President Martín Vizcarra last week announced the firing of Francesco Petrozzi, the fifth minister to hold the post since Vizcarra took over from Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in March 2018. If Kuczynski’s mandate is included, that makes eighth ministers since 2016. This...
On 19 November, 20 indigenous leaders representing 424 communities and 14 ethnic organisations potentially affected by the dredging of the Peruvian Amazon and its principal sources (the rivers Ucayali, Huallaga and Marañón) repeated their long-standing rejection of...
Pressure on mining companies has been radically increasing in the last few months in regard to opencast mining. First, the failure of the Brumadinho tailings dam in January, with 300 deaths, brought to a head years of disquiet around the management of tailings....
The melting of Andean glaciers has increased recently with consequent effects on the future availability of water for humans, agriculture and indeed mining. It also contributes to the world-wide loss of glaciers. Between 2006 and 2015, 278 billion tonnes of ice were...
The town of Palma Real, indeed most of the district of Echarati in Cuzco where it is situated (the province of La Convención), stands as a monument to how not to pursue development. Under the canon scheme, half of the corporate income tax derived from the Camisea...
Copper and gold mining in Espinar have a long history of discord going back to state ownership under Velasco and before that when mines were in foreign hands. For years, it was Tintaya that dominated the story (later Tintaya-Antapaccay), in the hands of BHP Billiton,...
On 20 November, OPIO, the organisation of Peruvian jungle peoples, issued an appeal to the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), denouncing the Loreto regional government and...
In a public declaration directed at the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM), the Culture Ministry (MINCUL) and other public organizations, PUINAMUDT, the platform of indigenous organisations located in oil block 192, have denounced that the plan for consultation on...
On 21 November, the Environment Ministry (MINAM) created a temporary working group to design the composition and functioning of an indigenous peoples’ platform on climate change (Ministerial Resolution No. 358-2019-MINAM). The working group, created in response to the...
Bad timing. The revelations about how top business executives illicitly funded the political campaigns of those they thought would benefit their interests came only days before the annual meeting of executives (CADE), this year in a big tent at Paracas near Pisco....
As Keiko stepped out of jail, another important figure, César Villanueva, stepped in. Villanueva was among those who appeared to have received large bribes from Odebrecht when he was governor of the San Martín region. He subsequently became prime minister during the...
Keiko Fujimori walked free from the women’s prison in Chorillos on 29 November following the decision (by four votes to three) of the Constitutional Tribunal that she presented no risk through perverting the course of justice, despite the charges against her. Keiko...