An open letter signed by indigenous organization, AIDESEP (Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest), and the Legal Defense Institute, asks the Peru Energy Ministry to clarify whether it sought consultation with Indians before awarding fourteen new contracts for oil and gas exploration.
AIDESEP is the National Organization of the Amazon Indigenous People of Peru. It was formed in 1980 as culmination of the efforts of the indigenous people. AIDESEP is organized in six regional organizations – ARPI, ORAI, ORAU, CORPI, ORPIA N-P, Office Regional Madre de Dios – and eight federations adding a total of 1,350 communities in a geographical extension of 956.751 km2.
Perupetro, the government body responsible for negotiating the contracts, had originally planned to hold the auction in August 2009, but it was postponed after violent conflict in the Amazon, sparked by indigenous protests over land, which left more than 30 dead.
Perupetro contracts oil and gas companies to work in Peru. To date, 72% of the Peruvian Amazon has been opened up to companies. Some of these regions are home to vulnerable uncontacted tribes. Perupetro has already signed contracts with companies like Petrobras, Pluspetrol, Perenco, Repsol-YPF and Petrolifera to work in uncontacted tribes’ territories.
The most controversial company to benefit from the auction is Spain’s Repsol-YPF, which has won concession rights to four of the twenty-five available blocks. Repsol has been strongly criticized by both Peruvian and international organizations for its oil operations in Block 39 in the northern Amazon, where at least two uncontacted tribes are known to live.
Uncontacted tribes in Peru are under increasing threat from an exploration boom which has opened up over 70% of the Amazon to oil and gas companies. Last month, Peru’s Constitutional Court ordered the government to improve its consultation process with indigenous communities following a formal complaint by AIDESEP.
In areas where consultation with tribal people is impossible – as is the case in areas inhabited by uncontacted tribes – Survival International is calling for the immediate suspension of all hydrocarbon activity.
Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry, said today, “Granting companies like Repsol the right to work on uncontacted tribes’ land runs the very real risk of wiping out extremely vulnerable people. In cases where the free, prior and informed consent of Indians cannot be achieved, companies must stay away.”
About Survival International
Survival International is a human rights’ organization formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples’ fight to keep their ancestral lands, culture and their own way of living. Survival works for the people who they call “some of the most vulnerable on earth”. A part of their mission is to educate people from misconceptions that help justify violations of human rights against indigenous people, and the risks that they face from the advancement of corporations, governments and also good intentions based on an idea of “development” that is forced upon them. Survival believes that in fact their alternative way of living is not lacking, they represent a model of sustainability in the environment that they are a part of and they possess a rich culture from which we could learn. For more information, visit www.survivalinternational.org.
Source: Survival International Press Release dated October 2, 2010.
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