Ucayali, 5 June 2017: Indigenous Peoples call on the Regional Council and Government of Ucayali to secure indigenous land rights, stop harmful oil palm development and protect human rights defenders in Peruvian Amazon.
In an initial public statement issued on their website, the RSPO’s Complaints Panel (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) condemned Plantaciones de Pucallpa (PdP) for its destruction of primary forests in violation of the RSPO’s code of
After appeals from indigenous organisation FECONAU in the Ucayali region the Peruvian government has recognised that the National Plan for oil palm must be consulted with Peru's indigenous peoples.
Document: Aprueban consulta previa palma aceitera (Spanish only)
26th March. The lawsuit filed by the Shipibo community of Santa Clara in May 2016 against the Peruvian government for issuing their untitled traditional lands to a palm oil company is now heading for Peru’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal after the court of second instance in Pucallpa ruled that the case was not admissible as a constitutional appeal or amparo.
Since 2014, the indigenous Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya with the support of FECONAU (the Federation of Native communities of Ucayali) has been challenging the operations of the palm oil company Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC (PdP), which has destroyed more than 5,000 hectares of its traditional forest lands in the Ucayali region of Peru. Recently the struggles of the community have begun to yield important victories.
Depuis 2014, la communauté autochtone shipibo de Santa Clara de Uchunya, avec l’appui de FECONAU (la Fédération des communautés natives d’Ucayali) a contesté les activités de la société du secteur de l’huile de palme Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC (PdP), qui a détruit plus de 5 000 hectares de ses forêts traditionnelles dans la région d’Ucayali au Pérou. Récemment, les luttes de la communauté ont commencé à aboutir à des résultats significatifs.
United Cacao Ltd SEZC, a company belonging to the Melka commercial group of agribusiness enterprises operating in the Peruvian Amazon, appears to be on the brink of financial collapse.
London, 6th November 2016: On the 12th October, and just days before the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil’s (RSPO) complaints panel was supposed to issue a final judgment on the complaint filed against them by the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, Plantaciones de Pucallpa (PdP) withdrew from the RSPO.
On 23 June, and no doubt in response to the growing challenges to their operations in Ucayali from the Peruvian government, Peruvian civil society and affected communities, the Melka group decided to put their properties up for sale in a public auction.
Leaders of the Shipibo indigenous village of Santa Clara de Uchunya, accompanied by their representative organisation FECONAU, filed a constitutional law suit challenging Peru’s regional government authorities for failing to secure legal protection of their traditional lands and enabling its acquisition and clearance by an international agribusiness company.
A video (Spanish only) recording a formal visit to the oil palm plantation of Plantaciones de Pucallpa in Ucayali by Peruvian environmental prosecutors and officials documents how the company has continued to maintain and cultivate its plantation operations in violation of the suspension order of the Ministry of Agriculture issued in September 2015.
LONDON, 4 May 2016. Indigenous, community and civil society leaders visiting Europe from across the world today issued an urgent call to action for the EU to respond to the human rights abuses directly or indirectly linked to palm oil supply chains.
Source: Reuters - Tue, 26 Apr 2016 00:58 GMT, Author: Reuters
LIMA, April 25 (Reuters) - A palm oil industry body on Monday ordered a member company with a 5,000 hectare (12,355 acre) concession in Peru to stop developing new plantations until it can prove it has not cleared any primary forest.
The dispute comes amid growing concerns from environmentalist and indigenous communities about the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in the Peruvian Amazon in recent years.
LONDON, 26th April 2016: On the 25th April the complaints panel of the RSPO (Round table on Sustainable Palm Oil) issued a preliminary ‘Stop work order’ to Plantaciones de Pucallpa, one of its Peruvian members, whose operations are affecting the territory of the Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon.
Yarinacocha, December 5th 2015: Today on the 5th of December 2015 we, the Federación de Comunidades Nativas del Ucayali – FECONAU (Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali) representing 35 communities of the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people from the Ucayali region and Santa Clara de Uchunya, located in Requena, Ucayali region in Peru, presented our formal complaint to the RSPO mechanism against the company Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC, member of the RSPO.
London, 18 November 2015: Washington Bolivar, an indigenous activist in Peru has received another sinister death threat in the immediate wake of his efforts to challenge the destruction of Amazon rainforest for timber extraction and conversion to oil palm.
In the course of the last month, human rights defender, Mr Bolivar received the following handwritten and explicit notes in quick succession:
London, 2nd November 2015: Robert Guimaraes Vasquez, a leader of the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people in Peru’s Amazon has travelled to a global forum in London on business, deforestation and human rights to highlight the destruction of his people’s traditional lands by an international agribusiness group and member of the RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Palm oil), a global body that certifies that the production and trade of palm oil is sustainable and respects human rights.
The failure to resolve the underlying land tenure problems of indigenous peoples is one of the main factors behind the increasing deforestation in Peru as reported in a national deforestation study produced by FPP and AIDESEP and launched at the UN Climate talks held in Peru in 2014. Peru hands over the Presidency of the climate change talks to France in Paris this year and since 2010 has made ambitious pledges to resolve indigenous peoples’ landrights struggles as part of its commitments to protect forests and mitigate climate change in which it has pledged to reduce net deforestatio
