Calgary, Canada – After a two week campaign tour through four Canadian cities to raise awareness about Canada-based Talisman Energy’s controversial operations in the Peruvian Amazon and culminating in the company’s hometown of Calgary, Achuar leader Peas Peas Ayui returns today to the Peruvian Amazon without a commitment from Talisman to respect the Achuar people’s rights.
“I have told the CEO of Talisman, John Manzoni, that the Achuar people do not want oil operations in our ancestral territory, but Talisman refuses to respect our right to live in peace and harmony,” said Ayui, newly elected president of the National Achuar Federation (FENAP). “I am worried about the conflict that Talisman is creating between Achuar brothers and sisters, and I am worried about the environmental destruction that oil will cause if Talisman continues to disrespect us.”
The Achuar traveled to Calgary in 2008 and 2010 to inform Talisman directors and shareholders that the company is operating in Peru in ancestral territory without the permission of the Achuar people. Despite a commitment to only work with community consent and a new Global Community Relations Policy recognizing the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous peoples, Talisman continues to drill for oil in the heart of Achuar territory without consultation or consent of the people who live, hunt and fish around their oil wells.
“Talisman appears to care more about its public image than it does about truly respecting the rights of communities where it operates,” said Gregor MacLennan, Peru Program Coordinator for the environmental organization Amazon Watch, who accompanied Ayui in Canada. “Talisman’s operations in Peru are creating conflict and division, and pose a great threat to the lives and culture of the Achuar people.”
Since arriving in Peru in 2004, Talisman has steadily expanded operations and, as of 2011, has operating and non-operating interests in more than 12 million net acres in the Marañon Basin of Northern Peru. In Block 64, which overlaps the ancestral territory of the Achuar people, light oil was discovered in 2005 and confirmed in 2009. Since then, the majority of Achuar people located within Block 64 have rejected Talisman’s plans to expand seismic testing and drill further exploratory wells in hunting and fishing grounds in the heart of their territory.
“We have seen how oil drilling causes contamination and foments divisions between families, it doesn’t bring development,” said Peas Peas Ayui. “The Achuar people have chosen to defend our territory so that our children and future generations can live peacefully in our Amazonian homeland.”
