In recent months an increasing number of Amazonian indigenous communities have been threatened by drug traffickers, illegal loggers and miners at the same time as the number of assassinated environmental and human rights defenders has grown. This has led indigenous leaders to call for a broad alliance to defend the rainforest and its peoples.

In the Amazonas region in northern Peru, environmental defenders along the Cenepa River have been charged with kidnapping illegal miners and loggers in 2018, showing that defenders can be denounced and charged as criminals while the instigators of environmental damage continue their activities.

Augostina Mayán, provided with government protection as a registered environmental and human rights defender, explains that this ‘protection’ often comes at a high price. She is quoted as saying: “Being recognised as a defender makes me more vulnerable because it is more difficult to travel. I cannot use smaller boats to travel along the rivers. Before, I could travel as a passenger but now nobody wants to take me for fear of some problem or act of violence. As a result, I have to contract a bigger and faster boat that may cost 1,000 soles [some US$250] instead of the 50 soles I paid previously.”

In the Ucayali region, on September 23, an indigenous member of the Mariscal Cáceres community was savagely assaulted by three masked men because the community had signed an agreement with CORAH (a government project dedicated to reducing coca cultivation) to eradicate coca in the community’s territory. Over the past year, this and other Cacataibo communities have suffered from threats, attacks and assassinations, presumed to be by drug traffickers.

Last week, the leaders of two Shipibo communities from the Ucayali region, Santa Clara de Uchunya and Flor de Ucayali, traveled to Lima to bring their problems to the attention of the national authorities and the general public.

In the case of Santa Clara, the community has had pending in the Constitutional Tribunal since 2018 a demand that their territories occupied by the palm oil company Grupo Ocho Sur be returned to them and that the 7,000 hectares deforested also be handed back. At least five community members have been granted official protection due to the threats received.

The leaders of Flor de Ucayali came to Lima to request guarantees from the state for the safety of leaders and community members who have likewise received threats. Some 2,500 hectares of the community have been occupied by coca growers for the last ten years. They denounced this to the environmental prosecutor in Ucayali in 2019 and the case was transferred to Lima. In June the authorities responded but this only made matters worse: those occupying the land simply called up reinforcements and the number of threats increased.

In response to situations such as these, the recently-elected president of the national Amazonian indigenous federation, Jorge Pérez Rubio, has called for the creation of an alliance to protect those communities facing constant threats. He has called for the environment to be protected alongside the heritage and the lives and cultures of the inhabitants.