Amérique centrale et du Sud

Nahua testimony reveals the expansion plans of the Camisea Project within a Reserve for isolated indigenous peoples and the efforts of the consortium to distort the facts. See video link of testimony and full transcript of testimony.

In April 2011 a group of Nahua hunters, indigenous inhabitants of the ‘Kugapakori, Nahua and Nanti reserve for peoples in isolation and initial contact’ in South East Peru were surprised to bump into a team of investigators conducting environmental surveys in the headwaters of the remote river Serjali. The researchers were working for Environmental Resources Management (ERM), an environmental consultancy that had been hired by the Camisea gas consortium, a mega natural gas project with operations in the neighbouring river basin.

The Nahua were outraged they were being treated with such disregard and forced ERM to leave. Pluspetrol, the Argentine energy company and consortium leader, managed to smooth over a potential conflict; persuading the Nahua that they didn’t need to worry about potential contamination as these investigations weren’t connected to the search for oil and gas but were simply efforts to monitor the local wildlife.

AIDESEP, 20th July 2011. AIDESEP has revealed that the recently established Peruvian NGO "Alliance for the Capture of Carbon as a Solution to Climate Change" has proposed 10 year 'agreements' with various Shipibo indigenous communities. The agreements focus on the potential for 'environmental services, REDD and carbon deals' and are offering '$100 per hectare and thousands of dollars each year' to these communities. In an alarming turn the communities are being asked to sign these agreements and hand over their land title papers to the NGO.

San Martin et Madre de Dios sont les deux régions choisies pour le développement des activités pilote REDD au Pérou. Ces régions sont submergées par plus de 20 projets REDD centrés sur le marché volontaire de carbone. Nombre de ces projets sous-nationaux REDD+ s’abattent sur les territoires ancestraux des peuples autochtones, notamment sur les territoires des Shawi, Awajun et Kechwa à San Martin, et des Ese Eja, Yine, Shipibo, Amahuaca, Arakambut et Machiguenga à Madre de Dios. Au Pérou, environ 20 millions d’hectares de territoires autochtones ne sont pas reconnus juridiquement, ce qui signifie que REDD représente une menace plutôt qu'une opportunité.