Amarakaeri reserve’s five-year budget. It is now in question whether the ECA will accept this money. She said the $30,000 pledged to Shintuya is forthcoming, and that Hunt will stay off of Puerto Luz community’s lands until a compensation deal is finalized. Hunt’s overall budget for the exploration project is $17 million, she said.
Lay asserted that the Hunt contract is in the best interests of the communities. “They can use that money to police the reserve against illegal logging and mining. The illegal exploitation is the greatest threat to the reserve, while the media and government are checking up on us. We are a good opportunity for the reserve.”
FENAMAD attorney Milton Mercado rejects Lay’s portrayal. “The ECA has never signed any document allowing Hunt in the reserve,” he said. While the master plan allows oil exploitation in a general sense-with approval by the National Service of Protected Areas-it makes no reference to the Hunt contract. And this provision was added above the protests of the communities, he added.
“The only consultation has been with Shintuya and Puerto Luz,” Mercado said. Consultation is mandated by the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, to which Peru is a signatory. The principle is also enshrined in Article 6 of Peru’s constitution.
Mercado sees a hopeful precedent in a February ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, Peru’s highest court, in a case concerning Lot 103-which includes the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area, a high jungle that protects the headwaters of important rivers in northern San Martín region. Citing potential damage to aquifers, the tribunal ruled against a consortium including Repsol, Petrobras, and Occidental Petroleum, ordering a halt to exploration in the reserve until a master plan is in place.
FENAMAD’s case against Hunt likewise focuses on the issue of protecting aquifers. But Mercado points out that it is the first in the history of Peru to rest on lack of consultation with indigenous communities-and a favorable ruling would be precedent-setting.
*
Almost all of the Madre de Dios region is divided into hydrocarbon exploration lots. Sapet, a Peruvian venture of China National Petroleum, has a license for Lots 113 and 111-the former covering the Reserve for Peoples in Voluntary Isolation, and the latter actually covering the town of Puerto Maldonado. The company has pledged not to explore in the reserve, for the moment at least. Lot 157, on unprotected lands to the east of the large protected areas, is currently suspended following the “Petrogate” scandal, in which officials are accused of kickbacks in the granting of concessions to Norwegian company Discover Petroleum.
These medium-sized firms are clearly viewed as an advance guard for the industry majors, who mostly abandoned operations in the Peruvian Amazon because of instability in the 1990s-and who García openly hopes to woo back.
Shell Oil explorations in area in the mid-1980s took a grave toll in disease on the recently contacted Yaminahua people in the north of Madre de Dios, who now have a titled community in neighboring Ucuyali region.
A decade later, a consortium including ExxonMobil and Elf began exploration in Lot 78-covering nearly the same territory as the contemporary Lot 76. This lot was reorganized in subsequent years as the communities around the Amarakaeri reserve were being titled.
In addition to hydrocarbons, timber is being massively exploited in Madre de Dios, mostly by Peruvian firms for export to the United States and China. There are legal concessions on state land in the largely unprotected eastern half of Madre de Dios-as well as much illegal exploitation in the protected areas.
Gold is next in line in the local resource boom. Legal placer and dredge mining concessions operate on the region’s rivers. But illegal and highly destructive hydraulic mining goes on in pirate operations.
A hydroelectric project is pending on the Río Inambari, with the Brazilian firm Odebrecht likely to get the contract. The Inter-Oceanic Highway linking Brazil’s Atlantic coast with Peru’s Pacific is also under construction through Madre de Dios.
This matrix of development interests could make the frontier zone of Madre de Dios a very different place in a few short years-and many young indigenous people fear what the future will bring. Wili Corisepa, a young Harakmbut from Shintuya who works with FENAMAD, said: “In the time of the missionaries, in the time of the rubber, of the timber, and now the oil, they all lied to us. It is the same person wearing a different mask.”
Bill Weinberg is author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico (Verso, 2000) and editor of the website World War 4 Report (ww4report.com). Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
Copyright © 2009 NACLA
