Peruvian Community Wins Historic Victory - Legal Title to 1,500 Hectares of Land Finally Registered in Their Name

 14 May, 2022. Pucallpa, Peru.

After decades of struggle, the Indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya made history today as they formally registered 1,544.2025 hectares of their ancestral lands under their name. This is the first time a land title extension has been completed for the community.  

 

"I feel calm, after so many years of fighting for my people,” said Luisa Mori, member of the board of directors of Santa Clara de Uchunya.  

“I feel proud to achieve this property title, to see the titling of the community,” she said. 

“I leave this land to my children and grandchildren. We have suffered and fought to gain this title.” 

 

The formal ceremony, held at the Pucallpa zonal headquarters of the National Superintendence of Public Registries (SUNARP), was attended by members of the community's board of directors, the municipal agent and the lieutenant governor. They were also accompanied by representatives of the Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Affluents (FECONAU) and the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), as well as the Legal Defence Institute (IDL) and Forest Peoples Programme (FPP). 

 

"I would like to thank the former leaders of the community and of the federation who started and lived through this struggle, and also the community because the struggle has not been easy, but they kept fighting and kept fighting,” said apu Graciela Reategui, president of FECONAU. 

“The struggle has ended in good hands. I also thank the Public Registries who did their job. I am very happy as president of FECONAU,” said Reategui. 

 

In 2015, faced with the continuous invasion of their territory by land traffickers associated with the palm oil company Plantaciones de Pucallpa (whose plantation is today operated by Ocho Sur), the community submitted a request for a land title extension to the Regional Directorate of Agriculture (DRAU) of the Regional Government of Ucayali , in light of the serious damage to their forests that affected their livelihoods. Seven years later, the formal procedure for the community’s territorial extension and entry into public registers has been completed. A second extension request, for the entirety of the community’s ancestral territory, is still pending at the DRAU. 

 

“This community is a symbol of struggle, an emblematic community that, without having many resources, has confronted a very large company such as Ocho Sur, which to this day continues to create division within the community," said Miguel Guimaraes, Shipibo leader and vice-president of AIDESEP.

 

Santa Clara de Uchunya's struggle to legally secure its ancestral territory has been going on for decades. In 1986, it received a title deed for just 218.52 hectares, the area where the community's homes were located. Other applications for the extension of the recognised area of their territory have been submitted from 1996 to the present day.  

 

"It is a historic day for Santa Clara de Uchunya and the indigenous organisations that have supported this struggle, this process.” said Guimaraes.

“For the community this is very important as now they can work internally and in a more organised way, generating their own economies on this registered territory,” he said. 

 

Santa Clara de Uchunya and the regional and national indigenous movement undoubtedly welcome the registration of the property title in favour of the community, although it is still only 2% of their total lands. Recognition of the rest of their ancestral territory remains an unfulfilled obligation for the Peruvian State. 

Background and Quotes  

Community land titling in Peru is a long and complex process 

The registration of land title deeds in the Public Registry is the last phase in the physical-legal formalisation process for Indigenous communities to secure tenure over their collective territories in Peru. Keeping in perspective the long process and the efforts and struggles of the community and their representative organisations, there is undoubtedly a race against the continuing legal insecurity of collective territories that results in cycles of violence and threats to those who fight for the just recognition of their fundamental rights. Santa Clara de Uchunya is no stranger to this, and has even had to resort to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to obtain precautionary measures in its favour and force the State to confront the threats related to the expansion of oil palm monocultures in the region.

This was already mentioned by the IACHR in 2000, in the Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Peru, where it described the land titling procedure as "lengthy and reiterative", whereby "excessive legal rigour [...] ends up harming the interested parties". It is also worth remembering that, of nine projects with the goal of titling 719 communities in the last decade in the country, by December 2020, only 20% (147) of the communities have been titled and registered in the Public Registry. 

Shipibo versus Shipibo: Ocho Sur continues its attempts to break the social fabric of Santa Clara de Uchunya. 

A palm oil-coloured metal gate had already been installed a year ago at the access to the communal territory. Although this measure was justified to control the passage of trucks during the rainy season, the premonition feared by the defenders of Santa Clara de Uchunya’s territory came true: the access to their homes would be closed day and night by the interests of a palm oil company. 

On 15 May, the community was organising the commemoration of the historic registration of their land titling, together with supportive regional and national indigenous movements. At the same time, members of the current board of directors of Santa Clara de Uchunya, communal authorities and even the community members themselves ended up being prevented from accessing to their own homes. 

They spent five hours under the sun seeking dialogue with a faction of the community, which, without considering why, had been placed as an entrance guard by the Ocho Sur group. The group’s press officials did not miss the opportunity to generate a pernicious narrative in their favour; that it was the whole community that was preventing access. After the company truck had left, the dialogue progressed and the commission of the indigenous movement and community members went to the community venue to talk, as well as hand over and celebrate the land title registration documents received the day before from the National Superintendence of Public Registers.  

The celebration of the registration of the title was twofold: both on Saturday 14 at the SUNARP premises in Pucallpa and on Sunday 15 May in the community, but it is regrettable that this time Ocho Sur did not confine itself to protecting its oil palm plantation in the Tibecocha estate imposed on the ancestral forests of Santa Clara de Uchunya, but instead sought to control the very access to the community's village, evidencing its practices of fomenting division within the community as a social policy subordinated to its economic interests. 

Further quotes  

Carlos Hoyos, leader of the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya: 

 

"I am really very grateful. Today is applaudable and fills us with joy. For 47 years we have lived within 218 hectares, but today we have really surpassed that. We have now registered the 1,544 hectares that will be favourable for the community. We are a community that conserves what is ours and we know how to generate our resources from the forests without cutting them down, without felling them, without polluting our environment. This is really what the community has been demanding... I am very happy and excited because we have achieved our goal.” 

 

Luisa Mori, member of the board of directors of Santa Clara de Uchunya: 

 

"I feel calm, after so many years of fighting for my people, I feel proud to achieve this property title, to see the titling of the community. This will remain in history, and for my children, who will be happy to have achieved this title. I have fought thinking, from the heart, to see once again our territory. I have never let myself be bought, because money runs out and won't help me. But that can end. I leave the territory to my children and grandchildren. There is their territory! We have suffered and fought to achieve this title. I want them, the young men and women,to continue in the future, that is the most important thing, more leaders who feel from the heart, and who will not give up the struggle.” 

 

Apu Miguel Guimaraes, vice-president of AIDESEP: 

 

"It is a historic day for Santa Clara de Uchunya and the indigenous organisations that have supported this struggle, this process. It has taken seven years to reach this achievement. For the community this is very important, as it allows them to have their territory legally secured and now to work internally and in a more organised way, generating their own economies on this registered territory. This community is a symbol of struggle, an emblematic community that, without having many resources, has confronted a very large company such as Ocho Sur, which to this day continues to create division within the community. But this achievement is the result of a joint effort and we see as a result the registration of the title of approximately 1,544 hectares that will be very useful to the community for its own development.” 

 

James Lozano, lieutenant governor of Santa Clara de Uchunya: 

 

“Today is a very special day, 14 May, and this issue is very exciting. Finally, after 8 years of struggle, we’re seeing progress on a major issue, our fight against land-trafficking and illegal logging of the community's ancestral territories. For example, today we have finally manafed to secure afirst part of the community’s territory, a title covering more than 1,500 hectares. Perhaps this does not amount to all that we asked for from the DRAU and all the State entities, but it is nevertheless an achievement through partners and our federations of Indigenous communities that have always represented us internationally and within Peru. It has been a great concern and now an achievement for Santa Clara de Uchunya, after 8 years of struggle. As lieutenant governor I have fought against land trafficking, I have been shot at in the struggle, but I continue. Maybe we have exchanged words, but today is a good day, a good fight. All of this highlights our cooperation with IDL, FECONAU, AIDESEP, and all our allied brothers and sisters who have been in our community.” 

 

Lino Arevalo, Municipal Agent of the Community of Santa Clara de Uchunya: 

 

"With this achievement of the community I feel at ease, we have been vindicated because we have been fighting for 8 years for the land title. Thanks to IDL, thanks to the federations, thanks to the community members, to the women, men and children who came to fight with us.” 

 

Additional notes 

• At a court hearing on 9 March 2022, Judge Víctor Zúñiga Urday of the Fourth National Preparatory Investigation Court in Lima declared as well-founded the Public Prosecutor's request to include the companies Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC (the company which previously operated the oil palm plantation now owned by the Ocho Sur group) and Ocho Sur P SAC in criminal proceedings against Dennis Melka and 30 others accused of committing environmental crimes, in the form of crimes against forests, to the detriment of the Indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya and the Peruvian State. 

• International buyers of the Ocho Sur group’s palm oil in Asia and Europe include Bunge Loders Croklaan, Lasenor Emul, Lípidos Santiga, S.A. (Lipsa) Louis Dreyfus Company, Meiji Group, Nisshin Oillio, Vandemoortele NV. All of these buyers are RSPO members.  

• In December 2021, Bunge Loders Croklaan brought a grievance against Ocho Sur in response to public denunciation of the company’s continuing violations of the territorial rights of Santa Clara de Uchunya and the large-scale deforestation for oil palm conversion. Bunge is currently monitoring this grievance.