The expansion of palm monoculture threatens indigenous leaders in Peru

The Peruvian State is aggressively promoting the implementation of the “Plan Nacional de Promoción de la Palma Aceitera 2000 – 2010” (National Plan for the Promotion of Oil Palm 2000 - 2010). The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MINAGRI), for example, states that “in the Peruvian jungle there are more than 600,000 hectares that have the potential to grow oil palm”. Doubt, however, remains as to where those 600,000 hectares are located, how such potential is to be exploited, and with what environmental management tools. In our case, this action is directly affecting the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, which has traditionally occupied some of the land.

The aim of FECONAU's European tour with Sedequias Ancon Chavez, a representative of AIDESEP, also based in Peru, was to highlight the impacts of the agribusiness sector on our villages and our forests in order to inform decision makers in the European Union and each individual European country. The tour included meetings with several Members of the European Parliament, technical staff of the European Commission and representatives of different German and British government departments. In London our activities included a visit to the financial district.

This tour has marked a historic milestone in the struggle of indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, as well as the struggle of other countries such as Liberia, Indonesia and Colombia, which were also represented by delegations during these meetings. This space has served to showcase the systematic infringement of our collective rights, including the land rights recognised by ILO Convention 169 and the various international human rights instruments, which have constitutional status in Peru.

The meetings held with various European organisations and authorities have been very important for conveying our message about the serious situation of violence and deforestation afflicting indigenous territories to the European community.

The Peruvian State and its public institutions, such as the agricultural agencies, allow a system of corruption and land grabbing which enables acquisition of large tracts of land by palm oil companies. This is the case of the indigenous Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, located in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon, whose ancestral lands and customary laws have been violated by Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC, one of the companies registered in Peru with connections to a complex corporate network, allegedly controlled by businessman Dennis Melka and collectively known in Peru as the Melka Group1. The network includes United Cacao Ltd, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

After our tour around Europe, where we also filed a formal complaint with the London Stock Exchange requesting the exclusion of United Cacao Ltd, on May 26 FECONAU filed a legal action for infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms before the Court of Ucayali with the support of IDL – the Peruvian Legal Defence Institute (Instituto de Defensa Legal) – and FPP. In it, FECONAU requested measures to protect the territory of the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, also demanding palm oil company Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC to restore the environmental and cultural damages caused.

Our message is also addressed to the members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO); we ask them to apply the maximum penalty to Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC for following illegal practices that violate human rights, action that would also enable the RSPO to retain its institutional prestige in the international arena.

The recent death threats that the community authorities have been receiving, particularly Mr Washington Bolívar Díaz, a local indigenous activist, and the members of FECONAU come clearly from land dealers. Therefore, we reiterate the urgent need to protect and secure land titles for the 20 million hectares of ancestral territories occupied by our ancestors for thousands of years so that they are recognised by the Peruvian State. We demand that events like the murder of Edwin Chota and the three leaders of the Ashaninka community of Saweto, which took place in December 2014, never happen again.

Such events clearly show the State’s failure to comply with its obligations related to the promotion of sustainable development in the Amazon and the promotion of biodiversity, because the State’s indifference to the activities that plunder, deplete and exploit the environment and cause the destruction of the Amazon are in breach of the principles enshrined in the Constitution. 

Finally we must take special care because mining activities promoted by the World Bank, the Andean Development Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank and other financial institutions promote so-called “green” projects that create perverse incentives. These international interventions end up encouraging bad practices and promoting infrastructure and agribusiness development mega projects in violation of our legitimate rights to our territories and forests. These threats highlight the importance of articulating the coordination between all the actors to uphold peoples’ rights and achieve better land management results, among other points.

By Robert Guimaraes Vásquez, President of FECONAU, delegate from Peru

1. Environmental Investigation Agency. 2015. Deforestation by Definition; The Peruvian government fails to define forests as forests, while palm oil expansion and the Malaysian influence threaten the Amazon, pp-23-23