Top Peruvian foe of illegal logging brutally slain [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Top Peruvian foe of illegal logging brutally slain
Published: Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 3:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, September 8, 2014 at 8:47 p.m.


LIMA, Peru (AP) — An outspoken Peruvian opponent of illegal logging and three other native Ashaninka community leaders were brutally slain a remote region bordering Brazil, tribal authorities said Monday.

The activist, Edwin Chota, had received frequent death threats from illegal loggers, who he had tried for years to expel from the lands for which his community was seeking title.

Illegal loggers were suspected in the killings, Ashaninka regional leader Reyder Sebastian Quiltiquari said by phone. Pervasive corruption lets the loggers operate with impunity, stripping the Amazon region's river basins of prized hardwoods, especially mahogany and tropical cedar.

"He threatened to upset the status quo," said David Salisbury, a professor at the University of Richmond who was advising Chota on the title quest and had known him for a decade. "The illegal loggers are on record for wanting Edwin dead."


Read more: http://www.goupstate.com/article/20140909/API/309099999

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[center]

Edwin Chota [/center]

From last year, National Geographic:

Threats Fly as Peru Cops Seize Timber
June 2nd, 2013
by Scott Wallace
Posted to National Geographic
Natives seek protection from irate loggers

~snip~
Official documents from the prosecutor’s office in Pucallpa recorded statements from Saweto community chief Edwin Chota Valera and treasurer Jorge Ríos Pérez indicating they had received death threats from the man who claimed ownership of the wood, which officials valued at $100,000.

“Someone from Saweto will die, and I will denounce you as a drug trafficker,” logging boss Hugo Sorio Flores allegedly told Chota, who claims to have GPS coordinates to identify the exact locations where the timber was extracted. A third community official, Leandro Comacho Ramírez, says he was threatened last Friday, April 5th, by Eurico Mapes Gómez, one of the loggers the Ashéninka accuse of cutting the timber and selling it to Sorio Flores.

Chota said the people of Saweto hope the regional Ucayali government will soon title their homelands and shut down logging operations in the Alto Tamaya region. In the meantime, the community is living through moments of high anxiety.

“The timber and loggers are now under investigation,” Chota wrote in a statement from Pucallpa. “But who will protect the people of Saweto and their leaders from the armed and dangerous loggers?”

More:
http://scottwallace.com/blog/