Press release: Writ of amparo filed for protection from forest concessions that threaten isolated peoples in Peru
The Regional Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the East (ORPIO) filed a constitutional writ of amparo before the Superior Court of Justice of Loreto to protect peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact (PIACI).
The writ, filed on Friday, July 17 is addressed against the Regional Management of Forest Development and Wildlife (GERFOR) and the Regional Government of Loreto (GOREL) for promoting a forest reactivation plan that would affect PIACI.
Both institutions announced the reactivation of forest concessions that overlap four indigenous reserves in the process of being created: Yavarí Tapiche, Yavarí Mirim, Napo Tigre and Sierra del Divisor Occidental.
The writ has the legal and technical support from the Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), Forest Peoples Program (FPP), Rainforest Foundation Norway, and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
Direct Threats and Vulnerability
The reactivation plan is framed under the D.S. Nº 080-2020-PCM that seeks to resume extractive activity without considering the highly vulnerable situation of PIACI, whose immune system is vulnerable to external diseases.
The occupation of indigenous reserves requested in favour of isolated peoples, which also have reports or supreme decrees through which the State recognises their existence, puts these peoples at risk of infection by COVID-19 and it is a threat to their lives and their continued existence as communities.
Forest extraction alters the living conditions of PIACI in the following ways:
- Logging activities require brigades of more than 10 people, so when they invade PIACI territory, there is a greater probability of unwanted contact and the spread of lethal diseases.
- The presence of foreign groups inside the reserves causes the PIACI to flee prematurely, abandoning their houses, altering their displacement routes, exploiting forest products and facing conflicts and confrontations.
- The noise of chainsaws and tractors, the presence of strangers, hunting activities and the use of shotguns that accompany the felling, scare away the animals in the bush that feed the isolated villages.
- Competition is generated between loggers and isolated peoples for food from the forest.
- The occupation, deforestation, degradation and contamination of the forest and rivers, caused by extractive activities, results in the destruction of isolated peoples’ resources.
Certain and Imminent Threat
The threat that inactive forest concessions will be reactivated, or that new forest concessions will be superimposed on the PIACI territory, is certain and imminent, and it has background.
For example, during 2016 and 2017 – after Law No. 29763 and its regulations came into force- the Regional Forest and Wildlife Authority of the Loreto Regional Government, illegally granted 43 forest concessions in the requested indigenous reserves that are in the process of being created Yavarí Tapiche and Yavarí Mirim, in the region of Loreto.
They also ignored the requests from the Ministry of Culture and the Ombudsman that were sent to GOREL in the last four years (2017-2020). Requests asking to cancel the illegal forest concessions that have been operating illegally within the territory of the PIACI and which are now seeking to be reactivated in violation of forestry and human rights regulations and seriously endangering the lives of peoples in isolation.
Request to The Judge
ORPIO asks the judge to order GOREL and GERFOR not to grant or reactivate forest concessions that overlap the requested indigenous reserves in favor of isolated peoples and to not apply article 1 of DS 080-2020-PCM that resumes forest activities in the reserves.
Likewise, for forest concessions or forest extraction units not to be granted, reactivated, created or established in areas in process for the establishment of indigenous reserves in favor of the peoples in isolation.
Contacts
Spokesperson: Jorge Pérez Rubio (ORPIO): +51 947 820 830
Legal advice: Maritza Quispe (IDL): +51 997-598906
Additional images
Overview
- Resource Type:
- Press Releases
- Publication date:
- 21 July 2020
- Region:
- Peru
- Programmes:
- Supply Chains and Trade Territorial Governance Culture and Knowledge Conservation and human rights
- Partners:
- Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL)
- Translations:
- Spanish: Nota de prensa: Presentan demanda de amparo contra concesiones forestales que ponen en riesgo a pueblos en aislamiento