Another reserve for indigenous people in the remotest parts of the Peruvian Amazon could move one step closer to being established after a crunch meeting held by a Multi-Sector Commission due next week. If eventually created, the Yavarí-Mirim Reserve, as it is slated to be called, would become the ninth and possibly the largest reserve for indigenous people living in “isolation” in Peru.
The Commission was supposed to convene in February, but as I reported via Substack that meeting was postponed - much to the ire of many indigenous federations. Subsequently, on 5 June, it was agreed in the presence of the President Dina Boluarte that the Commission would meet to discuss the reserve within 30 days, but that commitment wasn’t met either.
These last few months aside, it has already been a long wait: the reserve was first proposed 20 years ago.
ORPIO, the indigenous federation which has taken the lead in campaigning for the reserve, warns the situation is now “critical.” In addition to repeatedly urging the Ministry of Culture (MINCU) - which presides over the Commission - to take action, it has been lobbying the EU, UK and German Ambassadors to Peru too.
“Although all the necessary technical studies have been done, the reserve’s approval has been postponed repeatedly,” ORPIO stated last week. “The sectors opposed to the reserve have been applying pressure to stop the approval process - something that puts the survival of the people living there, whose existence was officially recognised in 2018, at risk.”
ORPIO says all that is required now is a “political decision” to approve the reserve’s creation, which would thereby protect not only the rights and territories of the indigenous people living in the region but “one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet.” If established, the reserve would extend across a huge swathe of forest - possibly up to 1.3 million hectares - in northern Peru’s vast Loreto region along the border with Brazil.
“There can be no more excuses,” says Pablo Chota Ruiz, one of ORPIO’s representatives. “The state must meet its promises and guarantee the survival of the indigenous people in isolation and initial contact in the Yavarí-Mirim region.”
According to ORPIO, delaying the reserve potentially “opens the door” to the timber industry again. As I reported previously, dozens of logging concessions overlapping the proposed reserve have been annulled - a major but unreported human rights victory - yet interest in exploiting the area for commercially valuable wood remains ongoing, like in so many parts of the Amazon. Earlier this year, in February, the regional government announced 11 new concessions overlapping the proposed reserve, but after pushback that was stopped in its tracks.
In addition, ORPIO says that delays make the area more vulnerable to oil exploration and the cocaine trade too. Perupetro, the Peruvian state’s oil and gas promotions agency, sees almost the entire proposed reserve as having “exploratory potential”, while satellite image analysis by the federation makes it clear that forest inside the proposed reserve has been cleared in recent years.
Numerous others have been urging MINCU to take action too, including national indigenous federation AIDESEP, many other indigenous federations, a coalition of civil society organisations called the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, the Matsés people and various politicians - the latter even proposing a bill declaring the creation of the reserve in the “national interest.” Earlier in the year, AIDESEP accused the Commission of deliberately obstructing the creation of the reserve, and described its decision to postpone the February meeting as “arbitrary”, “unjust” and “illegal.”
Meanwhile, attempts to block or undermine the reserve continue to be made. Just this week congressman Juan Carlos Mori Celis - in submitting a bill aiming to modify the key 2006 law protecting indigenous people in isolation and initial contact - described Yavarí-Mirim as an “emblematic case” of a reserve being proposed where, according to him, there is “insufficient evidence” and “no technical consensus about the presence of people in isolation.”
The Commission is due to meet on Thursday 4 September. In a statement issued by MINCU, the Vice-Minister of Interculturality Percy Barranzuela was quoted saying the meeting had been called to meet the Ministry’s “commitment to protecting the rights of the indigenous people in isolation and initial contact.” MINCU did not respond to my requests for comment.