"These are not just concerns, they are violations of our rights" Kichwa leaders demand that the Cordillera Azul National Park is removed from the IUCN Green List.

The meeting began with the presentation of the representatives of the IUCN, Indigenous organisations and technical accompaniment. Wiler Saurin, vice-president of CODEPISAM, mentioned the systematic violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples, emphasising the intervention by the IUCN which considered the meeting as a space to address "concerns" surrounding the Park:

 

"I will start by saying that these are not concerns: they are violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples' rights have been systematically violated. The PNCAZ was born violating the rights of the native communities of Bajo Huallaga.

"The native communities have existed since before the colonial period, before the conquest of Peruvian territory. The ILO's own committee of experts in application and recommendation has expressly pointed out, in its interpretation of article 1, to take note of the figures used for the recognition of legal personality and its respective registration. It recalled the principle of recognition of a pre-existing reality so that the procedure is declaratory and not constitutive. We are therefore surprised that SERNANP has now stated, in a request for information, that there are no native communities, which is false, since we are here....

"Even in studies from 1851, you go to the National Library and read about the existence of the Kichwa people of the Lower Huallaga. The wise man Raymondi in 1858 reported that all the information regarding this valley was indigenous. The SERNANP cannot deny history, the anthropological studies that predate the Republic...".

 

In this sense, the leader pointed out the lack of consultation and free, prior and informed consent in the creation of the Park, and the subsequent refusal of SERNANP to recognise the Kichwa communities:

 

"I refuse as a leader to accept what Mr. Quijandría says that "it is a concern of ours." Under this premise, the PNCAZ has been created without respecting our right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent, despite the fact that, in accordance with what has been stated by the Constitutional Court in various rulings, the enforceability of prior consultation is linked to the entry into force of Convention 169 in our national legal system, as it is of a constitutional nature.

"Therefore, it is not true what SERNANP says that they were not obliged to consult. The obligation to consult has existed since 1995. That is why for the communities of Bajo Huallaga and Puerto Franco, the creation of the PNCAZ violates our rights. It is not a concern, it is a violation of our rights.

"We do not want a breakdown of order. If they do not listen to our demands, we, the native peoples who have made traditional and customary use of our territories, will have to make decisions.

"We do not surround the park, the park has been created within the ancestral territory. We can demonstrate it anthropologically and traditionally, with our paths. We invite you to go around, so that you do not say that it is a concern, but that you are convinced that it is an attack on Indigenous rights".

 

Thirteen months ago, through the IUCN complaints mechanism, the Kichwa people sent an alert demanding that the PNCAZ cease to be considered part of the Green List, basing their request on the profound human rights violations that had occurred. In May 2022, the Kichwa organisations received a brief response in which there was no concrete response to the Kichwa’s request to remove the Park. In July, national organisation AIDESEP alerted the IUCN again in a space articulated by the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). The rejection of the PNCAZ’s inclusion on the Green List had already been made public on several occasions, such as in the declaration of Indigenous organisations and in the public demonstration in the city of Tarapoto in June of this year.

In this regard, Roberto Tapullima, leader and part of FEPIKBHSAM’s technical team, said:

 

“"Now the Park is trying to respond by overstepping the regular channels. They are violating transparency, how are they going to say they are acting with transparency if they bypass the regular channels and go to the most vulnerable places? These are not simple concerns, they do not take into account our concerns or our discomfort, they simply hold talks. We have the capacity to make decisions. What we want is for the park to be removed from the Green List."

 

Likewise, representatives of FEPIKECHA emphasised the violations experienced by the communities and the right to free, prior and informed consultation, as well as the due process of transparency for climate solution mechanisms. The president, Wilger Apagueño, said:

 

"The context is one of violation and rights abuses. Gentlemen of the IUCN, we ask for respect for the Kichwa communities. They should have been taken into account before the creation itself. We are very concerned because there is no transparency: we had to go to the Transparency Tribunal to get information. I ask that our demands be met."

 

The federation's secretary of minutes, Marisol García, questioned the mechanisms of supposed climate solutions, in which the Kichwa people have not been consulted or invited to participate, despite the fact that they are being installed on their territories. And the worrying fact that the PNCAZ has been awarded a place on the Green List:

 

"There has been a REDD+ project since 2008, with an estimated 84 million dollars. And they have only recently appeared to approach the Indigenous peoples with a little rice and a few footballs. We, the Kichwa people, gentlemen, do not have access to the administration and management of the park. Doesn't this violate rights, does it deserve to be on the Green List, and why wasn't there a discussion with all the actors at the time?

"We men and women are the ones who are going to do the territorial patrolling. It takes us months to do the patrolling. How much have SERNANP and CIMA come to do this work, gentlemen?

"Simply in their offices and from their deskchairs they have just made a lot of money at the expense of Indigenous peoples. Before they recognised Indigenous peoples on their Green List, they should have spoken first and not have objectives that exclude them... How can you (IUCN) be accomplices of a mafia, of forest trafficking, gentlemen? Because that's how we see it.

"They say that we are dangerous for conservation: that is discrimination. They say there are mechanisms with carbon credits to stop the climate crisis, but they are selling to companies that pollute in other parts of the world. We are not going to allow them to use us!

"We are the ones who take care of the territory, what are we talking about? The carbon credits are a trick because they are not stopping pollution, we are tired of begging for them. They discriminate against us for making claims. Enough of this complicity with the Peruvian state. It is not possible...

"We want to be part of the administration of the Park's resources, today they deny us free access to the Park, and a park ranger cannot be above an entire people.

 

Isidro Sangama, vice-president of CEPKA and leader of CODEPISAM, went into more detail about the pernicious limitations that the Park brings to the ancestral territory:

 

"The PNCAZ has not even allowed us to enter our territory. Today, we can no longer enter, nor can we enter for our traditional ancestral medicine. They make us fight with the rangers themselves.

"In my situation, I know first-hand the birth of the Park. In 2000, the Park's technicians told us that we were not a native community, that we were a hamlet, so that we have ordinary laws, without taking into account ILO Convention 169.

"They are trying to deny us native communities because they are not recognised... That is why we are asking IUCN to remove the Park from the Green List".

 

Lawyer Cristina Gavancho, legal advisor to CODEPISAM, mentioned:

 

"No area that does not recognise the communities can be awarded. This meeting is being held in response to specific requests, and they have asked for the PNCAZ to be removed from the Green List. There is a serious lack of transparency regarding the resources that come from the carbon markets."

"The Kichwa federations have had to resort to the Transparency Tribunal to find out about the carbon credit contracts. Letters were sent to SERNANP, letters were sent to CIMA, which to begin with they did not hand over, and only when the Court ordered the release of the information did they release the information. For all these reasons, the IUCN has to communicate at this meeting whether or not to maintain the PNCAZ."

 

Roberto Espinoza, from AIDESEP's technical team, urged the IUCN that the alert presented by the Kichwa should be dealt with seriously and as a growing conflict, and not with procedural technocratic steps, as this is a serious mistake and could get out of hand.

 

"A conflict cannot have procedural or technocratic responses. That these are lessons learned, that we are at point 1.1 and that we are going to 1.3. That's easy to say. A lot of mistakes have been made and there has been a lack of due diligence.

"Who certifies the certifiers? Have they gone to the field to talk to the Kichwa? The context is open. IUCN cannot disengage by pointing out that it is a standard that needs to be improved and so on.

"We have a deep mistrust in Peru. More than 84 million dollars weigh politically, economically. SERNANP is involved and is not at this meeting. We reiterate the request for IUCN to have a form of rapid and timely intervention, not a procedural one of going to another year where the conflict will become more entrenched. There must be an independent audit process by Indigenous organisations to accompany this process.

"This issue of the Green List has been manipulated since the beginning of the process. And not only since the Green List, but since the creation of the Park. And when IUCN says that they have nothing to do with the creation of the Park, of course they have to do with it! How can you certify that something that was born wrong is efficient based on the criteria of the Green List? They missed the point!

"And be careful because it would be a very serious process to say that Prior Consultation in Peru does not apply until 2011.... There are many things at stake regarding the rights of the Kichwa people that have repercussions for other peoples... What is the fairness (of the REDD+ Project) that gives little footballs to a community? That is an insult to Indigenous dignity".

Roberto also questioned, "The lack of respect for territorial rights and equity in carbon benefits, which are two complementary points to the Green List. If it falls off the Green List, the 84 million dollar contract falls off. How are SERNANP and the national political power going to react?"

 

In view of these facts and historical claims, the IUCN stated that:

• The alert of the Kichwa people to the IUCN for having awarded the PNCAZ on the Green List is still valid and under evaluation.
• They accept the invitation to go to the San Martin region for the intermediate evaluation process of the PNCAZ on the Green List, specifically in the locality of Chazuta. This would be before September.
• To build a case study of protected areas on Indigenous peoples, specifically on the Cordillera Azul National Park.

In view of this, the Kichwa leaders stated that they are continuing their struggle to demand that the IUCN exclude the PNCAZ from the Green List, so that it does not continue to reward a protected natural area created without consent and which operates without transparency. It is in the hands of the IUCN to remedy a historic mistake and to embrace once and for all a conservation paradigm with Indigenous peoples as the primary actors.