Lima – Q’Orianka Kilcher, who starred as Pocahontas in last year’s epic “The New World,” has returned to her Peruvian roots to help in the struggle to protect Amazon-basin Indians being harmed by pollution from the oil industry.
The 16-year-old actress visited the area around the Corrientes River, which is located more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) northeast of Lima, to shoot footage for a documentary about the plight of thousands of Achuar Indians, who suffer from numerous illnesses caused by drinking and exposure to water polluted by oil companies.
“Fame is nothing if it is not used for a cause,” the actress said.
The teenage star warned that if measures were not taken, future generations “will be born with genetic deformities” and other problems, and the Achuar will probably disappear.
Production of the documentary will “only be the start” of her international campaign to help the Achuar, the actress, whose father was an indigenous Peruvian, said in a press conference.
“Q’Orianka” translates to “golden eagle” in Quechua, one of Peru’s main Indian languages.
Kilcher, whose mother is a U.S. citizen, promised that she would speak with high-level officials of the companies that have caused “the destruction” of the land in the Peruvian Amazon over more than three decades.
The Achuar communities have accused U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum, Peruvian state-owned oil company Petroperu and Argentina’s Pluspetrol of harming the Indians through the dumping of toxic substances into the region’s rivers.
AIDESEP, a Peruvian Indian organization, said 66 percent of children living on the banks of the Corrientes River had high levels of lead in their blood, and nearly all the children in the region had large amounts of cadmium in their blood.
Kilcher, who played the female lead in the Terrence Malick-directed film about the early colonization of North America and the romance between Capt. John Smith and an Indian princess, said she planned to invite oil company executives to drink water from the Corrientes River just like the Achuar do. She held up a bottle of the unappetizing liquid.
The actress visited Indian communities in the region with her mother, Saskia Kilcher, a crew from her production company, Q Films, and members of Amazon Watch. The team showed images of sick children and suffering animals.
The most striking images were those of 5-year-old children with their bodies covered with wounds, and statements by their mothers that doctors said the children were not in poor health.
During her nine-day visit, Kilcher said she was shocked to see a group of children in one town playing soccer on a field covered with oil.
The actress said she could not believe that toxic dumps were not marked, and she criticized the oil companies for behaving differently in Peru than they did in industrialized countries.
Kilcher joined a group of Indian leaders in calling on authorities to declare the Corrientes River to be “in a state of emergency” and to not grant more production contracts until the Achuar lands were “cleaned up.”
The head of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes River, Andres Sandi, urged Peruvians to come together in defense of the Amazon’s Indians and their environment.
The leader of the Indian community of Nueva Jerusalen, Tomas Maynas, called on the Peruvian government to provide compensation to those affected by pollution from the oil companies and to recognize the right of Indians to live on their ancestral lands.
He said he was confident that the rights of his people would be recognized and thanked the young Hollywood star for helping the Achuar cause.
