Oil companies banned from uncontacted tribes’ reserve

[Judi Lynn]

Oil companies banned from uncontacted tribes’ reserve
21 May

A reserve for uncontacted tribes in the remote Peruvian Amazon has been made off-limits to oil and gas companies.

The decision was revealed this morning at a promotional event held in London by Perupetro, the state company responsible for promoting oil and gas exploration in Peru. The vast majority of the reserve had been previously open to exploration by Brazilian company Petrobras, in an area known as ‘Lot 110’.

The reserve is inhabited by some of the world’s last uncontacted indigenous people, a tribe known as the Murunahua (or Chitonahua). When some Murunahua were contacted for the first time in the mid-1990s, an estimated 50% of them died.

However, Perupetro also announced it intends to open 25 new ‘lots’ for oil and gas exploration, totalling 10 million hectares and almost all in the Amazon. This move has been immediately criticised by Peru’s national Amazon indigenous organisation, AIDESEP, who called it a ‘new provocation’ and a ‘new threat’ to Peru’s indigenous population.

More:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5959

[naaman fletcher]

1. what did they die from?

"When some Murunahua were contacted for the first time in the mid-1990s, an estimated 50% of them died."

disease or conflict?

[subsuelo]

2. I think both. n/t

[ChangoLoa]

3. Both

usually come together.

http://www.amazon-indians.org/Uncontacted-Amazon-Indians-Peru.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Logging threatens tribes in Peru's Amazon

Logging threatens tribes in Peru's Amazon - 21/07/2008

Local: São Paulo - SP
Fonte: Reuters
Link: http://br.reuters.com/


Delia Pacaya grew up in Peru's Amazon in a nomadic tribe that shunned contact with outsiders, but when loggers invaded the land she fled the virgin rain forest and settled in a tiny village.

Like many others born in the jungle, Pacaya says she felt threatened by loggers, who often cut beyond the reach of police. The result, environmental and human rights groups say, is the destruction of the Amazon and ancient tribal life.

"There were a lot of loggers and we were afraid," said Pacaya, now in her 20s, speaking Chitonawa and sitting in a three-sided hut, made from palm leaves, where her young son played and chickens pecked at the dirt floor.

Pacaya left her jungle tribe a decade ago and now farms a small plot on the Murunahua nature reserve in Peru's northeastern region of Ucayali. Most trappings of modern life escape her but some others, like nail polish and T-shirts, do not.

Although experts do not know for sure how many indigenous people have abandoned the rain forest and wound up in towns in recent years, they say former tribe members struggle to adapt and often fall to illnesses that their people had never before been exposed to.

"Uncontacted communities are in a very difficult situation. Most of them are being encroached on by loggers, among others, and their lives are in danger," said Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist who often works with AIDESEP, a rights group.

Of more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, more than half are thought to live along the Brazil-Peru border. In May, photographs taken near the border showed two Indian men covered in bright red pigment poised to fire arrows at an aircraft, apparently feeling threatened.

The photos reignited a debate between rights organizations and the government at a time when Peru is encouraging companies to explore for oil and gas in the jungle.

Peru's state-run energy agency Perupetro recently said it would exclude areas where isolated communities live from an auction of oil and gas lots. It was a sharp turnaround for Perupetro, which had previously cast doubt on the existence of remote jungle tribes.

Rights advocates applaud the move but said Peru must do more to prevent encroachment that threatens to expose tribes to deadly diseases. They say the government's plans fall short as nomadic tribes travel in and out of protected parks and enforcement is lax.

More:
http://www.amazonia.org.br/noticias/noticia.cfm?id=278045