Concerns about the impacts of oil projects on indigenous
rights in NE Peru - responses by Perenco, Repsol
Rory Carroll
The Guardian, Saturday 4 July 2009
Brother Paul and the fight for the Peruvian rainforest
Stand on the muddy riverbank at Copal Urco just before dawn
and it is easy to see why the Amazon breeds legends. The vast river swishes
past, almost invisible in the gloom. Insect and animal noises seep from the
dense blackness of the forest. The day barely begun and already humid. As the
sun rises the blackness recedes, revealing massive, tightly packed trees. Even
when the light hardens it fails to penetrate far inside the jungle. The foliage
is too thick, a wall sealing off an impenetrable realm.
Here is where fables begin. Anacondas the length of 10 men;
ancient stone cities filled with treasure; spirits who answer a whistle; white
tribes descended from conquistador shipwrecks. The stories have tantalised for
centuries but the one that endures is that of uncontacted tribes - isolated
communities of nomads who live deep in the forest much as their ancestors have
done for millennia, cut off from the modern world.
To the village of Copal Urco, home to a few hundred
indigenous Kichwa farmers and fishermen near Peru's border with Ecuador,
uncontacted tribes are no myth. They themselves were uncontacted once, until
European missionaries and soldiers sailed up their river, and they say such
groups still live deeper in their forest. Some are thought to have had brief
contact with outsiders decades ago during the rubber boom but then, frightened
or repulsed, retreated. They have mostly covered their tracks since, says Roger
Yume, 38, the village apu, or chief. "We have seen the signs."
Footprints, tracks through foliage, occasional glimpses of fleeting figures -
there is no doubt. "They exist. Our brothers exist."
Not everyone agrees. The existence of uncontacted tribes in
Brazil and Ecuador is accepted, but Peru's government has ridiculed the notion
of such communities in its part of the Amazon. President Alan Garcia says the
"figure of the jungle native" is a ruse to prevent oil exploration.
Daniel Saba, former head of the state oil company, is even more scornful.
"It's absurd to say there are uncontacted peoples when no one has seen
them. So, who are these uncontacted tribes people are talking about?"
It is an urgent question. Peru, home to 70m hectares of
Amazon, second in size only to Brazil, has parcelled up almost three-quarters
of its rainforest for oil and gas projects. Of 64 exploration blocks, known as
lots, all but eight have been created since 2004. "The Peruvian Amazon is
now experiencing a huge wave of hydrocarbon exploration," says Matt Finer,
co-author of a study of oil and gas projects in the western Amazon by Duke
University and Save America's Forests.
Oil extraction is not subtle. It involves helicopters,
barges, road clearance, drilling platforms, wells and pipelines. Technology is
cleaner than before but still pollutes waterways and frightens game. And the
workers still bring germs, which threaten tribes with no immunity to outsiders'
diseases. Flu and other ailments brought by conquistadors wiped out much of
Latin America's indigenous population, and more recent interlopers - loggers,
missionaries, scientists and journalists - have wrought deadly consequences in
isolated communities. After incursions by oil men into Nahua territory in the
1980s, more than half the tribe reportedly died. "If companies go in, it's
likely to destroy the Indians completely and then they really won't
exist," says Stephen Corry of the advocacy group Survival International.
Even oil companies admit their presence would have serious
implications for uncontacted tribes. The question is: are there any? If so, by
law, the exploration should be halted or at least heavily circumscribed. That
would impede Peru's hopes of becoming a net oil exporter - a windfall that
could go a long way in an impoverished nation of 28m. Social anthropologists
say that would be a small price for preserving humanity's rich mosaic.
The frontline of this existential battle is Lot 67. A swath
of jungle in the Maranon basin in north-east Peru, it comprises the Paiche,
Dorado and Pirana oilfields, which contain an estimated 300m barrels - a
geological and commercial jackpot. An Anglo-French company, Perenco, holds
exclusive rights. It plans to spend $2bn - the country's biggest investment -
drilling 100 wells from 10 platforms. The crude will be shipped and piped 600
miles to the Pacific coast. Extensive seismic testing has been conducted and
installations built. Barges await the first barrels.
To settled indigenous communities such as Copal Urco, this
spells death to their "hidden brothers". They say there are three
uncontacted tribes in Perenco's area, the Pananujuri, Taromenane and
Trashumancia. Peru's indigenous umbrella group, Aidesep, estimates their joint
population at 100. Stories about sightings are passed up and down the Napo
river. Denis Nantip, 22, says his uncle encountered one group in 2004. "He
was deep in the forest with a logger. They were bathing in the river and
suddenly saw people staring at them. They had spears and leaves with string
covering their genitals." The two intruders were left unharmed but loggers
never dared venture back to that part of the forest.
Perenco, echoing Peru's government, dismisses these claims
as rumour and misinformation by groups opposed to economic development.
"This is similar to the Loch Ness monster. Much talk but never any
evidence," says Rodrigo Marquez, Perenco's Latin American regional manager.
"We have done very detailed studies to ascertain if there are uncontacted
tribes because that would be a very serious matter. The evidence is
nonexistent."
A team of investigators - anthropologists, biologists,
linguists, historians, archaeologists, forestry engineers - combed Lot 67. They
looked for footprints, dwellings and spears. They looked for animal traps,
paths, patches of cultivation. They asked the Arabella tribe, which has been in
intermittent contact with the outside world since the 1940s, about recent
sightings or evidence. They analysed Arabella speech patterns and oral
histories for clues. Result: nothing. No compelling evidence, no compelling
indications. The 137-page final report concludes that if there were uncontacted
tribes, they were long gone, either dead or in Ecuador. The findings opened Lot
67 to an oil deal which the government declared to be in the national interest.
"All these studies have shown there is no trace at all," Marquez
says.
Not everyone is convinced, however. Tracking uncontacted
tribes, it turns out, is a detective story within a detective story.
Iquitos, reputedly the world's largest town inaccessible by
road, is a sultry, humid outgrowth of the rubber boom, a bustle of oil men,
backpackers, missionaries, traders and prostitutes perched by the Amazon river.
By the docks, on Avenida La Marina, there is an office stencilled with the word
Daimi and a rainbow logo. It is a consultancy that carries out environmental
impact assessments (EIAs) for oil companies, a mandatory requirement for
government authorisation to explore and drill. They can make or break a
company's bid to drill, and shape the regulations under which they operate.
Daimi, plucking scientists from different institutions, has done studies for
eight companies besides Perenco, including Argentina's Pluspetrol, Brazil's
Petrobras, Canada's Hunt, Spain's Repsol and the US's Oxy.
Oil companies pay for EIAs and insist that the reports are
independent and impartial. Within the NGO and academic community, there are some
who have long claimed they are not. But there is nothing concrete, and it is
difficult to investigate since even those with university tenure often rely on
EIA commissions to supplement meagre salaries.
Virginia Montoya sits in her office, maps and books piled on
her desk, and lets the question hang in the air. The silence stretches to a few
seconds. She is a director of the Institution for Research on the Peruvian
Amazon, a senior anthropologist and champion of indigenous women's rights. She
was also a consultant on Daimi's report. Does she think there are uncontacted
tribes in Lot 67? Montoya fidgets, then takes a decision. "Yes. Yes, I
do." She hesitates once more. "There is no doubt in my mind that there
are uncontacted groups there." She says she had documented evidence,
especially pathways. "I was really upset when I saw the final report. It
didn't lie, the language was technically correct, but it did not reflect my
view."
On the other side of Iquitos, on a rutted road of
colourfully painted houses, there is the same long pause before Teudulio
Grandez answers the same question. An anthropology professor at the National
University of the Peruvian Amazon, he was cited as a lead author in the Daimi
report. A portrait of Che Guevara looks down from the wall as he wrestles with
his answer. Finally, it comes out. "Yes. Certain nomadic groups are there.
Our conclusion is that there are." He exhales deeply.
And then, in another part of Iquitos, a third voice. Lino
Noriega, a forestry engineer, participated in eight missions to Lot 67 to
investigate the impact of seismic tests - small explosions that cleared strips
of forest and probed the soil. (He has since left Daimi following a contractual
dispute.) "They said there were no uncontacted groups. But there were
footprints, signs of dwellings."
There is no single smoking gun in the three testimonies. The
allegations were put to Daimi, but they were unable to put forward anyone to
respond. Perenco's regional manager, Marquez, defends the EIA research.
"These are just opinions. These scientists need to produce evidence. We
have gone to tremendous effort to put these reports together in the most
professional way. It's easy to build conspiracy theories."
EIAs are vetted by several government departments. "We
are committed to environmental protection. We don't want these reports to be
wishy-washy," says the foreign minister, Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde. He
promises to look into the Lot 67 allegations.
Critics say the environment ministry has little clout
against more powerful departments driving the oil rush. Peru's government is
not impartial and does not encourage genuinely independent EIAs, says Jose Luis
de la Bastida, a Peru oil specialist at the Washington-based World Resources
Institute. Last year the energy minister and head of state oil company
PetroPeru resigned amid a scandal over alleged kickbacks from a Norwegian oil
company to the ruling party. They denied any wrongdoing. There is also unease
over the revolving door between oil companies and government. "A lot of
overlap, it's an old boys' network," says Gregor MacLennan of advocacy
group Amazon Watch.
Lima is, and feels, a long way from the Amazon. A sprawling
coastal capital of eight million people ringed by slums, its downtown has
Starbucks, shiny skyscrapers, smart government offices and some of South
America's best restaurants. Historically it has looked outwards to the Pacific
ocean and seldom thought about the 300,000 dark-skinned "nativo" forest-dwellers,
little more than 1% of the population. It has had even less reason to ponder
uncontacted tribes. There was little dissent last year when President Garcia
decreed laws carving up the Amazon for oil, gas, mining and biofuel projects.
The "nativos", however, rose up. Scattered,
impoverished and marginalised, they organised protests against what they said
were land-grabbing polluters who poisoned their soil and rivers. They blocked
pipelines, roads and waterways. The president denounced them as
"ignorant" saboteurs and last month ordered security forces to lift
the blockades. In the town of Bagua, mayhem erupted. Officially, 24 police and
11 protesters died. Indigenous groups say there were dozens if not hundreds of
civilian casualties and that bodies were burned and dumped in rivers - claims
the government denies.
Garcia, realising he had misjudged indigenous wrath and
strength, revoked two of the most controversial decrees, 1090 and 1064, which
would have opened the Amazon to biofuel plantations. Indigenous groups
suspended the protests but oil and gas projects are still going ahead.
"The future scenario remains terrifying. The Peruvian Amazon is still
blanketed in concessions," says Finer, co-author of the Duke study.
There are two views about what happens next. Brother Paul
McAuley, a British Catholic lay missionary, teacher and pro-indigenous activist
in Iquitos, believes a flame of resistance has been lit. He sees it in his
civil association, Red Ambiental Loretana. Indigenous communities are
organising, plotting their next move. "I think they're going to win
this." The 61-year-old's mild manner belies a combative streak which has
earned him death threats and a "terrorist" label from pro-government
media. Had he not already given it away, he would have returned his MBE (for
services to education in Peru) in protest at what he sees as Britain's
complicity. He hopes the Amazon's "spiritual force" will mobilise
western public opinion against the oil companies. "More than its oil, what
the west needs is the Amazon's spiritual energy."
The fatalistic view holds that it'll take a miracle, divine
or otherwise, to stop the drilling. Wells are being dug, pipelines laid,
profits calculated. Oil companies and the Peruvian government are committed -
especially to the great prize that is Lot 67. Jack MacCarthy, a US surgeon and
Catholic missionary who has spent 23 years in the jungle, believes the die is
cast. "If Perenco doesn't drill, someone else will. I don't think there's
any way to keep that oil in the ground. There are enough powerful and rich
people in the world who want it. And they'll get it, regardless of the
cost."
In which case, if there are uncontacted tribes in Lot 67,
their fate may be to disappear - definitively - and join the legends of the
Amazon.
• See Rory Carroll and Marc de Jersey's film about the
Peruvian Amazon at guardian.co.uk/video
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