Peru accepts existence of indigenous people in 'isolation' in remote northern Amazon
Government moves one step closer to creating reserve in region where UK/France-based oil firm holds concessions
At last it has finally happened. After a process that was effectively set in motion almost 20 years ago, the Peruvian government has officially acknowledged, by Supreme Decree, the existence of indigenous people living in “isolation” between the River Napo and River Tigre in the northern Peruvian Amazon, adjacent to the border with Ecuador and the world-famous Yasuni National Park.
Such recognition is critically important because without it the government can’t - or won’t - protect the “isolated” people and their territories. No Supreme Decree recognising that they are there, making their homes and raising their families in one of the remotest regions anywhere in the world, and no reserve for them can be established.
“This means that now their fundamental rights must be guaranteed by the state,” says Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist working with regional indigenous federation ORPIO, which represents more than 25 indigenous communities in the Napo-Tigre region. “That includes officially protecting their territories, implementing measures to stop the spread of diseases, and ensuring their right to decide how they want to live - their right to self-determination, without contact being forced on them.”
For Huertas, it also represents a significant victory for ORPIO, national indigenous federation AIDESEP and many others who have been fighting for the rights of the indigenous people in “isolation” in that region for years, especially given the recent emergence of a campaign attempting to undermine claims of their existence and revoke the 2006 national law that provides the framework for recognising their rights and establishing reserves. The Loreto regional government is involved in that campaign and was scheduled to hold a press conference about it yesterday.
“The Supreme Decree constitutes the state’s acceptance, approval and recognition of a demand made by indigenous peoples, organisations and their allies in solidarity with the peoples in isolation,” Huertas says. “It means that the state is in agreement with those organisations which, supported by their allies, have systematically worked for almost two decades towards protecting the peoples in isolation and their territories.”
Getting to this point, ever since AIDESEP and ORPIO’s previous incarnation ORAI proposed a reserve back in 2003, has been somewhat tortuous, to say the least. Despite overwhelming acceptance from the mid-2000s of indigenous people in “isolation” in the Napo-Tigre region by numerous state institutions including the Energy Ministry, Health Ministry, National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA), indigenous affairs agency (INDEPA) and national ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo), as well as miscelleanous others such as Ecuador’s government, the US’s Field Museum and even two oil companies running concessions in the area, it wasn’t until 2013 that the Culture Ministry (MINCU) finally took a crucial administrative step forwards and emitted its “favourable” opinion regarding officially recognising the existence of people in “isolation” there and the proposal to establish a reserve for them.
However, following lobbying from the oil sector, that “favourable” opinion was withdrawn five months later. It wasn’t for another almost two years, September 2015, that MINCU got around to issuing a second “favourable” opinion, which this time wasn’t withdrawn and meant that the state’s Multi-Sector Commission responsible for reserves for indigenous people in “isolation” assumed control of the administrative process. The Commission took the next crucial administrative steps to request and approve a “Prior Recognition Study”, in 2018 and July this year respectively, which ultimately led to President Pedro Castillo signing the Supreme Decree this month. The next two - and final - steps towards actually establishing the reserve are for another study to be conducted, and another Supreme Decree emitted.
The situation in the Napo-Tigre region has been made more complex over the years by the two oil companies running the concessions in the early 2000s, the US’s Barrett Resources and Spain’s Repsol, selling up to a UK/France-based firm, Perenco, the former in 2008 and the latter in 2014. Repsol pulled out after being investigated by Norway’s Ministry of Finance’s Council on Ethics which, according to Norwegian sources, had recommended that the Ministry divest from the company because of the potential impact of its operations on the indigenous people in “isolation.” Whereas Barrett, for example, had openly admitted “in the course of seismic activities in Lot 67, workers will probably come into contact with uncontacted tribes”, Perenco has consistently claimed there is no evidence for them.
In 2013 Perenco wrote to Peru’s state oil agency Perupetro expressing its concern about the “favourable” opinion emitted by MINCU regarding the proposed reserve, and this year, as I recently reported, it filed a legal injunction against the Ministry requesting that the second, 2015 “favourable” opinion be “nullified.” Legal action has also been taken this year by indigenous federation FECONACA, which claims to represent several of the indigenous communities closest to the proposed reserve and oil concessions. FECONACA is requesting that the “process of recognising the existence of the indigenous peoples in isolation which began with the September 2015 report” should be “nullified”, under the frankly ridiculous argument that local communities haven’t been consulted about it.
Might Perenco, in light of the new Supreme Decree, now finally accept the existence of indigenous people in “isolation” in the Napo-Tigre region? Apparently not. The company tells me that operations in one of its two concessions, Lot 67, are “incredibly small scale in order to minimize its environmental impact”, that it takes its “responsibilities in respect of human rights and environmental law extremely seriously”, that “we work closely with the Arabela native communities living in the area”, and that “we are certain that in Perenco’s current area of operations there are no PIACI [indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact].”