As deadline approaches, tensions rise again in the Peruvian Amazon

San Francisco, CA-In a recent open letter to Hunt Oil Company President Ray Hunt, the Native Federation of the Río Madre de Dios (FENAMAD) gave Hunt until this week to leave the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the southern Peruvian Amazon as a condition to continuing any further talks with the indigenous communities living in the Reserve area.

"Having peacefully exhausted all protest, without receiving any answer, we hereby communicate to you that we have agreed to a fifteen-day period for you to definitively withdraw from the Amarakaeria Communal Reserve since you do not have the indigenous community's consent," the FENAMAD wrote in their letter.

Hunt Oil is starting seismic exploration in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in oil block 76, constructing 166 exploration camps with heliports. One thousand workers will clear eighteen seismic lines with 20,000 detonation points in the most sensitive areas of the reserve.

The Reserve was first established in 2002 after years of indigenous petitioning to protect the rainforest area of the vast Madre de Dios and Karene watersheds and to provide protected zones for the Harakmbut indigenous peoples to live, fish, and hunt.

The area in dispute, besides being a declared nature reserve, crosses the headwaters of several important river basins, and lies in the buffer zones of Manu and Bahuaja Sonene National Parks, two of the most biodiverse national parks in the world.

A 2007 government bill to open up the neighboring Bahuaja Sonene National Park for oil drilling was withdrawn after a campaign with the support of US congressman Earl Blumenauer.

At the same time the Amarakaeri Reserve was quietly opened up for oil drilling by Hunt when the Peruvian National Service for State Protected Natural Areas changed the reserve's "Master Plan" to eliminate the area's designation as a "Strict Protection Zone," calling it instead a "Wild Zone."

A similar project to explore oil reserves in an important watershed in San Martín was suspended this year when Peru's highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, ruled that the operations would infringe upon the international human right to potable water.

Ten indigenous communities live around and benefit from the reserve. It is their ancestral territory. They were never consulted by the Peruvian government or Hunt Oil and are opposed to the operations. FENAMAD has repeatedly protested the company's operations and recently filed an injunction against the company based on the potential damage to the watershed and the lack of consultation.

Thus far Hunt has refused to cede to any of FENAMAD's demands and the government has sent only low-level officials to talks and armed forces to patrol the area rather than hold meaningful talks with the indigenous communities.

"First we want you to leave our home, then we will invite you to talk," stated one of the indigenous leaders from the region.

"After the horrific events in Bagua last June, indigenous leaders and the Peruvian government have made progress at the discussion table, but now the government is pushing ahead to drill for oil in some of the most sensitive regions of the Amazon once again without consulting with the indigenous peoples living there," said Gregor MacLennan, Peru Program Coordinator at Amazon Watch.

"This is exactly what the previous protests in Bagua were about, and here once again the government's reaction has been to send armed forces into the region rather than listening to the legitimate concerns of indigenous people."

(Amazon Watch, 18/11/2009)