Huge new indigenous reserve established in the western Amazon
More than 1 million hectares set aside by Peru for indigenous peoples in "isolation"
More and more people around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the Amazon basin in the global struggle against runaway climate change, mainly due to the extraordinary range of its forests, the carbon stored in them and their astonishing biodiversity. So often the news is negative, with good reason, but something unusually positive has just happened in the far west of the region.
Peru’s government has established a huge new indigenous reserve after a 17 year administrative process. Extending for 1.1 million hectares, the Yavari Tapiche Reserve is intended to protect the land and lives of indigenous peoples reportedly living there in “isolation” - that’s to say, without contact, or at least almost no contact, with anyone else. I’ve written about this extremely remote region various times before, most often in The Guardian.
“This constitutes a major advance in the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact,” Peru’s Culture Ministry (MINCU) stated when announcing its decision on 10 April.
Over the years, it has been the Peruvian indigenous federations Organización Regional de los Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente (ORPIO) and the Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP) playing the most significant roles towards establishing the reserve. Angela Arriola, an anthropologist collaborating with AIDESEP, tells me that reaction to MINCU’s decision has been favourable, but considerably more remains to be done, including the preparation of a formal Protection Plan within less than 60 days.
“The news has been received with much joy, but we understand clearly that this is not the end of it,” Arriola says. “It’s just a small step. The reserve must be protected and made intangible. There’s still a long way to go.”
ORPIO’s David Freitas, a specialist on indigenous peoples in “isolation” in northern Peru, issued a short statement via Facebook expressing his obvious satisfaction and relief.
“In the beginning it was just FECORITAYB [Federación de Comunidades de los Ríos Tapiche y Blanco], ORPIO and AIDESEP, but little by little various other organisations united with us,” Freitas said. “It has been a 17 year struggle. Today it has become a reality.”
Others have joined in issuing celebratory statements, with the Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), calling MINCU’s decision “historic” and the result of the indigenous federations’ “tireless” work. Another NGO, the Centro para el Desarrollo del Indígena Amazónico (CEDIA), stated that it was “proud” to have been involved, having been contracted by MINCU to conduct some of the essential research.
The Yavari Tapiche Reserve is now the biggest of all the reserves for indigenous peoples in “isolation” in Peru, numbering six in total, and the first genuinely new one to be established since 2002. It is in the Loreto region, in the north of the country, and runs along the border with Brazil.
Another organisation that has played a key role in the reserve’s establishment is the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN), an NGO which has financially supported both ORPIO’s and AIDESEP’s work for many years.
“This is a major victory for the protection of isolated indigenous peoples in Peru,” RFN’s Anders Krogh tells me. “It represents a symbolically important break in a 19 year-long period of political unwillingness to establish such reserves in the country. Uncontacted tribes are among the most vulnerable people on the planet.”
A “major victory” indeed, as Krogh describes it, yet serious challenges remain. Not only must the Protection Plan be written, approved and implemented effectively, but numerous logging concessions now overlapped by the new reserve must be relocated or annulled, as promised during the administrative process. Those concessions were established after the reserve had been proposed.
Another challenge is that the reserve overlaps a massive chunk of the Sierra del Divisor National Park too, which means coordinating with the Environment Ministry (MINAM). Not only did MINAM attempt to block or impede the reserve’s establishment, as well as appeal a judge’s ruling that it should modify the zoning in the park in order to better protect the indigenous peoples in “isolation”, but it permitted a Canadian-headquartered company, Pacific Rubiales Energy, to explore for oil there, despite the potentially catastrophic consequences. That was before the park was created, when it was officially classified as a “reserved zone.” Even after the park was established, in 2015, Pacific’s “acquired rights” to operate within the then proposed Yavari Tapiche Reserve were guaranteed by MINAM, although subsequently the company was re-structured financially and abandoned its concession.
Beatriz Huertas, another anthropologist and specialist on indigenous peoples in “isolation” with ORPIO, tells me that modifying the park’s zoning, eliminating the logging concessions from the reserve and implementing a Protection Plan for it are now all urgently required. She emphasises the importance of MINCU’s decision - not only because it is an essential first step towards protecting the indigenous peoples living there, or further confirmation that the government officially recognises their existence, territories and rights, but because it is testament to what can be achieved by civil society.
“It’s an acknowledgement of all the work the indigenous peoples and federations have put in over the years,” Huertas says, “as well as those other people and national and international organisations - the indigenous federations’ allies - which have contributed too.”
Over to you again then, MINCU. If the Yavari Tapiche Reserve isn’t genuinely protected, it’ll be just a “paper reserve” and its inhabitants will continue to be at severe risk, mainly from loggers and narco-traffickers. Considering that Peru is one of the world’s very worst-hit countries by the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the fact that indigenous peoples in “isolation” are especially vulnerable to any kind of disease or illness even at the best of times, there could be few more appropriate times to take real action.