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Global Mobilization for Indigenous Peoples: the story from Peru

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by annied in rainforests

Today is the Day for Indigenous People and Mother Earth,  activist Aliya Ryan writes about her experience in the Peruvian Amazon and highlights how politics, land rights, and carbon trading schemes intertwine:

Most people in the West would be horrified by what is going on in the name of ‘national development’ in Latin America:   in Peru, the violence last week in Ecuador against the Shuar protestors, massacres of Awa communities in Colombia, and the very worrying situation in Paraguay where the Ayoreo people are living in voluntary isolation due to a cattle ranching land dispute.  There is huge risk in terms of carbon trading offset schemes and avoided deforestation schemes. These may seem like a very important step on the way to tackling climate change, but it is important to remember that unless indigenous land rights are secured, there is very little to indicate that such projects, saturated as they will no doubt become with billions and billions of dollars, will be any different to other mega-projects occurring on indigenous lands.

It is with great dismay that I have witnessed the results of mega-projects in Latin America.  For the Channel 4 documentary series Unreported World, I travelled with “Blood and Oil” journalist Ramita Navai and director Alex Nott into Achuar lands in Northern Peru to look at the impacts of petrol exploitation and understand the context in which the violence happened. They then travelled on to Bagua and Nieva where the violence broke out, to speak to indigenous peoples who had been directly involved.

I was there last summer when Lima’s little bubble suddenly burst with violence on June 5th: people who before June 5th could probably not even name one of Peru’s Amazonian indigenous peoples (there are over 40), talking about the Awajun, the Wampis and the Ashaninka on the street.

Within Peru there is a great lack of education about the Amazon and indigenous peoples. Without real education and interest, it is very hard for important issues regarding indigenous peoples to be heard and responded to with empathy and sympathy in Lima. For years the State discourse about the Amazon has been that it is a vast and empty resource-filled forest, there to make the rest of the country rich with rubber, timber, gold, petrol and now oxygen. Portrayals of indigenous people (if they are even mentioned at all) have typically been that they are poor and uneducated and need to be civilized and ‘developed’.

When I asked Achuar leader Jorge Fachin why territory and land are important he told me,  “As an Achuar, born and bred, I know that our territory is important given that we develop, both physically and spiritually, because of it. Why physically? Because there exist the animals, fish, air, water and fruits which have fed me, enabling me to grow up since childhood. And why spiritually? Because it is where my being was shaped; where I learnt about Achuar culture; where I have fasted and received visions. That is why the territory we live in is so important to us. And we must look after it and leave it intact for future generations.” (Wijint, June 2007)

Education has to start at school, but there is a lot that can be done to capture the interest and imagination of people in Lima by introducing them to less politicized visions of the Amazon. Between the 15th and the 25th of October, Lima will be host to Amo-Amazonia, a cultural festival aimed at celebrating the cultural and biological diversity of the Amazon in Peru’s capital. There will be a film festival, photographic exhibitions, concerts, exhibitions of arts and material culture, academic talks, street performances, and food festival. This is the first event of its kind, and many NGOs, cultural centres, artists and others have become involved in what we hope will become an annual event in Peru, across Amazonian countries in Latin America, and perhaps internationally.

Aliya Ryan fell in love with the Amazon rainforest whilst traveling in South America in 1999, and moved to Peru in 2002 after completing a degree in Social Anthropology. There, with friends, she helped found the indigenous rights organization Shinai, working with indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon.

Over the last six years she has worked with the Nahua, Matsigenka and Achuar peoples and gas exploration on issues including illegal logging, oil and gas exploration and territory management. She also ran campaigns defending the rights of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.

Aliya has produced articles, reports and maps on indigenous land rights issues and is currently co-authoring a book about the Achuar and their relationship with their ancestral territory. Aliya left Peru at the end of 2008, but still involved in indigenous rights issues in Peru and Latin America. (bio & photo courtesy of Sophia Hill)

Tags: activism, Amazon, biodiversity, climate refugees, environment refugees, forestry, habitats, indigenous peoples, Peru, politics, rainforest