Washington D.C. – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will this Friday hear three urgent requests for precautionary measures to protect some of the last indigenous peoples still living isolated, traditional lifestyles in the Amazon from the devastating impacts of oil and gas drilling, illegal logging, and other unwanted intrusions.
Two requests for immediate action by the Commission were filed in June and August by AIDESEP, Peru’s national federation for indigenous Amazonian peoples. Those requests ask the Commission to urge the Peruvian government to stop planned oil and gas drilling in the Kugapakori-Nahua State Reserve and the proposed Napo Tigre State Reserve respectively in order to protect isolated indigenous peoples including the Nahua, Nanti, Tagaeri and Taromenane.
The third request was filed in July 2005 by FENAMAD, a regional indigenous federation, to protect the lands and lives of the isolated peoples of Peru’s Madre de Dios region from illegal logging and oil concessions. That request was granted last March. The Commission ordered the Peruvian government to take measures to protect the rights of the Mashco Piro, Yora and Arahuaca peoples.
At Friday’s public hearing the Commission will be seeking more information from AIDESEP, FENAMAD and the Peruvian state regarding the current situation on the ground of these threatened isolated indigenous peoples.
The three requests for Commission assistance also call for an immediate end to the granting of oil concessions in indigenous territories, no further intrusions into the existing and proposed reserves, and legislative and administrative measures to guarantee the health, wellbeing and physical integrity of the indigenous groups, as well as their rights to be free from forced contact with outsiders and to remain in isolation, living freely according to their culture.
Currently, the Peruvian government has granted an oil concession in block 113 located within the State Territorial Reserve for the isolated peoples of Madre de Dios. Block 133, within the same reserve, awaits a state grant. Block 88, operated by a concession led by Texas’ Hunt Oil, overlaps the Kugapakori-Nahua reserve.
Meanwhile, two additional oil concessions, known as blocks 67 and 39, which intrude on the proposed Napo Tigre reserve, have been granted to the US companies Barrett Resources and ConocoPhillips, and Spain’s Repsol respectively. Their contingency policy, should their workers meet isolated indigenous groups, includes the use of flare guns, whistles and megaphones. Maria Ramos, of Amazon Watch, said: “This policy is preposterous. The plan seems to be to terrify local indigenous groups rather than respect their internationally-recognized human rights.”
Peru has the second largest area of Amazon rainforest, after Brazil. But, in the last three years, the government has zoned approximately 65 percent of the Peruvian Amazon into oil and gas concessions, which typically have devastating effects on the tropical ecosystem and its indigenous inhabitants. Moreover, the rising demand for cedar and big leaf mahogany, including in the US, has resulted in a massive intrusion of illegal logging in the Amazon that has resulted in severe deforestation and violent, sometimes deadly, clashes between loggers and isolated indigenous peoples.
What: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights public hearing regarding indigenous requests for urgent actions to protect isolated communities from oil drilling, illegal logging and other activities impacting their lives, lands, resources, and cultures.
Where: Room B, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1889 F Street, N.W. Washington, D.C., 20006
When: Friday, October 12, 10.15am to 11.15am EST.
The audio recordings of this hearing will be available at the Commission’s webpage, www.iachr.org, on the day of the hearing takes place.
