Kichwa Community in Puerto Franco demand rights-based conservation from PNCAZ
Translated by Serena Richard y Erica Balasso - see the original Spanish article here
The Kichwa indigenous community of Puerto Franco, Peru met with representatives of Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) to demand respect for their rights and more inclusive conservation with regards to indigenous peoples. Among their main demands are the titling of their ancestral territory with effective access to it; and full participation in the management of the protected natural area and in the distribution of the benefits produced by the conservation actions of their own forests.
On November 3, the Puerto Franco native community of the Kichwa people of the San Martin region, their representative organization, the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), and allied institutions such as the Legal Defense Institute (IDL) and the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), met in a community assembly with the Center for Conservation, Research and Management of Natural Areas (CIMA) and the National Service of Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP), as well as representatives of the PNCAZ.
The meeting began by discussing the potential reestablishment of a Park Ranger Guard Post (Pikiyaku Sector), a situation for which the community had expressed their disagreement due to the lack of information and coordination, although this was clarified by CIMA's director, who remarked on the need for more direct and fluid information between the parties.
"It was a misunderstanding, we had also heard about 15 people who were going to come to build a house and it was already clear that it was false. We do not know how that rumour was generated. This has not been on the agenda (...) CIMA, the Park's management and SERNANP are on the same side as you, we are not enemies, we are not against indigenous rights" Gonzalo Varillas, head of CIMA.
The community assembly of Puerto Franco repeatedly reminded the Park representatives of the violation of their rights from the beginning: the creation of the protected natural area was never adequately consulted, nor was a due process carried out to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of the Kichwa and other indigenous peoples involved.
"You violated our territory and our right to prior consultation to see if the community agreed or not. I am going to ask you people, who should you ask permission first, shouldn’t it be the owner of the house? Prior consultation comes first (…) Gentlemen, we do not want to fight, we want our lands back. It means everything to us, we have taken care of it. This is what our grandparents told us, people who have never taken care of the lands are going to come and claim it as if they were the owners." Guillermo Salas, community member of Puerto Franco.
“They told us: “There’s the park!”. Two men suddenly came, changed the name of the Shillushillu river into Chupichontal river. We know the area, I’ve walked through it with my grandparents night and day, nobody can deceive us. They came to violate our rights and tell us where the park is”. Alpino Fasabi, Apu (chief) of Puerto Franco.
In addition, the Assembly remarked that the situation of being in constant conflict with the PNCAZ is largely due to the initial violation of rights and the creation of the park without consultation, which has generated the invisibility of the community to such an extent that they are not even considered as an indigenous people in the Park's Master Plan. This cause-and-effect situation was highlighted in his End of Mission Statement by the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders in February 2020, after his visit to Peru, when he pointed out that many of the social conflicts could have been avoided if meaningful consultations had been held based on international standards.
"We have a right and we claim the territory that corresponds to us. Gentlemen of the State and CIMA, that is what we demand as people, our land demarcation. They have never carried out the prior consultation. We have not gone through that moment of consultation, that is why we there is a conflict". Roberto Carlos Guerra, secretary of the community.
The community of Puerto Franco also questioned the CIMA and SERNANP delegation about the inclusion of the PNCAZ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Green List, where the park has been recognized with this global quality standard.
However, the visiting commission did not clearly answer why the PNCAZ was nominated if it did not comply with some of the IUCN criteria, especially good governance, since the Kichwa communities do not have full and effective participation in the Park's decision-making and management, affecting legitimacy and voice, transparency and accountability, among others. In addition, international norms such as ILO Convention 169 on the right of peoples to participate in the use, administration and conservation of resources are being violated.
"How many millions have arrived? Where are they? Have we participated? No! (...) We are not crazy to say that we did not participate. We are not asking for a favor, but for the respect of our rights. Just as the Park benefits, we should benefit too since we are the ones being affected", remarked Alpino Fasabi.
The issue of carbon credits continues to be a challenge in terms of accountability on the part of the PNCAZ, especially with its REDD+ project underway, which has already generated between 2008-2018 the creation of at least 25 million tons of carbon, according to the certifier VCS. How it works, what is the real price of the sale of carbon that CIMA places in the market, which intermediaries and how many exist, how many credits have been officially placed, how the distribution of benefits and beneficiaries has been prioritized, among others, are still doubts to be resolved.
This situation of uncertainty and lack of access to information affects Article 15.2 of Convention 169, which establishes that indigenous people must benefit from extractive activities in their territories. And also Article 8.j of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recognizes that this right includes conservation activities such as natural protected areas. Furthermore, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has already established in the Kaliña and Lokono Peoples v. Suriname case that the right to benefit also arises when environmental conservation activities are carried out.
Among this, it is important to consider what is highlighted in the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz: "The World Parks Congress is the world's most important international standard-setting and guideline-setting forum for protected areas. At the 2003 Durban Congress, the world's leading environmentalists announced a "new paradigm" for protected areas that would respect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. This major shift in the approach to conservation was adopted in response to growing public opinion that it was unjust for conventional models to exclude or marginalize indigenous peoples and local communities from the administration and management of protected areas" (Victoria Tauli, Report, para. 39).
"A statement by the former Minister of the Environment spoke of 87 million USD in the sale of carbon credits. Who knows about that? CEPKA? CODEPISAM? AIDESEP? COICA? Puerto Franco? Chambira? Mushuk Llacta? The communities of the lower Huallaga? Does anyone know about that? What transparency are we talking about? Let's get down to the fact that conservation actions have to be coordinated with the indigenous people," said Matías Pérez, FPP's advocacy coordinator in Peru.
In response to these questions, Gustavo Montoya, the head of SERNANP's PNCAZ, and the director of CIMA expressed their open predisposition to include native communities as beneficiaries of the sale of carbon credits:
"Carbon credits are not generated just like that. It's a multidisciplinary work that has been going on for years. There is a process behind it and it will be necessary to explain it. The best disposition of the Park's team is to include the native communities as a priority in the participation of the benefits of carbon credits. We have to see what the mechanism is (...) We will have to provide training to see what these carbon credits are. This should be reported in a transparent way," said the head of the PNCAZ.
"It is a new and complex issue, and we can easily organise a meeting and explain and answer to all the questions about how the carbon market works and what is done with the sales that CIMA has made on behalf of SERNANP during all these years," added the CIMA director.
The representatives of CIMA and SERNANP reiterated that PNCAZ has been an ally of the communities over the years, mentioning that they work with approximately 520 communities throughout the Park. Neither of the two institutions wanted to comment on the amparo lawsuit filed by Puerto Franco, arguing that it should follow its course in the courts.
It should be remembered that Puerto Franco and CEPKA filed an amparo lawsuit in the Mixed Court of Bellavista in 2020 demanding that SERNANP: (i) carry out the free and informed consultation about D.S. 031-2001-AG, which creates the Park and also of the Master Plan; (ii) comply with the right of the native communities overlapping the PNCAZ to benefit from conservation activities in their territories; (iii) instruct the park rangers to allow access to the community members of Puerto Franco and other affected communities to the natural resources and to their traditional subsistence activities until the prior consultation process is carried out; (iv) comply with the right of the native communities over which the PNCAZ overlaps to participate in the management of the area in accordance with the right to self-determination, or autonomy and self-government, recognised in international human rights law and international jurisprudence, including the American Convention on Human Rights and ILO Convention 169.
For her part, Cristina Gavancho, IDL lawyer, questioned the fact that in the meeting the main counter arguments were that there had only been misinformation and that there was no violation of the rights of the Kichwa communities:
"Nobody is inventing, nor is there any confusion, about the violation of rights. The mere fact that they are not considered in the Master Plan, denying them their participation rights, is itself a violation of rights (...) From the moment that the participation of indigenous people is not included, it's a violation of rights, and also the fact that they are not visible in their management documents. It cannot be said that the violation of rights is being invented and everything that is being said here is the product of bad information", she said.
The head of the PNCAZ recognised the need to resume communication and mentioned a series of opportunities for the incorporation of the Kichwa people in the management of the Park: starting a process of participatory, informed and transparent meetings to define how to work together with the communities; participatory monitoring; participation in the Management Committee of the ANP as a space for free approach; the generation of Conservation Agreements; and participation in the process of updating the Park's Master Plan.
"The reality is that the Park will continue to be a neighbour of Puerto Franco. Therefore, we have to think about the future (...) We have to restore a series of mutual distrust", concluded the director of CIMA.
In response to these proposals from the PNCAZ representatives to improve relations and involve the Kichwa population more, Puerto Franco acknowledged this disposition and affirmed that it will remain alert and vigilant.
Finally, CEPKA remarked that the indigenous organisation and its grassroots communities will remain vigilant and watchful to advocate for a more inclusive conservation model that respects the rights of indigenous peoples, as it is time for the representatives of the State and CIMA to embrace this more equitable paradigm.
"It's been 20 years, why do they only want to involve the native communities now, why just recently the federations, why didn't they do that earlier? It is a way of making fun of the fact that they have just said that it is time to involve the native communities and federations, have we just been born? are we just getting organized? are we just taking a position in these areas as indigenous people? No, brothers. No, we are not. We started years and years ago and they are not going to tell us that they are just going to involve us. What does this make me think? That just after the legal demand we have made, they are afraid of us and say that now they are going to incorporate us (...) If they don't comply with what they are saying, we will insist with more legal demands" Apu Reogildo Amasifuen, president of CEPKA.
Overview
- Resource Type:
- News
- Publication date:
- 17 November 2021
- Region:
- Peru
- Programmes:
- Conservation and human rights
- Partners:
- Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL) Consejo Étnico de los Pueblos Kichwa de la Amazonia (CEPKA)
- Translations:
- Spanish: Comunidad Kichwa Puerto Franco exige una conservación con pleno respecto de sus derechos