Victory for Indigenous Peoples of Ucayali against oil extraction on their ancestral lands in Block 200

Indigenous peoples of the Ucayali region have secured a victory against oil and gas extraction in Block 200. After long years of struggle against its imposition and in the face of a very poor consultation process with serious violations of Indigenous rights, they succeeded in getting CEPSA Peru to withdraw from the operation. The Indigenous Peoples will remain vigilant and will fight for the cancellation of the oil block.
At the end of March, the Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Affluents (FECONAU) received a communication from Perupetro indicating that CEPSA Peru, a subsidiary of the Spanish oil company Compañía Española de Petróleos, which sought to operate in Block 200, had decided to withdraw.
Perupetro, the state company in charge of issuing contracts for the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in Peru, communicated to FECONAU that "due to the fact that the process of Prior Consultation, in charge of the General Direction of Social Management of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM), had not made significant progress, the Contractor interested in signing the License Contract for Block 200, expressed its decision not to continue with the procedures for the approval of said Contract, having to stop any possible continuation of the process of Prior Consultation in the referred Block". Therefore, the consultation process has also ended.
This is undoubtedly a great achievement for the Indigenous Peoples of Ucayali who for years have resisted the imposition of this oil lot, as well as a very poor consultation process with serious violations of Indigenous rights carried out by Perupetro. The most significant criticisms of the process were:
- The Peruvian State's refusal to obtain Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as required by international law, which protects Indigenous Peoples and affected communities, so that they can have a binding voice in the fate of the extractive project. This resulted in a prior consultation process that challenged the most basic principles of transparency and good faith.
- Insisting on consulting the draft supreme decree that would approve the licence contract for hydrocarbons exploration and exploitation in Block 200 and not the content of the contract itself, i.e. a biased consultation with information delivered half-heartedly, resulting in a lack of technical information on the project and its real impacts on local rights and livelihoods.
- Failure to invite all affected communities to the process: MINEM and the Ministry of Culture (MINCU) considered only 11 Indigenous communities of the Asháninka, Shipibo-Konibo and Awajún peoples, while the Indigenous organisations consistently argued that there were 13 communities within the area of influence of the block.
- The lack of a truly intercultural working methodology and the lack of Indigenous translators.
- At the end of 2019, MINEM delegated to Perupetro the implementation of the Prior Consultation Plan for the block. Despite the fact that it is the General Office of Social Management (OGGS) of MINEM that implements and conducts the Ministry’s consultation processes, for Block 200 it ended up being done by a State company with an unquestionable profit-driven logic that generates a very questionable bias about the process.
- Despite facing the Indigenous organisations’ questioning of the consultation process, the Peruvian State showed little political will to restructure the process and restart it at the third stage, which would have involved more transparency and information-sharing; this would have effectively entailed a new Prior Consultation Plan and the inclusion of all the affected Indigenous communities.
"Block 200 has been a key issue for FECONAU and from the organic structure of the Indigenous movement we support and will continue to support this process. CEPSA has decided not to continue. But it has not been of their own will, but rather as the result of the strong demands of the Indigenous organisations, especially because there was no real prior consultation in the first place. They have been trying to use individuals to say that the consultation had already taken place. FECONAU has been very forceful in saying that this consultation was invalid. Thanks to the firm position of the affected communities and Indigenous organisations, the process has not continued. The company is withdrawing and the Indigenous organisations are going to remain cautious, looking after the collective interests of the communities so that we are not surprised again by companies whose only aim is to extract resources and leave contamination behind", apu Miguel Guimaraes, vice-president of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP).
As is known, the area of influence of Block 200 covers 447,126.5 hectares in the provinces of Padre Abad and Coronel Portillo in the Ucayali region and the province of Puerto Inca in the Huanuco region, affecting 13 Indigenous communities, including San Salvador, Nuevo San Juan, Shambo Porvenir, Santa Clara de Uchunya, San Francisco, Nuevo Egipto, Santa Clara, San José de Tunuya, Santa Lucía, Puerto Frimeza, Panaillo, Santa Teresita de Cashibococha and Kantash.
The resistance to Block 200 also involved several years of internal dialogue between the affected communities and also reflections on the fate of other hydrocarbon extraction projects in the Loreto or Amazon region, where other Shipibo communities and other peoples have experienced oil spills that have devastated life in forests, streams, lakes and beaches. Likewise, the lessons of these prior consultation processes, which have been poorly carried out and in an asymmetry of power for real decision-making, allow us to reflect on attempts to turn the exercise of this fundamental right into a mere bureaucratic procedure that allows for the regularisation of the granting of rights to third parties over Indigenous territories, for commercial purposes under the justification of being in the national interest and in favour of conventional development.
"As a result of the visits we have made, the communities have stated that their territories are being affected and that natural resources are being taken away from them, by the very fact of oil exploration and exploitation. Furthermore, they have raised the impacts such as oil spills that we have already seen in other Amazonian regions", apu Rolando Escobar Chávez, vice-president of FECONAU.
As a result of these irregularities in the prior consultation process, the Indigenous organisations representing the affected communities, meeting in the city of Pucallpa in March 2022, decided to abandon the process. Faced with CEPSA Peru's decision to desist from operating Block 200, the Indigenous peoples of the Ucayali region have announced that they will remain vigilant and do not rule out legal action to demand the cancellation of the entire Block and prevent the arrival of other interested companies, with different names, but with the same predatory and extractivist logic, and thus restart the whole process of violation of rights in complicity with the Peruvian State.
"We must always remain vigilant, because the State is not just going to stand by. I think that this is a victory for the Shipibo-Konibo people, but on the other hand I feel that CEPSA is pressuring and testing the State for its capacity to negotiate with the people. As Block 200 is of national interest, the State is not going to remain still. We, the Indigenous communities, the federation and in alliance with ORAU and AIDESEP, intend to cancel the oil lot so that other private companies do not come and try to occupy our territory", apu Rolando Escobar Chávez, vice-president of FECONAU.
Overview
- Resource Type:
- Press Releases
- Publication date:
- 18 May 2022
- Region:
- Peru
- Programmes:
- Supply Chains and Trade Law and Policy Reform Global Finance Territorial Governance Culture and Knowledge Conservation and human rights
- Partners:
- Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP) Organización Regional de AIDESEP-Ucayali (ORAU) Federacíon de Comunidades Nativas del Ucayali y Afluentes (FECONAU)
- Translations:
- Spanish: Victoria de los pueblos indígenas de Ucayali frente a la extracción petrolera de tierras indígenas en el Lote 200