Amazon communities’ court victory forces Peru Government to respond to oil spill health crisis

One of the lawyers who has represented the communities, Juan Carlos Ruiz Molleda, from the Institute of Legal Defence (IDL), offers the following seven reasons as to the importance and implications of the Cuninico case:

“1. It was shown that the oil spill was not caused by sabotage as Petroperu claimed, but by its own lack of maintenance of the Norperuano Pipeline.

2. A judicial sentence was emitted that orders the Regional Health Directorate of Loreto to design and implement a health plan to care for those affected.

3. There is now a health plan to care for those affected by an oil spill.

4. The ruling recognises that oil spills have differentiated impacts on women, children, pregnant women and the elderly.

5. The affected communities have participated actively in the reworking of the health plan prepared by DIRESA Loreto.

6. The court sentence resulted in the allocation of about 3 million soles (roughly US $900,000) to finance the health plan of those affected by spills.

7. It has made visible the devastating impact of spills on the population.”

On 3 January 2020, community members from the four affected communities of Cuninico, San Francisco, Nueva Esperanza and Santa Rosa met with DIRESA Loreto health officials to review the health plan and provide feedback on the initial phases of its implementation.

Community members highlighted a number of areas which need improvement if the health authority’s intervention is to be effective, including addressing a serious lack of medicines, greater transparency in the use of funds and the need for properly trained doctors to deliver specialised medical care.

Marlita, a leader from Cuninico, said, “There needs to be a visit by a specialist medical team to diagnose what illnesses we are suffering from; we need genuine medical attention and nothing less.”

During the meeting, women from the communities described how they have had to deal with a lack of clean water, the contamination and devastation of fish populations and their forest farms, all of which are crucial to their livelihoods.

A short video posted by Ruiz Molleda from IDL shows that more than five years after the oil spill, community members still find traces of the vast amounts of crude oil which were spilled into the Cuninico River.

The communities have received ongoing support in their struggles from the Santa Rita de Castilla Parish, particularly the priests Manolo Berjon and Miguel Cadena; the former director of the Iquitos Vicariate, Carmen Arévalo, and the community radio station, Radio Ucamara. They have received legal defence from the Catholic Church’s Apostolic Vicariate in Iquitos and from IDL.

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[1] There have been at least 60 recorded oil spills from the Northern Peru pipeline and some 190 spills from the various pipelines across Peru.