A Writ of Amparo Was Filed for Protection against Forest Concessions That Put Isolated Peoples at Risk

ORPIO asks the judge to order GOREL and GERFOR not to grant or reactivate forest concessions that overlap the requested indigenous reserves in favor of isolated peoples and to not apply article 1 of DS 080-2020-PCM that resumes forest activities in the reserves.

Servindi, 20 july, 2020.- The Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East (ORPIO) filed a constitutional writ of amparo before the Superior Court of Justice of Loreto to protect the peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact (PIACI).

The writ filed on Friday, July 17 is addressed against the Regional Management of Forest Development and Wildlife (GERFOR) and the Regional Government of Loreto (GOREL) for promoting a forest reactivation plan that would affect the PIACI.

Both institutions announced the reactivation of forest concessions that territorially overlap four indigenous reserves in the process of being created: a) Yavarí Tapiche, b) Yavarí Mirim, c) Napo Tigre and d) Sierra del Divisor Occidental.

The writ has the legal and technical support from the Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), Forest Peoples Program (FPP) and Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

Direct Threats and Vulnerability

The reactivation plan is framed under the D.S. Nº 080-2020-PCM that seeks to resume extractive activity without considering the highly vulnerable situation of PIACI, whose immune system is fragile against external diseases.

The occupation of indigenous reserves requested in favor of isolated peoples, which also have reports or supreme decrees through which the State recognizes their existence, puts them at risk of getting infected by COVID-19 and it is a threat to their lives and their continuity as communities.

Forest extraction alters the living conditions of PIACI in the following ways:

• Logging activities require brigades of more than 10 people, so when they invade the PIACI territory, there is a greater risk probability of unwanted contacts and the spread of lethal diseases.

• The presence of foreign groups inside the reserves causes the PIACI to untimely escape, abandoning their houses, altering their displacement routes, exploiting forest products, facing conflicts and confrontations.

• The noise of chainsaws and tractors, the presence of strangers, hunting activities and the use of shotguns that accompany the felling, scare away the animals in the bush that feed the isolated villages.

• Competition is generated between loggers and isolated peoples for food from the forest.

• The occupation, deforestation, degradation and contamination of the forest and rivers, because of extractive activities, means the destruction of the resources for the peoples in isolation.

Certain and Imminent Threat

The threat that inactive forest concessions will be reactivated, or that new forest concessions will be superimposed on the PIACI territory, is certain and imminent, and it has background.

For example, during 2016 and 2017 -after Law No. 29763 and its regulations came into force- the Regional Forest and Wildlife Authority of the Loreto Regional Government, illegally granted 43 forest concessions in the requested indigenous reserves that are in the process of being created Yavarí Tapiche and Yavarí Mirim, in the region of Loreto.

They also ignored the requests from the Ministry of Culture and the Ombudsman that were sent to GOREL in the last four years (2017-2020). Requests asking to cancel the illegal forest concessions that have been operating illegally within the territory of the PIACI and which are now seeking to be reactivated in violation of forestry and human rights regulations and seriously endangering the lives of peoples in isolation.

Request to The Judge

ORPIO asks the judge to order GOREL and GERFOR not to grant or reactivate forest concessions that overlap the requested indigenous reserves in favor of isolated peoples and to not apply article 1 of DS 080-2020-PCM that resumes forest activities in the reserves.

Likewise, for forest concessions or forest extraction units not to be granted, reactivated, created or established in areas in process for the establishment of indigenous reserves in favor of the peoples in isolation.

Photo: Credit: ORPIO and IBC / Melissa Medina, 2015. Unpublished aerial photo of PIA malocas in the Isconahua Indigenous Reserve, a few kilometers away from the requested Indigenous Reserve Yavarí Tapiche. These are malocas belong to the Isconahua people in isolation. This same town was formally recognized by the Peruvian State as one of the PIAs who lives in the requested Yavarí Tapiche Indigenous Reserve (the PIAs do not know which are the borders of the reserves and live in a territory much more extensive that includes areas of different reserves and even areas outside these).

Photo: Yavarí Mirim illegal wood trail 2016. Credit: ORPIO, 2016. Unpublished aerial photo of an illegal forest trail in the requested Yavarí Mirim Indigenous Reserve and the Tamshiyacu - Tahuayo Communal Regional Conservation Area (ACR), which was photographed by ORPIO during a monitoring flyby of SRI Yavarí Mirim in 2016.

Photo: Credit: ORPIO, 2015. Unpublished aerial photo of illegal wood logs within the Sierra del Divisor National Park and the requested Indigenous Reserve Yavarí Tapiche. These were taken by ORPIO during the SRI Yavarí Tapiche flyby in 2015.

Photo: Credit: ORPIO / IBC, 2015. Unpublished aerial photo of illegal wood logs within the Sierra del Divisor National Park and the requested Yavarí Tapiche Indigenous Reserve, which were photographed by IBC during a monitoring flyby organized by ORPIO over the SRI Yavarí Tapiche in 2015.