PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon

BAGUA, Peru, Jul 3, 2009 (IPS/IFEJ) - "Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.

Everyone was looking at the oil spill with concern. Some touched the black liquid, which had mixed with the mud resulting from a recent rainfall.

"That oil will reach the Marañón River, where our crops grow along the banks," added Antonio Chu Pumpunchig, who was harvesting plantains when he heard about the leak along the Norperuano pipeline, run by the government-owned Petroperú company, which has several pumping stations in Amazonas.

Station Number 6 in particular was taken over in May by indigenous groups near the town of Bagua as part of protests against decrees that opened up their land to mining, oil and logging companies.

When the police were sent in to break up a roadblock outside of Bagua on Jun. 5, 24 police and at least 10 civilians were killed, although the protesters say the number of demonstrators shot in the crackdown was much higher. Two of the controversial decrees have since been overturned, as demanded by the native groups.

The populations most affected by the oil spill live in the Cenapa and Nieva river valleys. But indigenous communities closer to towns like Bagua also fear that their rivers will be polluted, as occurred with the Achuar Indians. The Achuar live along the Corrientes River in the neighbouring province of Loreto, in the country's far northeast, where the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol operates.

Petroperú workers who arrived in Jayais to clean up the spill refused to talk about the cause of the break in the pipeline, which stretched across a ravine.

Native families in the Amazon jungle make their living from fishing, hunting, and growing plantains, maize and cocoa along the rivers and manioc in the hills. Along the roads, merchants buy plantains from them, and sell the product at market at four times the price.

"We are not protesting because we are ‘savages,’ but because we need these resources to survive. The earth is our mother, and the forest is the pantry for feeding our families," said Umpunchi.

Part of the spilled crude is likely to reach the Chiriaco River, subsequently ending up in the Marañón River, he said.

More than 70 percent of Peru’s Amazon rainforest was divided into concessions for oil and natural gas investment between 2003 and 2008, according to a March report by the local non-governmental organisation Law, Environment and Natural Resources (known by its Spanish acronym DAR), which was based on official data.

To promote private investment in the jungle areas, the administration of President Alan García passed a dozen decrees under the argument that they were needed to facilitate implementation of the free trade agreement with the United States, triggering indigenous protests in 2008, which have continued off and on until now.

The Awajún and Wampí peoples, in Amazonas province, feel threatened by the mining and oil drilling activities, which are going ahead in ecologically vulnerable protected areas, and have led to disputes between the companies and local residents over water and land.

"This is my home. This is where my grandparents lived and I want my children to inherit it," said Julia Esamat, 53, a member of the Awajún community from the village of Wawas, in the Chiriaco district.

"We have moved forward ourselves, without the government," she told this reporter. "The authorities can't come now and take from us what is ours."

Nearly 60 petroleum concessions were granted, 15 of which were approved in processes marred by irregularities, overlapping 12 protected areas in 10 of the country's provinces. Among them is the Santiago Comaina preserve in Amazonas, according to the DAR report.

The French firm Maurel & Prom holds a permit for exploration in lot 116 in Santiago Comaina. To gain access to the area, the company signed an agreement with the heads of the indigenous federations of Condorcanqui province. But because the native leaders did not consult the communities, they were removed from their posts, according to a May 2008 report in La República newspaper.

Furthermore, gold and uranium exploration projects have been authorised in Amazonas, in the Cóndor mountain range, bordering Ecuador. But native groups in the Cenepa river valley say the concessions were transferred in an irregular manner from the Dorato Peru company, a subsidiary of the Canada-based Dorato Resources.

In a November 2008 communiqué, Dorato Resources said it had acquired all shares of the Peruvian mining company Afrodita.

But according to Marco Huaco, a lawyer with Racimos de Ungurahui, a local NGO, the transaction was carried out by means of front organisations.

Huaco said the initiative violates Article 71 of the constitution because in order to authorise foreign investment in a border area, the executive branch has to issue a supreme decree declaring it a "public necessity," which did not occur.

In addition, it violated International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, a 1989 agreement that requires prior consultation with local indigenous communities about economic activities that affect their land or means of livelihood.

The Development Organisation of Cenepa Border Communities (ODECOFROC), one of the four indigenous associations in Amazonas province, filed three complaints in April about the case to the government Office on Mining Concessions.

The authorities replied that they were not aware of the Canadian company's participation, that the concessions were granted to Peruvian entities, and that they would investigate the claims, said Huaco, an advisor to ODECOFROC.

The group also brought the Cóndor mountains case before the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, who visited Bagua on Jun. 18.

The document presented to Anaya, to which this reporter had access, states that the project affects 9,636 indigenous people in Cenepa because it is situated at the head of the main tributaries to the Marañón River, and crosses the protected Ichigkat Muja National Park, which the government has recognised as "highly vulnerable" in ecological and human terms.

In several statements on rights to land title issued in favour of mining companies, the National Institute of Natural Resources says mining activities cannot be carried out in Awajún territory, according to the text presented to Anaya.

"If mining is carried out in that area, it would mean the partial extinction of this Amazonian native group," said Huaco.

The indigenous leaders will bring the case before the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by Inter Press Service (IPS) and the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org). (END)

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