This summer, 13 women in the Q'eqchi Mayan village of Midway
gathered regularly to embroider quilt panels depicting flora and fauna of the
Sarstoon Temash National Park, beside which they live. The quilt project is a
collaboration between SATIIM, the women of Midway, and the Washington, DC-based
Advocacy Project. The panels will be sewn into a quilt by a group in DC, then
displayed around the US to raise awareness about the park and threats to it,
like deforestation and oil exploration. Ultimately, the quilt will be sold to
benefit the women who made it.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
IACHR Highlights the Importance of Respecting Indigenous Peoples' Right to Prior Consultation
From Amazone Watch:
IACHR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | August 9, 2011
For more information, contact:
Caroline Bennett, 415-487-9600 x327 or caroline@amazonwatch.org
Washington, DC – On the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) highlights the importance of indigenous and tribal peoples' right to prior, free and informed consultation with regard to decisions that may affect them.
IACHR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | August 9, 2011
For more information, contact:
Caroline Bennett, 415-487-9600 x327 or caroline@amazonwatch.org
Washington, DC – On the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) highlights the importance of indigenous and tribal peoples' right to prior, free and informed consultation with regard to decisions that may affect them.
As the organs of the Inter-American Human Rights System have reiterated, States must guarantee that indigenous peoples are consulted on all matters that may affect them, taking into account that this consultation must be aimed at reaching agreement with regard to the administrative or legislative actions that have an impact upon their rights.
The right to consultation, and the corresponding State duty, are linked to several individual and collective human rights. Apart from being a manifestation of the right to participation, the right to be consulted is fundamental for the effective enjoyment of indigenous peoples' right to communal property over the lands they have traditionally used and occupied, and is also directly related to the right to cultural identity, insofar as these peoples' culture may be affected by the State decisions that concern them.
The right to prior consultation is especially relevant for the conduction of development or investment plans or projects and for the implementation of extractive concessions in ancestral territories, given that said plans, projects or concessions, in undermining the natural resources that are present therein, can affect the survival and cultural integrity of indigenous peoples and their members. The effective participation of indigenous peoples through their own institutions and distinctive forms of organization is required before the approval and implementation of these plans, projects or concessions, as a guarantee of their individual and collective survival, as explained by the IACHR in its Report on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples' Rights over their Ancestral Lands and Natural Resources.
The IACHR calls upon the States of the Americas to adopt the domestic legal measures required to recognize, and especially to enforce indigenous peoples' fundamental right to prior consultation and -in the cases defined by inter-American jurisprudence- to prior, free and informed consent, with regard to decisions that may affect their rights or interests.
A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in a personal capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Oil Spills Inspire Bipartisan Surprise on Federal Pipeline Safety Reforms
Some in the US might be waking up to what it takes, short of an all-out ban, to protect against oil spills. How about in Belize?
From SolveClimate News:
From SolveClimate News:
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Forest Guardians
Watch SATIIM rangers and Belize Defence Force (BDF) soldiers conduct a bi-weekly 3-day patrol of the Sarstoon Temash National Park, Toledo, Belize. A group of only five rangers is responsible for almost 42,000 acres of wilderness, which is threatened by hunters, poachers, loggers, and an American oil company conducting seismic tests there. A rotating crew of four rangers and two BDF conduct these patrols every two weeks when funding permits. The Belizean government provides the soldiers, but the fuel, ranger salaries and all other expenses come from SATIIM.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Nigeria oil cleanup could take 30 years, U.N. says
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Restoration of Nigeria's environmentally devastated oil-producing Niger Delta region could take up to 30 years, cost $1 billion and become the largest cleanup operation in history, the United Nations said Thursday.
A landmark report from the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) concluded that pollution from more than 50 years of oil operations in Nigeria's Ogoniland region is more far-reaching than thought. The assessment, commissioned by the Nigerian government and funded by oil giant Shell, comes on the heels of the company admitting liability for two spills in Nigeria.
Nigeria's Niger Delta, the world's third largest wetland, is diverse and rich with mangroves and fish-rich waterways. But oil drilling has turned it into one of the most oil-polluted places on Earth with more than 6,800 recorded oil spills, accounting for anywhere from 9 million to 13 million barrels of oil spilled, according to activist groups.
But the environmental disaster has never received the kind of attention paid to last year's oil catastrophe along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Amnesty International, which has researched the human rights impacts of pollution in the Delta, said people in the region have experienced oil spills on par with the Exxon Valdez disaster every year for the last half century.
Many residents make their livelihoods from fishing and are dependent on the polluted mangroves and creeks.
"This report proves Shell has had a terrible impact in Nigeria, but has got away with denying it for decades, falsely claiming they work to best international standards," said Audrey Gaughran, the monitoring group's global issues director.
In a statement issued Thursday night, Shell said the two spills to which it has admitted liability amounted to about 4,000 barrels. The statement from Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of Shell's Nigerian subsidiary, blamed most of the spills on sabotage or attempts to steal oil.
"It is regrettable that any oil is spilt anywhere, but it is wildly inaccurate to suggest that those two spills represent anything like the scale which some reports refer to," Sunmonu said. He called on the Nigerian government "to end the blight of illegal refining and oil theft in the Niger Delta."
In a 2009 report, Amnesty cited independent environmental and oil experts in estimating that between 9 million and 13 million of barrels had leaked in the five decades of oil operations in the Delta. It also quoted U.N. figures of more than 6,800 recorded spills between 1976 and 2001.
Oil companies operating in the region believe the figures are exaggerated.
In the 1990s, Shell was forced to stop operating in Ogoniland after mass protests against the lack of investment and environmental damage culminated in a military crackdown.
Then, a special tribunal found Nigerian writer-activist Ken Saro-Wiwa guilty of complicity in the murders of four Ogoni chiefs. The government executed him and other activists in a move widely condemned internationally.
Shell last year paid $15.5 million in an out-of-court settlement in a civil case brought by members of Saro-Wiwa's family and others.
Now Shell has accepted responsibility for two oil spills in 2008 and 2009.
The Bodo fishing community sued Shell in Britain alleging that oil spills in 2008 and 2009 had destroyed the environment and ruined the livelihoods of 69,000 people.
Martyn Day, who represents the Bodo people, said cases like this one languished in the Nigerian court system for years, if not decades. That's why the claim was brought in London, Day said.
"In the end there was no resolution, no compensation and there was no cleanup," Day said.
He said Shell could have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
The U.N. assessment team examined more than 200 locations over a 14-month period for the assessment.
Among its findings:
-- Some areas that appear unaffected at the surface are in reality severely contaminated underground.
-- In at least 10 Ogoni communities contaminated water has seriously threatened public health.
-- In one community, at Nisisioken Ogale, families are drinking water from wells contaminated with benzene, a carcinogen, at levels over 900 times above World Health Organization guidelines.
Individual contaminated land areas in Ogoniland can be cleaned up within five years, the report said. But heavily affected mangroves and swamplands will take up to 30 years.
Before any clean-up can begin, the report said, ongoing contamination has to end.
CNN's Christian Purefoy contributed to this report.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
$35 Billion of Oil Plus an "Uncontacted" Tribe Equals Coverup
by: David Hill, Truthout | Report
What do you do if you want to build a pipeline to move 300 million barrels of oil but an "uncontacted" tribe is in the way? Employing consultants who claim they don't exist certainly helps.
On July 22, Peru's Energy Ministry [3] gave the green light to Anglo-French company Perenco to build a pipeline in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon that was described by one US scientist as, "the most biodiverse area in South America." [4] Perenco is operating in an area between the Napo and Tigre riversknown as Lot 67 [5], the first oil concession created in that region and initially licensed to US-based Advantage Resources in 1995.
Earlier in 1995, to the southwest of Lot 67, Peru went to war with Ecuador in a dispute over their borders. The fighting was once described by Bill Clinton as,"the longest running source of armed international conflict in the Western Hemisphere." [6] It dated back to independence in the 19th century, but the stakes had been raised by the prospect of valuable natural resources below the soil. During the conflict in the 1990's, Peruvian troops at one military post in the Napo-Tigre region refused to patrol in small groups. Scared of the Ecuadorians? Actually, it was the no contactados they were scared of: indigenous people who lived without regular contact with outsiders. Some years later, in 2002, two Peruvian soldiers glimpsed two of these no contactados - or "calatos" (naked people), as they're sometimes called - and were so alarmed that they bolted, lost their bearings and spent the next 13 days wandering about the rainforest until rescued by colleagues.[1]
The soldiers aren't the only ones to have seen or found evidence of the no contactados in this region. Local indigenous people and mestizos, loggers, fishermen, anthropologists - all have stories to tell.[2]
Numerous Peruvian government institutions have acknowledged the no contactados in this region too, including the Energy Ministry, [3] Health Ministry [7], the Natural Resources Institute,[4] the Indigenous Affairs Institute (INDEPA) and the national ombudsman.[5] "It has been proven that isolated indigenous people live in this zone," INDEPA stated in a letter to the Energy Ministry in 2007.[6]
Even Ecuador's government has followed suit, with a promise to allocate $38,000 to fund a "bi-national" plan to protect the no contactados in this region.[7] Indeed, Ecuador's famous "Yasuni-ITT initiative" [8] to forgo exploiting millions of barrels of oil in rainforest inhabited by no contactados in return for billions of dollars in compensation is so close to Lot 67 and Lot 39 [5] - which was created in 1999 and surrounds Lot 67 - that some no contactados, not recognizing national borders, appear to move between both regions [9] - that is, between an area one government has said it is willing to protect and another where the government intends to do the exact opposite.
At first, the oil companies seemed to agree. In 2003, Spanish multinational Repsol-YPF, operating in Lot 39, held a public workshop titled, "The no contactados" during which, according to a record of the meeting signed by a Repsol-YPF representative, the company agreed to prepare a response plan in case its workers made contact with the no contactados.[8] One subsequent plan was submitted to the Energy Ministry and listed a series of recommendations - some bizarre, others dangerous - to its workers. They included: 1) "Use a megaphone to inform the natives in the local languages why we are there and that it is not the company's intention to interfere with their activities" and 2) "Explain to them their vulnerability to Western diseases and the risk they run of getting ill and infecting others in their group which could kill them."[9]
Likewise, Barrett Resources, which had taken over Lot 67, acknowledged the existence of the no contactados and recommended megaphones to communicate with them, [10] a move slammed by Peru's national indigenous organization, the Interethnic Association of Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (known by its Spanish acronym, AIDESEP), as "farcical." [10]
"Workers will probably come across these uncontacted people," Barrett admitted in its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), [11] after announcing, in late 2006, that the oil deposits in Lot 67 were commercially viable and Peru's president, Alan Garcia, had paid a visit to the site to celebrate.[12]
But then things changed - dramatically. AIDESEP had long opposed the companies' operations by demanding this region should be made off limits and turned into a reserve,[13] and now it stepped up its opposition by filing a lawsuit against the companies [11], appealing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [12] and making increasingly frequent public statements. International organizations joined the fray, too. Survival International [13], where I worked at the time, launched a high-profile media campaign in 2007, while US-based Amazon Watch and Save America's Forests issued the starkest possible warning to Anglo-French company Perenco when, in early 2008, it announced it had taken over Barrett and Lot 67 [14]: "You are Inheriting a Potential Disaster in Peru. [15]"
What was all the fuss about? First, that under international agreements and norms such as the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 [16] or the United Nation's (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [17], neither Perenco nor Repsol-YPF has the right to operate in Lot 67 or Lot 39. Second, as Repsol acknowledged in its response plan, the no contactados, because of their lack of immunity to outsiders' diseases, could be decimated by contact with any oil company employee - or, indeed, any outsider.
The companies responded by doing U-turns: they started to cast doubt on the no contactados' existence, or to deny it outright. Perenco estimates at least 300 million barrels of oil, worth about $35 billion at current prices, lie in the Napo-Tigre region, and Repsol-YPF, partnered by ConocoPhillips until recently [18], will be hoping large deposits lie in Lot 39, too. With that kind of money at stake, neither company wants any "naked people" in the way.
On July 22, Peru's Energy Ministry [3] gave the green light to Anglo-French company Perenco to build a pipeline in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon that was described by one US scientist as, "the most biodiverse area in South America." [4] Perenco is operating in an area between the Napo and Tigre riversknown as Lot 67 [5], the first oil concession created in that region and initially licensed to US-based Advantage Resources in 1995.
Earlier in 1995, to the southwest of Lot 67, Peru went to war with Ecuador in a dispute over their borders. The fighting was once described by Bill Clinton as,"the longest running source of armed international conflict in the Western Hemisphere." [6] It dated back to independence in the 19th century, but the stakes had been raised by the prospect of valuable natural resources below the soil. During the conflict in the 1990's, Peruvian troops at one military post in the Napo-Tigre region refused to patrol in small groups. Scared of the Ecuadorians? Actually, it was the no contactados they were scared of: indigenous people who lived without regular contact with outsiders. Some years later, in 2002, two Peruvian soldiers glimpsed two of these no contactados - or "calatos" (naked people), as they're sometimes called - and were so alarmed that they bolted, lost their bearings and spent the next 13 days wandering about the rainforest until rescued by colleagues.[1]
The soldiers aren't the only ones to have seen or found evidence of the no contactados in this region. Local indigenous people and mestizos, loggers, fishermen, anthropologists - all have stories to tell.[2]
Numerous Peruvian government institutions have acknowledged the no contactados in this region too, including the Energy Ministry, [3] Health Ministry [7], the Natural Resources Institute,[4] the Indigenous Affairs Institute (INDEPA) and the national ombudsman.[5] "It has been proven that isolated indigenous people live in this zone," INDEPA stated in a letter to the Energy Ministry in 2007.[6]
Even Ecuador's government has followed suit, with a promise to allocate $38,000 to fund a "bi-national" plan to protect the no contactados in this region.[7] Indeed, Ecuador's famous "Yasuni-ITT initiative" [8] to forgo exploiting millions of barrels of oil in rainforest inhabited by no contactados in return for billions of dollars in compensation is so close to Lot 67 and Lot 39 [5] - which was created in 1999 and surrounds Lot 67 - that some no contactados, not recognizing national borders, appear to move between both regions [9] - that is, between an area one government has said it is willing to protect and another where the government intends to do the exact opposite.
At first, the oil companies seemed to agree. In 2003, Spanish multinational Repsol-YPF, operating in Lot 39, held a public workshop titled, "The no contactados" during which, according to a record of the meeting signed by a Repsol-YPF representative, the company agreed to prepare a response plan in case its workers made contact with the no contactados.[8] One subsequent plan was submitted to the Energy Ministry and listed a series of recommendations - some bizarre, others dangerous - to its workers. They included: 1) "Use a megaphone to inform the natives in the local languages why we are there and that it is not the company's intention to interfere with their activities" and 2) "Explain to them their vulnerability to Western diseases and the risk they run of getting ill and infecting others in their group which could kill them."[9]
Likewise, Barrett Resources, which had taken over Lot 67, acknowledged the existence of the no contactados and recommended megaphones to communicate with them, [10] a move slammed by Peru's national indigenous organization, the Interethnic Association of Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (known by its Spanish acronym, AIDESEP), as "farcical." [10]
"Workers will probably come across these uncontacted people," Barrett admitted in its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), [11] after announcing, in late 2006, that the oil deposits in Lot 67 were commercially viable and Peru's president, Alan Garcia, had paid a visit to the site to celebrate.[12]
But then things changed - dramatically. AIDESEP had long opposed the companies' operations by demanding this region should be made off limits and turned into a reserve,[13] and now it stepped up its opposition by filing a lawsuit against the companies [11], appealing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [12] and making increasingly frequent public statements. International organizations joined the fray, too. Survival International [13], where I worked at the time, launched a high-profile media campaign in 2007, while US-based Amazon Watch and Save America's Forests issued the starkest possible warning to Anglo-French company Perenco when, in early 2008, it announced it had taken over Barrett and Lot 67 [14]: "You are Inheriting a Potential Disaster in Peru. [15]"
What was all the fuss about? First, that under international agreements and norms such as the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 [16] or the United Nation's (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [17], neither Perenco nor Repsol-YPF has the right to operate in Lot 67 or Lot 39. Second, as Repsol acknowledged in its response plan, the no contactados, because of their lack of immunity to outsiders' diseases, could be decimated by contact with any oil company employee - or, indeed, any outsider.
The companies responded by doing U-turns: they started to cast doubt on the no contactados' existence, or to deny it outright. Perenco estimates at least 300 million barrels of oil, worth about $35 billion at current prices, lie in the Napo-Tigre region, and Repsol-YPF, partnered by ConocoPhillips until recently [18], will be hoping large deposits lie in Lot 39, too. With that kind of money at stake, neither company wants any "naked people" in the way.
Perenco justifies its claims by citing a 137-page report by an environmental consultancy, Daimi [19], a participant in the UN's Global Compact [20], a business initiative supposedly aimed at curbing human rights and environmental abuses. This report, paid for by Perenco, was based on research done by various teams sent into the region by Daimi, including archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and biologists, and claims that, "nothing happened and there was no sign of any anthropological character" to suggest there were no contactados in Lot 67.
"No information exists that demonstrates or suggests the existence of isolated indigenous people in the area under investigation," stated Daimi's report, dated September 2008. "Given the lack of proof or traces, it has not been possible to confirm their existence."
But how reliable was Daimi's report, given that Perenco funded it? And what about all the evidence that had been collected in the past?
When AIDESEP proposed a reserve in this region for the no contactados, it had interviewed scores of local people and produced its own weighty report listing all kinds of evidence for no contactados' existence: sightings, gardens, meat remains, shelters, paths, footprints and even crossed spears.[14 ] The local group Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East (known by its Spanish acronym, ORPIO) followed this up with its own report in 2009, including 23 sworn legal testimonies from local people.[15] It was this sort of material that has permitted so many different individuals and organizations, over the years, to acknowledge the no contactados in this region: not just government institutions like the Energy and Health Ministries, but a long, long list of NGOs and others, including Survival, Amazon Watch, Save America's Forests, The Field Museum,[16] Intermón Oxfam, Rettet den Regenwald [21], Rainforest Action Network [22], Accion Ecologica, Forest Peoples Programme, the International Federation for Human Rights, and representatives from the Environmental Defense Fund, EarthRights International, and the Centre for International Environmental Law.
In 2009, I received a tip-off about a Peruvian anthropologist, Virginia Montoya, who had worked for Daimi, but whose name, for some mysterious reason, didn't appear on its 2008 report. The rumor was she had found evidence of the no contactados, but it had been buried. I tried to contact her, but didn't hear back, and then mentioned the existence of a potential whistleblower to British journalist Marc de Jersey, who, with Channel 4 News, was contemplating a trip to Peru to investigate. Three weeks later, on April 30, 2009, Channel 4 fixer Ines Fisher met Montoya in Peru for "a long chat" and reported via email:
"Yes. Yes I do." She hesitated once more, then it came out. "There is no doubt in my mind that there are uncontacted groups there." She had documented evidence, especially pathways. "But it was all edited out. 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 or that of many colleagues."
Carroll's proposed article also quoted Teudolio Grandez, an anthropologist at Peru's National Amazon University (UNAP) [23] who was cited as one of the lead author's of Daimi's report: "Yes. Certain nomadic groups are there. But they [Daimi] wanted to show that there aren't any. Our conclusion is that there are."
Carroll also spoke to Lino Noriega, described as a forestry engineer who had visited Lot 67 on several occasions. Noriega said: "There were a lot of irregularities in the reports. Besides playing down the damage to vegetation and wildlife, they said there were no uncontacted groups. But there were footprints, signs of dwellings ... Perenco got everything it wanted."
But when the article was published [24], the claims had been toned down. Noriega's “There were a lot of irregularities in the reports. Besides playing down the damage to vegetation and wildlife. . . Perenco got everything it wanted” was removed, and so too was Grandez's “But they (Daimi) wanted to show that there aren't any (no contactados).”
Why such changes? Perenco's lawyers had been getting heavy, that was why. On Friday July 3, less than 24 hours before publication, general counsel Roland Fox had sent an urgent email and fax to The Guardian, saying he was aware of its intention to publish an article about Perenco:
No mention was made of either Lot 67 or Lot 39, although at one point Montoya said, tellingly, that regions should be made off limits even if only one "uncontacted" person was thought to live there. After the meeting, I introduced myself to Montoya, who said she would be "delighted" to talk and suggested ringing her office on Monday to fix a time. When I called I was told she was traveling and wouldn't be back for several days.
In the meantime, I went upriver to get as close to the action as I could. This wasn't easy: a rapido speedboat from Iquitos to a tiny port downstream, a five minute mototaxi ride on a concrete strip through the rainforest, another rapido for four hours up the Napo river to Santa Clotilde, the town where Repsol-YPF had admitted the existence of the no contactados in 2003, and then, after two nights there, I hitched a lift with a logger, whom I'll call "O," going in the same direction. O's boat was a battered old speedboat with no roof, no protection from the sun or the rain. Just me, O, and two workers of his. We left Santa Clotilde after lunch, spent the night at a Kichwa village, and arrived at an indigenous-cum-mestizo village, Buena Vista, one of the remotest in the entire Peruvian Amazon and one of the closest to Lot 67, late the next morning.
"No information exists that demonstrates or suggests the existence of isolated indigenous people in the area under investigation," stated Daimi's report, dated September 2008. "Given the lack of proof or traces, it has not been possible to confirm their existence."
But how reliable was Daimi's report, given that Perenco funded it? And what about all the evidence that had been collected in the past?
When AIDESEP proposed a reserve in this region for the no contactados, it had interviewed scores of local people and produced its own weighty report listing all kinds of evidence for no contactados' existence: sightings, gardens, meat remains, shelters, paths, footprints and even crossed spears.[14 ] The local group Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East (known by its Spanish acronym, ORPIO) followed this up with its own report in 2009, including 23 sworn legal testimonies from local people.[15] It was this sort of material that has permitted so many different individuals and organizations, over the years, to acknowledge the no contactados in this region: not just government institutions like the Energy and Health Ministries, but a long, long list of NGOs and others, including Survival, Amazon Watch, Save America's Forests, The Field Museum,[16] Intermón Oxfam, Rettet den Regenwald [21], Rainforest Action Network [22], Accion Ecologica, Forest Peoples Programme, the International Federation for Human Rights, and representatives from the Environmental Defense Fund, EarthRights International, and the Centre for International Environmental Law.
In 2009, I received a tip-off about a Peruvian anthropologist, Virginia Montoya, who had worked for Daimi, but whose name, for some mysterious reason, didn't appear on its 2008 report. The rumor was she had found evidence of the no contactados, but it had been buried. I tried to contact her, but didn't hear back, and then mentioned the existence of a potential whistleblower to British journalist Marc de Jersey, who, with Channel 4 News, was contemplating a trip to Peru to investigate. Three weeks later, on April 30, 2009, Channel 4 fixer Ines Fisher met Montoya in Peru for "a long chat" and reported via email:
Her team made two expeditions to Lot 67 (in addition, she made another one all by herself), which resulted in the confirmation of traces of tribes. This finding was obviously included in the final overall report delivered to Perenco. Soon after, she found out (someone within Perenco told her) that her part, that is, the chapter in which was explained the finding of traces, was completely deleted from the final report. Even her pictures with objects, and proofs of the traces, as well as other evidence were deleted. Who did this? She says the advisory team of Perenco.Channel 4 didn't pursue the story, and de Jersey made the trip with Guardian journalist Rory Carroll. On June 30, 2009, I read an advance copy of Carroll's proposed article, due to be published in four days time, on July 4, in The Guardian's Saturday magazine. It described how Carroll met Montoya in her office in Iquitos, the largest town in the region, and her response when he asked if she thought there were no contactados in Lot 67:
"Yes. Yes I do." She hesitated once more, then it came out. "There is no doubt in my mind that there are uncontacted groups there." She had documented evidence, especially pathways. "But it was all edited out. 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 or that of many colleagues."
Carroll's proposed article also quoted Teudolio Grandez, an anthropologist at Peru's National Amazon University (UNAP) [23] who was cited as one of the lead author's of Daimi's report: "Yes. Certain nomadic groups are there. But they [Daimi] wanted to show that there aren't any. Our conclusion is that there are."
Carroll also spoke to Lino Noriega, described as a forestry engineer who had visited Lot 67 on several occasions. Noriega said: "There were a lot of irregularities in the reports. Besides playing down the damage to vegetation and wildlife, they said there were no uncontacted groups. But there were footprints, signs of dwellings ... Perenco got everything it wanted."
But when the article was published [24], the claims had been toned down. Noriega's “There were a lot of irregularities in the reports. Besides playing down the damage to vegetation and wildlife. . . Perenco got everything it wanted” was removed, and so too was Grandez's “But they (Daimi) wanted to show that there aren't any (no contactados).”
Why such changes? Perenco's lawyers had been getting heavy, that was why. On Friday July 3, less than 24 hours before publication, general counsel Roland Fox had sent an urgent email and fax to The Guardian, saying he was aware of its intention to publish an article about Perenco:
Perenco Peru to date has read with increasing disquiet several completely false allegations made against it. We have taken the view that to take action against the writers of such internet articles is pointless, particularly as we consider that most objective observers would give little credence to their unsubstantiated allegations. However, if a newspaper with the standing and credibility of The Guardian were to repeat these allegations, either directly itself or by quoting those who have made the allegations, we would take a different stance, as we are determined to protect our reputation. I would therefore suggest that a very careful legal review is made of this article.I continued trying to contact Montoya but still didn't hear back. Later that year, I gave her name to two Belgian researchers, Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quirynen, who met her twice in Iquitos and whom she told - like Fisher, like Carroll - that she thought there were no contactados in Lot 67:
She says the area of Perenco is used as a corridor for uncontacted tribes that move back and forward across the border with Ecuador. She doesn't want to make any statements ... She told us the stuff DAIMI deleted is history of population in the region (and) photos of paths and testimonies. When we told her about ORPIO, she said she was going to contact them ... She clearly wanted to show off a little, saying she had sooooo many more testimonies (than ORPIO).... She said she was invited by Perenco to talk about the case (and was received by someone pretty high up, I think, I think she mentioned it was a French guy). And this guy was really interested in her work and claimed Perenco never received any of her work from Daimi....Earlier this year, I flew to Peru hoping to meet Montoya myself. What exactly did her evidence consist of, and would she share it with me? On my first day in Iquitos, by complete coincidence, a public meeting about the no contactados was held at the National Institute of Culture. The meeting's stated aim was to find ways to protect Peru's no contactados, numbering an estimated 15 groups in total, and it had been convened by the Peruvian Amazon's Investigation Institute (IIAP) together with INDEPA. The chairperson? None other than Virginia Montoya [25], now working as the head of IIAP's sociodiversity program.
No mention was made of either Lot 67 or Lot 39, although at one point Montoya said, tellingly, that regions should be made off limits even if only one "uncontacted" person was thought to live there. After the meeting, I introduced myself to Montoya, who said she would be "delighted" to talk and suggested ringing her office on Monday to fix a time. When I called I was told she was traveling and wouldn't be back for several days.
In the meantime, I went upriver to get as close to the action as I could. This wasn't easy: a rapido speedboat from Iquitos to a tiny port downstream, a five minute mototaxi ride on a concrete strip through the rainforest, another rapido for four hours up the Napo river to Santa Clotilde, the town where Repsol-YPF had admitted the existence of the no contactados in 2003, and then, after two nights there, I hitched a lift with a logger, whom I'll call "O," going in the same direction. O's boat was a battered old speedboat with no roof, no protection from the sun or the rain. Just me, O, and two workers of his. We left Santa Clotilde after lunch, spent the night at a Kichwa village, and arrived at an indigenous-cum-mestizo village, Buena Vista, one of the remotest in the entire Peruvian Amazon and one of the closest to Lot 67, late the next morning.
Buena Vista was rumored to be difficult. In the past, residents had gone on record about the no contactados,[17] but after striking deals with the oil companies they were now less prepared to talk. Back in Iquitos, the advice had been, "Don't say you're interested in the no contactados or they won't let you stay."
But one of O's two workers, whom I will call "J," was happy to talk.
"Yes, they're there," he told me, one morning, after I had speculated how dangerous his job as a logger must be: the rainforest, the wild animals, the no contactados.
He told me he had seen them, once, four months before. "Groups of them."
What happened? "Nothing. All very calm. We looked at them and they looked back at us."
What were they wearing? No clothes, but they had bracelets, feathers in their noses, red paint under their eyes, and something around their private parts.
I said I had heard that some people in Buena Vista now claimed they didn't exist. He shook his head and said that was because they "didn't want foreigners coming to try and find them."
J continued upriver and left me in Buena Vista, where I spent almost a week. Evidence of Perenco and Repsol-YPF was everywhere: launches and speedboats going up and down the river, orange jumpsuits hanging on washing lines, helicopters overhead, announcements on the village radio about meetings with company personnel and thank-you's to Perenco, Lego given to the children by Repsol-YPF, sweets and mineral water handed out after church. In one house, there was even a DVD of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," which had been given to the family living there, according to the head of the family, by Repsol-YPF's community relations officer. This was eery: Repsol-YPF had given the Smithsonian Institution $635,000 to work in Lot 39, according to The Washington Times [26], and has used this connection to defend its activities there [27].
Sometimes in Buena Vista, the no contactados came up in conversation without me having to mention them. Over lunch one day, my host, Victoria, mentioned a German evangelical missionary, Christian, who had recently built a house in the village.
"He's here to find the Arabelas malas," she said - literally, the "bad Arabelas." Buena Vista was officially an indigenous Arabela village, but many of its residents were mestizos.
Who did she mean? "The people who live hidden, further upriver."
"The no contactados!" her husband chimed in, his mouth full of plantains.
Others in Buena Vista said the same. One evening on the village's main drag, standing around a blaring television, I got talking to an old man, Modesto, who had lived there for years. He was calm until I asked about the no contactados.
"There aren't any, mister!" he cried, suddenly very agitated. "We've got to work with the company!"
He gestured how the seismic lines and the no contactados were in different places.
"This is where the seismic lines are," he said, "and the no contactados are here over the border with Ecuador."
He called them the "no adoptados, the people we don't know much about."
Then he mentioned the missionary. "He's come here to look for them, to talk to them, to teach them."
Back in Iquitos, I tried to meet Montoya again, but I was told she was still away and to ring back. This was becoming the story of my life. What to do? First, find the missionary. Second, track down the 22 people listed as contributors to Daimi's research and 2008 report. If Montoya wouldn't blow the whistle, maybe someone else would?
Finding a missionary named Christian in a city of several hundred thousand people wasn't easy, but eventually, after knocking on random church doors, I found someone who knew someone who knew him and could direct me to his church. Within minutes, I had found out his full name and was speaking to his wife on the phone. She invited me to dinner. Christian mentioned the no contactados before I did, after asking about Buena Vista.
"There are petrol companies up there. There's another tribe up there. I was looking for them ... I want to give them the chance to receive the Gospel," he told me in excellent English.
He was due to travel to Buena Vista very soon. To look for the no contactados? "Yes."
Had the people there ever spoken to him about them? He nodded, as if to say, "Many times."
What did they say? "Years ago, they said they were there. Now, it's not convenient for them."
What did Perenco and Repsol-YPF think of his work? "They don't like it."
Christian said how easily rumors could spread in Buena Vista, and how many there had been about him - for example, that he was "selling information to NGOs."
Information about what? "About the tribe above."
The three lead authors of Daimi's report were almost all equally candid. First I spoke to Grandez, the UNAP anthropologist who had gone into the field with Daimi and had been quoted by The Guardian two years before.
"We found evidence of their existence," Grandez told me in his UNAP office. "There were signs. We never said there weren't any."
Grandez said that, in the most remote village in the region, just upriver from Buena Vista, he had heard how one man, Alejandro, had seen the no contactados - one woman and two children - and had returned home, scared, to tell his wife. Grandez wanted to hear this from Alejandro firsthand, so he visited his house, but he was away, working, and only his wife was in.
"It was nine o'clock at night," Grandez told me. "I called out to her once, twice, three times, and when she opened the door, she asked me what I wanted. I told her. She invited me in, lit a candle, and we began to talk. Her husband had been upriver, she said, and saw several people, all naked, gathering suri grubs."
Did he tell Daimi? Yes, he said, he told Daimi representative Violeta Chamorro, but it didn't appear in the report. There was even more evidence than this, he said, but he didn't have it on hand.
Grandez was especially critical of how little time he had to investigate: five days upriver from Buena Vista, more or less. "It was all so quick. More studies need to be done. For us, as professional anthropologists, it wasn't satisfactory."
Did Daimi deliberately conceal the no contactados' existence? Grandez chuckled and said, "They've come to the conclusion that suits them."
While we were talking, another of the cited lead authors of Daimi's report entered the office. This was Rosa Aguilera Rios, another UNAP anthropologist, who hadn't gone into the field with Grandez but had read a "draft report" about their findings. What did the draft say?
"That some signs of their existence were found," Aguilera replied.
I remarked that Daimí's 2008 report claimed no evidence was found. Aguilera appeared to be unaware of this, pulled a shocked face and appealed to Grandez, on her right, for confirmation.
"Of course," he said.
"You can't say there isn't any evidence for their existence," said Aguilera, who had visited the Napo-Tigre region years before, "because there is evidence. There are people all over that area who have seen them, who talk about them."
Did she think there are no contactados there? "Of course."
She said the man to speak to about the draft was Jose Moscoso Conde, another lead author, another UNAP anthropologist who had gone into the field and shared the same office.
"We didn't see them ourselves, but we found signs," Moscoso told me. "We heard about one sighting and saw broken arrows and cut branches."
He talked in detail about the sighting: how one local man had seen "two people, naked, about 200-300 meters away, a long way away. They realized a mestizo was watching them and fled."
Moscoso said this sighting, along with information about a path or track, camps or fire remains believed to belong to the no contactados, was included in a paper copy draft which he, together with Grandez, signed but which now he didn't have. When I told him Daimi's report claimed no evidence at all was found, he seemed extremely surprised, like Aguilera.
"Our intention was to sound an alert so an area could be created for the no contactados which the companies couldn't enter," Moscoso said.
It was extraordinary: all three lead authors were saying the precise opposite of what Daimi's report claimed. Did other contributors feel the same? Some were in Iquitos, some Lima, others elsewhere. One, whom I will call "A," who did not confirm whether I could use his name or not, informed me that the following evidence for the no contactados was found: "twisted leaves, tracks leading to the river, animal bones and feathers from birds hunted by them, small shacks recently built by them, footprints, fruits from wild trees recently eaten by them...."
A said he had been in Buena Vista and the village upriver, Flor de Coco, for a month, "talking to the Arabela about their uncontacted relatives," then spent another month upriver from there, and then another month along another river. What happened to all this evidence?
"It was all given to Daimi," he said. "We were left with nothing. The videos, photos, recordings ... they have it all."
What did he think of Daimi claiming no evidence was found?
"The final report was dressed up and presented as if no evidence was found in order not to cause any problems for the government ... It makes no mention of what any of the local people told us. They deny it all. Yes, they say there aren't any no contactados, but time will tell.
Which other contributors might confirm that evidence was found? Two people, independent of each other, suggested I speak to Haroldo Salazar Rossi, but Salazar, working for INDEPA, now part of the Culture Ministry, denied it.
"Nothing, nothing was found, no recent evidence, no evidence found," he told me in his office in Peru's National Museum in Lima, although he did point out that they had wanted to visit an area where no contactados were reported to have been seen but it was too far away.
Salazar didn't deny their existence entirely. They had wanted to "do a good job," he said, but there wasn't enough time, meaning large areas weren't visited at all. For example, Lot 39, which completely surrounds Lot 67. For example, the Pucacuro Reserve, a supposedly protected area. In short, Salazar's conclusion was: "It can't be said the no contactados don't exist. You can't say there are or there aren't any."
Linguist Rossana Arbaiza Gonzales, another of the listed contributors, said the same. She cancelled our meeting in Lima, but emailed this: "We only visited half of the places we were supposed to ... Given that, we can neither confirm or deny the existence of isolated indigenous peoples in the areas we didn't go to."
But some of the listed contributors did deny their existence. "Fiction," said archaeologist Ruben Wong Robles in his Lima office. "Total lies," said Klever Oversluijs Quevedo in Iquitos. "No traces were found," said anthropologist Felix Auqui Baygorrea via email from Cusco, although Auqui pointed out the Daimi team had entered the region after seismic tests had already been done. That is, the no contactados might have been scared out of the region before Daimi even got there.
Explaining such differences in opinion isn't difficult. For people continuing to work for Perenco, or in the industry in general, or those who may want to do so in the future, admitting any evidence was found clearly isn't in their interests. Or they may genuinely be unaware that any evidence was found: after all, different teams of people went to different places at different times. When I asked forestry engineer Peter del Risco Torres, who went into the field with Daimi but wasn't listed in its report, about Virginia Montoya, he said he had never heard of her.
"Do you think it's possible that someone found evidence, but you just didn't know about it?" I asked Oversluijs, remarking that although he said no evidence had been found, others disagreed.
"Who said that?"
"Virginia Montoya."
"She saw some footprints," he said dismissively, as if that didn't matter.
Montoya never saw me, though. I tricked my way into her Iquitos office, got her mobile number, and spoke to her. She told me if I flew from Iquitos to Lima, she would meet me. She didn't. She didn't answer her mobile again. I left messages for days running; I texted her; I emailed her: no reply. Not even visiting IIAP's satellite office in Lima helped. There, an IIAP employee rang another number for Montoya and an assistant answered and promised he would ring back later, about four o'clock, with a time the next day, about noon, to meet Montoya. He never did so.
Why wouldn't Montoya talk? Explaining that isn't difficult either. Her employer, IIAP, is a Peruvian government institute within the Environment ministry [28], and the government is so determined to keep Perenco working in Lot 67, it has declared operations there a "national necessity." [29] Second, Montoya, in her IIAP role, is, or has been, working closely with INDEPA [30], anothergovernment institute [31], which has since done its own U-turn from its June 2007 position, and now claims there isn't enough evidence to prove the no contactados exist, after all. Third, IIAPsigned a deal [32] earlier this year with - guess who - Perenco, the stated aim of which is to carry out "biodiversity studies, cultural salvage work, and strengthening of productive activities" in the Lot 67 region.
Not that Montoya was the likeliest to speak out anyway, if her past record is anything to go by. Back in 2003, AIDESEP slammed a report of hers about Peru's biggest gas fields where other no contactados were in danger, describing her as being "extremely well known" for being on the side of oil and gas companies and "bolstering the argument that our isolated brothers don't exist so that oil and gas activities can continue happening."[18] Sound familiar? AIDESEP was so angered by this report, it declared her co-author, Juan Ossio, persona non grata in the Amazon [19], which is ironic given that Ossio is now the culture minister, [33] the titular head of INDEPA, and has been under fire again [34]in recent weeks after revealing new plans [35]making it easier for oil and gas companies to operate on no contactados' land elsewhere in Peru.
A coverup has taken place: none of the evidence found by Grandez, Moscoso, A or Montoya found its way into Daimi's report.
Neither did Montoya's own name. Who else was omitted, and what might they know?
I visited Daimi's office in Iquitos to ask such questions, but they had moved on. Punching their name into Google revealed a (spoof?) Facebook account [36], with a profile photo of a man wearing a balaclava and clutching a laptop and a wad of US dollars.
Currently, Perenco is gearing up to build a more than 200 kilometer pipeline [37]right through the Napo-Tigre region, while Repsol-YPF has recently acquired a new partner in Lot 39,PetroVietnam [38], after ConocoPhillips sold its stake. Now that this cover-up has been exposed, there should be no delay in aborting any such pipeline plans or further exploration and leaving some of Peru's most vulnerable citizens, some of the world's last "uncontacted" people, to live in peace.
If that doesn't happen, they could be wiped out.
Chamorro and IIAP's president, Luis Campos Baca, did not respond to questions about their work in Lot 67.
1. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
2. Ibid.
3. Letter to Survival International, 17 May 2007.
4. Letter to the Energy Ministry, 29 March 2007.
5. Informe Defensorial 101: Pueblos indígenas en situación de aislamiento voluntario y contacto inicial, Defensoria del Pueblo, 2006.
6. Letter to the Energy Ministry, 5 June 2007.
7. Plan de Medidas Cautelares a favor de los Pueblos Taromenani y Tagaeri, presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2007.
8. Resumen del Seminario Taller: Promocion de la Actividad de Hidrocarburos en Comunidades Indígenas, 2003.
9. Plan de Contingencia para pueblos indígenas en aislamiento voluntario y/o no contactados, Repsol-YPF, 10 July 2007.
10. Plan de Contingencias Antropólogico para Pueblos Indígenas Indígenas en Aislamiento Voluntario, Barrett Resources, 2007.
11. Estudio de Impacto Ambiental de la Prospección Sísmica 3D del Lote 67, Barrett Resources, 2007.
12. Statement by the Energy Ministry, 17 December 2006.
13. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
14. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
15. Fortalecimiento de la Propuesta de Creacion de la Reserva Territorial Napo-Tigre, ORPIO, 2009.
16. Rapid Biological Inventories, 18, Nanay-Mazan-Arabela, The Field Museum, 2007.
17. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005. Fortalecimiento de la Propuesta de Creacion de la Reserva Territorial Napo-Tigre, ORPIO, 2009.
18. AIDESEP statement 1 July 2003.
19. Ibid. AIDESEP confirmed Ossio is still persona non grata, eight years later, in a recent statement [39].
"Yes, they're there," he told me, one morning, after I had speculated how dangerous his job as a logger must be: the rainforest, the wild animals, the no contactados.
He told me he had seen them, once, four months before. "Groups of them."
What happened? "Nothing. All very calm. We looked at them and they looked back at us."
What were they wearing? No clothes, but they had bracelets, feathers in their noses, red paint under their eyes, and something around their private parts.
I said I had heard that some people in Buena Vista now claimed they didn't exist. He shook his head and said that was because they "didn't want foreigners coming to try and find them."
J continued upriver and left me in Buena Vista, where I spent almost a week. Evidence of Perenco and Repsol-YPF was everywhere: launches and speedboats going up and down the river, orange jumpsuits hanging on washing lines, helicopters overhead, announcements on the village radio about meetings with company personnel and thank-you's to Perenco, Lego given to the children by Repsol-YPF, sweets and mineral water handed out after church. In one house, there was even a DVD of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," which had been given to the family living there, according to the head of the family, by Repsol-YPF's community relations officer. This was eery: Repsol-YPF had given the Smithsonian Institution $635,000 to work in Lot 39, according to The Washington Times [26], and has used this connection to defend its activities there [27].
Sometimes in Buena Vista, the no contactados came up in conversation without me having to mention them. Over lunch one day, my host, Victoria, mentioned a German evangelical missionary, Christian, who had recently built a house in the village.
"He's here to find the Arabelas malas," she said - literally, the "bad Arabelas." Buena Vista was officially an indigenous Arabela village, but many of its residents were mestizos.
Who did she mean? "The people who live hidden, further upriver."
"The no contactados!" her husband chimed in, his mouth full of plantains.
Others in Buena Vista said the same. One evening on the village's main drag, standing around a blaring television, I got talking to an old man, Modesto, who had lived there for years. He was calm until I asked about the no contactados.
"There aren't any, mister!" he cried, suddenly very agitated. "We've got to work with the company!"
He gestured how the seismic lines and the no contactados were in different places.
"This is where the seismic lines are," he said, "and the no contactados are here over the border with Ecuador."
He called them the "no adoptados, the people we don't know much about."
Then he mentioned the missionary. "He's come here to look for them, to talk to them, to teach them."
Back in Iquitos, I tried to meet Montoya again, but I was told she was still away and to ring back. This was becoming the story of my life. What to do? First, find the missionary. Second, track down the 22 people listed as contributors to Daimi's research and 2008 report. If Montoya wouldn't blow the whistle, maybe someone else would?
Finding a missionary named Christian in a city of several hundred thousand people wasn't easy, but eventually, after knocking on random church doors, I found someone who knew someone who knew him and could direct me to his church. Within minutes, I had found out his full name and was speaking to his wife on the phone. She invited me to dinner. Christian mentioned the no contactados before I did, after asking about Buena Vista.
"There are petrol companies up there. There's another tribe up there. I was looking for them ... I want to give them the chance to receive the Gospel," he told me in excellent English.
He was due to travel to Buena Vista very soon. To look for the no contactados? "Yes."
Had the people there ever spoken to him about them? He nodded, as if to say, "Many times."
What did they say? "Years ago, they said they were there. Now, it's not convenient for them."
What did Perenco and Repsol-YPF think of his work? "They don't like it."
Christian said how easily rumors could spread in Buena Vista, and how many there had been about him - for example, that he was "selling information to NGOs."
Information about what? "About the tribe above."
The three lead authors of Daimi's report were almost all equally candid. First I spoke to Grandez, the UNAP anthropologist who had gone into the field with Daimi and had been quoted by The Guardian two years before.
"We found evidence of their existence," Grandez told me in his UNAP office. "There were signs. We never said there weren't any."
Grandez said that, in the most remote village in the region, just upriver from Buena Vista, he had heard how one man, Alejandro, had seen the no contactados - one woman and two children - and had returned home, scared, to tell his wife. Grandez wanted to hear this from Alejandro firsthand, so he visited his house, but he was away, working, and only his wife was in.
"It was nine o'clock at night," Grandez told me. "I called out to her once, twice, three times, and when she opened the door, she asked me what I wanted. I told her. She invited me in, lit a candle, and we began to talk. Her husband had been upriver, she said, and saw several people, all naked, gathering suri grubs."
Did he tell Daimi? Yes, he said, he told Daimi representative Violeta Chamorro, but it didn't appear in the report. There was even more evidence than this, he said, but he didn't have it on hand.
Grandez was especially critical of how little time he had to investigate: five days upriver from Buena Vista, more or less. "It was all so quick. More studies need to be done. For us, as professional anthropologists, it wasn't satisfactory."
Did Daimi deliberately conceal the no contactados' existence? Grandez chuckled and said, "They've come to the conclusion that suits them."
While we were talking, another of the cited lead authors of Daimi's report entered the office. This was Rosa Aguilera Rios, another UNAP anthropologist, who hadn't gone into the field with Grandez but had read a "draft report" about their findings. What did the draft say?
"That some signs of their existence were found," Aguilera replied.
I remarked that Daimí's 2008 report claimed no evidence was found. Aguilera appeared to be unaware of this, pulled a shocked face and appealed to Grandez, on her right, for confirmation.
"Of course," he said.
"You can't say there isn't any evidence for their existence," said Aguilera, who had visited the Napo-Tigre region years before, "because there is evidence. There are people all over that area who have seen them, who talk about them."
Did she think there are no contactados there? "Of course."
She said the man to speak to about the draft was Jose Moscoso Conde, another lead author, another UNAP anthropologist who had gone into the field and shared the same office.
"We didn't see them ourselves, but we found signs," Moscoso told me. "We heard about one sighting and saw broken arrows and cut branches."
He talked in detail about the sighting: how one local man had seen "two people, naked, about 200-300 meters away, a long way away. They realized a mestizo was watching them and fled."
Moscoso said this sighting, along with information about a path or track, camps or fire remains believed to belong to the no contactados, was included in a paper copy draft which he, together with Grandez, signed but which now he didn't have. When I told him Daimi's report claimed no evidence at all was found, he seemed extremely surprised, like Aguilera.
"Our intention was to sound an alert so an area could be created for the no contactados which the companies couldn't enter," Moscoso said.
It was extraordinary: all three lead authors were saying the precise opposite of what Daimi's report claimed. Did other contributors feel the same? Some were in Iquitos, some Lima, others elsewhere. One, whom I will call "A," who did not confirm whether I could use his name or not, informed me that the following evidence for the no contactados was found: "twisted leaves, tracks leading to the river, animal bones and feathers from birds hunted by them, small shacks recently built by them, footprints, fruits from wild trees recently eaten by them...."
A said he had been in Buena Vista and the village upriver, Flor de Coco, for a month, "talking to the Arabela about their uncontacted relatives," then spent another month upriver from there, and then another month along another river. What happened to all this evidence?
"It was all given to Daimi," he said. "We were left with nothing. The videos, photos, recordings ... they have it all."
What did he think of Daimi claiming no evidence was found?
"The final report was dressed up and presented as if no evidence was found in order not to cause any problems for the government ... It makes no mention of what any of the local people told us. They deny it all. Yes, they say there aren't any no contactados, but time will tell.
Which other contributors might confirm that evidence was found? Two people, independent of each other, suggested I speak to Haroldo Salazar Rossi, but Salazar, working for INDEPA, now part of the Culture Ministry, denied it.
"Nothing, nothing was found, no recent evidence, no evidence found," he told me in his office in Peru's National Museum in Lima, although he did point out that they had wanted to visit an area where no contactados were reported to have been seen but it was too far away.
Salazar didn't deny their existence entirely. They had wanted to "do a good job," he said, but there wasn't enough time, meaning large areas weren't visited at all. For example, Lot 39, which completely surrounds Lot 67. For example, the Pucacuro Reserve, a supposedly protected area. In short, Salazar's conclusion was: "It can't be said the no contactados don't exist. You can't say there are or there aren't any."
Linguist Rossana Arbaiza Gonzales, another of the listed contributors, said the same. She cancelled our meeting in Lima, but emailed this: "We only visited half of the places we were supposed to ... Given that, we can neither confirm or deny the existence of isolated indigenous peoples in the areas we didn't go to."
But some of the listed contributors did deny their existence. "Fiction," said archaeologist Ruben Wong Robles in his Lima office. "Total lies," said Klever Oversluijs Quevedo in Iquitos. "No traces were found," said anthropologist Felix Auqui Baygorrea via email from Cusco, although Auqui pointed out the Daimi team had entered the region after seismic tests had already been done. That is, the no contactados might have been scared out of the region before Daimi even got there.
Explaining such differences in opinion isn't difficult. For people continuing to work for Perenco, or in the industry in general, or those who may want to do so in the future, admitting any evidence was found clearly isn't in their interests. Or they may genuinely be unaware that any evidence was found: after all, different teams of people went to different places at different times. When I asked forestry engineer Peter del Risco Torres, who went into the field with Daimi but wasn't listed in its report, about Virginia Montoya, he said he had never heard of her.
"Do you think it's possible that someone found evidence, but you just didn't know about it?" I asked Oversluijs, remarking that although he said no evidence had been found, others disagreed.
"Who said that?"
"Virginia Montoya."
"She saw some footprints," he said dismissively, as if that didn't matter.
Montoya never saw me, though. I tricked my way into her Iquitos office, got her mobile number, and spoke to her. She told me if I flew from Iquitos to Lima, she would meet me. She didn't. She didn't answer her mobile again. I left messages for days running; I texted her; I emailed her: no reply. Not even visiting IIAP's satellite office in Lima helped. There, an IIAP employee rang another number for Montoya and an assistant answered and promised he would ring back later, about four o'clock, with a time the next day, about noon, to meet Montoya. He never did so.
Why wouldn't Montoya talk? Explaining that isn't difficult either. Her employer, IIAP, is a Peruvian government institute within the Environment ministry [28], and the government is so determined to keep Perenco working in Lot 67, it has declared operations there a "national necessity." [29] Second, Montoya, in her IIAP role, is, or has been, working closely with INDEPA [30], anothergovernment institute [31], which has since done its own U-turn from its June 2007 position, and now claims there isn't enough evidence to prove the no contactados exist, after all. Third, IIAPsigned a deal [32] earlier this year with - guess who - Perenco, the stated aim of which is to carry out "biodiversity studies, cultural salvage work, and strengthening of productive activities" in the Lot 67 region.
Not that Montoya was the likeliest to speak out anyway, if her past record is anything to go by. Back in 2003, AIDESEP slammed a report of hers about Peru's biggest gas fields where other no contactados were in danger, describing her as being "extremely well known" for being on the side of oil and gas companies and "bolstering the argument that our isolated brothers don't exist so that oil and gas activities can continue happening."[18] Sound familiar? AIDESEP was so angered by this report, it declared her co-author, Juan Ossio, persona non grata in the Amazon [19], which is ironic given that Ossio is now the culture minister, [33] the titular head of INDEPA, and has been under fire again [34]in recent weeks after revealing new plans [35]making it easier for oil and gas companies to operate on no contactados' land elsewhere in Peru.
A coverup has taken place: none of the evidence found by Grandez, Moscoso, A or Montoya found its way into Daimi's report.
Neither did Montoya's own name. Who else was omitted, and what might they know?
I visited Daimi's office in Iquitos to ask such questions, but they had moved on. Punching their name into Google revealed a (spoof?) Facebook account [36], with a profile photo of a man wearing a balaclava and clutching a laptop and a wad of US dollars.
Currently, Perenco is gearing up to build a more than 200 kilometer pipeline [37]right through the Napo-Tigre region, while Repsol-YPF has recently acquired a new partner in Lot 39,PetroVietnam [38], after ConocoPhillips sold its stake. Now that this cover-up has been exposed, there should be no delay in aborting any such pipeline plans or further exploration and leaving some of Peru's most vulnerable citizens, some of the world's last "uncontacted" people, to live in peace.
If that doesn't happen, they could be wiped out.
Chamorro and IIAP's president, Luis Campos Baca, did not respond to questions about their work in Lot 67.
1. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
2. Ibid.
3. Letter to Survival International, 17 May 2007.
4. Letter to the Energy Ministry, 29 March 2007.
5. Informe Defensorial 101: Pueblos indígenas en situación de aislamiento voluntario y contacto inicial, Defensoria del Pueblo, 2006.
6. Letter to the Energy Ministry, 5 June 2007.
7. Plan de Medidas Cautelares a favor de los Pueblos Taromenani y Tagaeri, presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2007.
8. Resumen del Seminario Taller: Promocion de la Actividad de Hidrocarburos en Comunidades Indígenas, 2003.
9. Plan de Contingencia para pueblos indígenas en aislamiento voluntario y/o no contactados, Repsol-YPF, 10 July 2007.
10. Plan de Contingencias Antropólogico para Pueblos Indígenas Indígenas en Aislamiento Voluntario, Barrett Resources, 2007.
11. Estudio de Impacto Ambiental de la Prospección Sísmica 3D del Lote 67, Barrett Resources, 2007.
12. Statement by the Energy Ministry, 17 December 2006.
13. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
14. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005.
15. Fortalecimiento de la Propuesta de Creacion de la Reserva Territorial Napo-Tigre, ORPIO, 2009.
16. Rapid Biological Inventories, 18, Nanay-Mazan-Arabela, The Field Museum, 2007.
17. Estudio Técnico: Delimitación Territorial a favor de los pueblos indígenas en situación de Aislamiento Voluntario ubicados en la Cuenca Alta de los Rios Curaray, Napo, Arabela, Nashino, Pucacuro, Tigre y Afluentes, AIDESEP, 2005. Fortalecimiento de la Propuesta de Creacion de la Reserva Territorial Napo-Tigre, ORPIO, 2009.
18. AIDESEP statement 1 July 2003.
19. Ibid. AIDESEP confirmed Ossio is still persona non grata, eight years later, in a recent statement [39].
Monday, August 1, 2011
UN Habitat lists SATIIM community forestry among promising practices
2010 Best Practices Database
Building Q'eqchi' Maya Capacity, Flexibility, and
Adaption to Climate
Summary:
The Toledo District in southern Belize is home
to the indigenous Maya, living in a region characterized as one of the few
primary tropical rainforests in the country. The Maya, with a strong
connection to the land, have acted as guardians of the forest for centuries and
have developed extensive knowledge of the forest flora and fauna, sophisticated
farming techniques, and complex land management systems.
The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management
(SATIIM) was founded in 1997 by indigenous communities (the Garifuna &
Maya) to safeguard the ecological and cultural integrity of this region for the
economic, social and spiritual wellbeing of its indigenous people. Although
there are conservation efforts seeking to protect the Sarstoon Temash National
Park, which SATIIM co-manages with the Forestry Department, little has been
done in relation to sustainable forest management with communities along the
buffer zone.
As such, the main purpose of the initiative was to promote
Community-Based Forest Management with Q’eqchi’ communities in the buffer zone
of the Sarstoon Temash National Park, dissuading industrial logging while
building environmental awareness, sustainable livelihoods, and community
management of natural resources.
The project works to diminish the effects of poverty and
environmental degradation within the rural indigenous communities and habitats
in the Toledo District. The initiative encompasses three elements,
including conservation, sustainable-development and income generation. The
communities, Santa Teresa and Conejo (with a project in Crique Sarco currently
underway), are participating directly in the management and sustainable use of
their natural resources and rainforests, reducing large-scale logging,
preserving the natural ecosystem and protecting species depleted to
near-extinction. It provides an alternative to large-scale deforestation,
promoting community-based conservation, autonomy and sovereignty for local
decision-making, and the use and management of resources with the view to
fulfill the needs of the communities and all of its members.
Key Dates:
March 2008 – Development of comprehensive work and
procurement plan approved by the Conseration of Central America Watershed
Program (USAID)
March – May 2008 – Development of a Community-based Forest
Management Enterprise with two indigenous communities in southern Belize
March – October 2008 – Development and establishment of
the first commercial census of community forests
March – October 2008 – Training of community members in
Reduced Impact Logging (RIL)
Narrative:
SITUATION BEFORE THE INITIATIVE BEGAN
The Toledo District is the poorest in Belize, with a
77% incidence of poverty among the Maya. Thus the main problems and
issues addressed were poverty and environmental destruction.
Santa Teresa: 260; M: 142 F: 118
Crique Sarco: 293; M: 156; F: 137
Conejo (project currently underway): 196; M: 104 F: 92
ESTABLISHMENT OF PRIORITIES
· To promote
development of a model of community-based sustainable forest management
inSouthern Belize as a conservation and sustainable-development strategy.
· Strengthening
of traditional institutions (social, political and economic) of the Maya
community to cultivate their awareness of the effects and capacity to adapt to
climate change through a Community-Based Sustainable Forest Management and Enterprise development
(CBSFME) in the communities of Santa Teresa, Conejo and Crique Sarco.
The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management,
as an organization which represents five indigenous communities, worked with
traditional leaders (Alcaldes) and other community members in the
prioritization of the project.
FORMULATION OF OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES
Communities trained in Sustainable Forest Management
(SFM):
· On site
training workshops in sustainable management practices
· Standards and
regulations developed
· Incorporation
of the Community-Based Sustainable Forest Management Enterprises
(CBSFME)
Training in technical/administrative issues:
· Training in
accounting and financial systems.
· On site
workshops on harvesting (includes direct felling, hauling, trails/timber yards
construction and transportation).
· On site
workshops on primary industrialization (includes timber processing, grading and
measurement).
Development of sustainable forest management plan and
annual operational plans following reduced-impact logging principles and SFM
criteria:
· Inventory of
all tree species within the harvest area
MOBILISATION OF RESOURCES
Financial and technical assistance were obtained through
USAID, WWF (provided technical assistance through USAID), the Finnish Embassy,
and the World Bank. SATIIM has a full time Development Officer whose
primary responsibility is the mobilization of resources for programs and
projects. SATIIM is responsible and accountable for managing all
resources on behalf of the communities, and has a full-time Financial Officer
on staff.
PROCESS
The initiative is a Maya community-based sustainable
forest management and development enterprise: the first and only one of its
kind in Belize. The project/enterprise is completely owned and
operated by the Maya communiries of Santa Teresa and Conejo. The enterprises
have a business plan, articles of incorporation and by-laws that are registered
with the Government of Belize. SATIIM provided the initial management and
business trainings and continues to work with the enterprise in an advisory capacity.
All community members are shareholders of the enterprise, holding equal shares.
Income from the sale of products produced from the harvesting of timber will
pay the salaries of those individuals involved in the harvesting of the timber
and transformation to lumber products. Profits from the sale of harvested
timber and other timber products are reinvested into the enterprise for new or
replacement equipment, twenty five percent is held in trust for community
development projects and any additional funds are distributed to the share
holders as a dividend. The dividends are anticipated to continue for the life
of the enterprise and grow in size as the enterprise becomes more efficient and
known throughout Belize for it products.
The project is designed as a sustainable reduced-impact
forest management enterprise. GPS mapping determined the size of the harvesting
area to be involved in the project and how best to section (harvesting blocks)
to obtain the longest harvesting period and greatest yield per harvesting
season (during the dry season). A Forest inventory and management
plan were created with the assistance of community members and consultants. A
tree inventory includes species and size and its GPS location within the
harvesting area. Participants were trained in conducting the inventory. Maps
were created and printed to be used in the educational process and for
inclusion in the plan.
Community members were trained in Reduced-Impact Logging
(RIL). Care is taken to include all trees within each harvest block (regardless
of size or species). An annual census will be taken after each harvesting
season to assess the health of the rainforest and reforest.
RESULTS ACHIEVED
Results:
· The
communities have a heightened environmental awareness of climate change and its
connection to sustainable forest management
· The project is
predicated on the sustainable extraction of timber products through the
introduction of FSC standards and criteria, processes which are designed to
minimize ecological impacts, and encourage the improvement of habitat quality
by dissuading large-scale logging, or the pursuit slash-and-burn techniques
that are precursors to climate change
· Social
benefits accrued in terms of strengthened livelihoods and community management
capacities of the CBSFME
· Reduction of
deforestation due to the CBSFME
· Direct
increases in household income amongst project participants and indirect
increases in the overall well being of the community
· Active reforestation
programs ensure that for each tree extracted, seedlings will be planted in its
place; a practice without precedence in the history of logging in Toledo.
Measured through:
· Recorded
attendance and participation at workshops.
· GIS Mapping of
(Santa Teresa and Conejo) community managed forest area.
· Registration
documents of community-based forest enterprise with the Belize Government
· Management
Plans from each community presented to the Belize Forest Department
· Environmental
Impact Assessment presented to the Belize Environmental Department
· Implementation
of operating plans
· Administrative
and accounting system operating
· Financial
reports, timber harvesting report, annual operating plan and labor and income
report
· Inventory of
equipment purchased
· Reports and
receipts on sales of timber products and contracts negotiated
SUSTAINABILITY
The Q’eqchi Maya of southern Belize have
sustained an intimate relationship, centuries long, with the rainforests they
inhabit, acting as guardians of the forest. To them, the forest’s
significance goes beyond the confines of economy and the maximization of
individual profit, and is closely linked with their cultural identity and local
self-determination. The forest represents ways of getting food and
shelter, preserving and transmitting knowledge, of conceiving cycles, of
relating to the environment and of conducting spiritual, family and community
life. The consequences of uncontrolled development and large-scale
logging have compromised their cultural heritage and natural resources.
As such, SATIIM believes that empowering communities in
community-based sustainable enterprises, links conservation, indigenous
knowledge, and sustainable livelihoods, providing long-term solutions for
communities addressing poverty, environmental destruction and climate change.
The use of reduced-impact logging techniques, seldom if ever used in Belize,
is one of the key elements of sustainable forest management. Conservation and
sustainability are ensured through select species harvesting and sylviculture
techniques, protecting endangered plants, seeded trees and seedlings. Rotational
cycles guarantee forest recovery and growth, conserving rainforests, which
regulate climate and provide a range of other ecosystem services to humanity.
The project has unlimited potential to be replicated by
other indigenous groups who have access (through logging concessions) or
communal titles to forested areas. Other indigenous villages have
been contacted to gauge interest in obtaining land titles and developing
similar community enterprises. SATIIM’s Community-based Forest
Management Project acts as a pilot project, and demonstrates best practices in
developing reduced-impact logging in other areas of Belize. The
community enterprise has by-laws, internal rules, administrative manuals and a
strategic plan, in order to guarantee long-term permanence.
LESSONS LEARNED
The lessons learned through the community-based forest
management and enterprise development project piloted/pioneered by SATIIM in
southern Belize include the following:
1. It is possible to reconcile Indigenous and forest
dependent peoples social, cultural, economic and spiritual needs with sustainable
forest management and strengthens their stewarship in both a traditional and
contemporary manner;
2. Indigenous People Land tenure security is
fundamental to sustaining progress made to safeguard natural forests;
3. Traditional knowledge enhances the
management effectiveness of forests.
Lessons from other initiative, including guidelines
regarding successful community forest projectsGuatemala, outline a five plliar
approach:
1) Community organizing;
2) Technical and
administrative training;
3) Development of Forest management
Plans;
4) Reduced Impact logging,
and;
5) Traning in negotiating
equitable contracts.
While the legal and political environment differs among
countries, SATIIM has been able to modify the approach to suit our communities
realities.
Related Policies:
Despite not having legal framwork in Belize, SATIIM
and our communities have been taking the moral high ground by developing
comprehensive community forest management plans which has been used as a
nogotiating/lobbying tool by SATIIM and the communities to convince and
influence government forestry policies. Forestry is currently
developing a new forest policy and no doubt the convincing alternatives offered
by SATIIM and the communities have been a major impetus for policy change. The
Director of SATIIM, Gregory Ch’oc, is currently advising the Government of
Belize on how to integrate sustainable forest management into a revised
national forest policy.
SATIIM has been at the forefront in promoting responsible
forest management with indigenous Q’eqchi’ villages, and established the two
community enterprises, which have acted as pilot projects for other indigenous
communities in the area. The Maya community of Conejo is currently
in the project planning stages.
http://www.unhabitat.org/bestpractices/2010/mainview.asp?BPID=2543
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