Deep in the Peruvian Amazon, on the border with Brazil, stands a small but fierce bastion of resistance to pressure from sectors such as oil and timber. The Matsés village of Puerto Alegre is a week by motorized canoe from the first town where money is handled, but only a few hours from some of the last tribes in voluntary isolation on the planet; semi-nomadic groups that reject contact with the outside world after being enslaved by rubber tappers last century, persecuted by settlers, decimated by imported ailments and bombed with napalm by the Peruvian Air Force in 1964 for opposing a road that was to cross their territory.
In Puerto Alegre, its inhabitants prepare powerful ointments of frog venom to hunt, which access satellite internet, weak, but enough to see a few seconds of Session 53 of Bizarrap with Shakira. Chief Ricardo Nacua Pacha Moconoqui, 39, is the son of an indigenous man who lived in isolation until his youth. Nacua knows how to handle the bow and arrow, but usually hunts with a shotgun. Nor does it wear the traditional matsés tattoo — a line that goes around the mouth and connects the corner to the base of the ears — but it shows the tattoo of a naïve jaguar on the shoulder. "Warrior," he says. There is no state presence here, but there are many who try to enter to extract wealth. "If we don't defend this territory, who will?"
Portrait of Salomón Dunú, a wise indigenous Matsés, who lived isolated, but when he was 18 years old, in 1969, he was contacted by a group of missionaries who were flying over his territory in a small plane. Florence Goupil
Sunrise navigating the Yaquerana, border river between Peru and Brazil. In Peru, in 2009, the Matsés indigenous people achieved the creation of the Matsés National Reserve of 420 thousand hectares, where most of their communities settle. Florence Goupil
Celina, an indigenous Matsés woman from Puerto Alegre, points to the territory she shares with groups in voluntary isolation in the Peruvian Amazon. Florence Goupil
Detail of the current tools of the indigenous people of the Amazonian community of Puerto Alegre, in Peru, with which they enter the deep forest to hunt and survive. Florence Goupil
Detail of the traditional arrows of peoples in voluntary isolation in the Peruvian Amazon. Florence Goupil
Unlike in most native communities, the elders of Puerto Alegre retain the memories of their own life in isolation, when they refused contact with the outside world. In the last two decades, the village they founded on a river viewpoint has expelled unscrupulous loggers, stopped the feet of a Canadian oil company and contributed to the creation, in 2021, of an intangible reserve for indigenous people who still remain isolated, and with whom they share territory. This defense has come at a cost to some Matsés. "I can't go anywhere alone," says one of the activists behind the initiatives, who asks to protect his identity because he lives under threat. "People who were once my friends became my enemies because they wanted to work for those companies."
Despite the historic resistance of communities like Puerto Alegre, the threats to them and their neighbors, the isolated peoples, are multiplying. For example, with a proposal to extract natural resources in protected areas, including those that shelter isolated tribes; a campaign funded by corporate lobbies to deny the documented existence of these groups; and state measures to expand fossil fuel extraction.
Despite the historical resistance of communities like Puerto Alegre, the threats to them and their neighbors, the isolated peoples, are multiplying.
On June 24, the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East (ORPIO) and its allies managed to file a bill that ultimately sought to open reserves for isolated peoples to resource extraction. This single initiative concerned an area of Amazon forest the size of Portugal, some 90,000 square kilometers.
Peruvian anthropologist Beatriz Huertas is one of the leading experts on isolated peoples of the Amazon and one of the architects of that victory "I am concerned that these types of initiatives, even though they are legal aberrations, can go so far," reflects Huertas, relieved, but aware that there are other fronts open and that legislative attacks that have failed today, They can come back tomorrow under another name. There are still other fronts open. "What we have experienced is a sign of the great power of economic groups that articulate with political parties to promote profit above any other consideration."
A new phase of the battle for isolated tribes—for their land, their wealth, their decision to live outside the parameters of the West—has begun.
How to save the Amazon
For the co-founder of Conservación Amazónica, the Peruvian Enrique Ortiz, countries must define untouchable areas, an opinion shared by communities and experts consulted, and with which those who conceive the Amazon as a space to conquer for the economic value of its gold, its precious woods and its hydrocarbons disagree. "Don't we question our mother, our faith, or our football team? Aren't there things in life that you don't touch?" says Ortiz. "As humanity, we must get to the point of applying the same logic to the protection of some spaces."
However, the national and international incentives to exploit one of the regions with the highest concentration of isolated groups in the world are great. In September 2022, for example, exports of liquefied gas from the Peruvian Amazon had increased by 85% over the previous year, registering a rebound after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The current destinations of Peruvian gas in the world are Asia, the United Kingdom and Spain.
In the nineteenth century, the invention of the tire initiated a rubber fever that would last 30 years, (1885-1915), transforming forever the automotive, generating sudden fortunes and leaving a trail of death among the original peoples of the Amazon and the Belgian Congo, enslaved to bleed trees from which the sticky raw material emanated.
At that time, in countries such as Peru and Brazil, indigenous people abandoned their settlements to take refuge in the rugged headwaters of rivers vital to the Amazon, and their lands are today among the most important for biodiversity and climate. "Today the aggressions of an unscrupulous capital are renewed, but unlike then, isolated peoples no longer have anywhere to go," explains anthropologist Beatriz Huertas. "This is not development; it's genocide."
The struggle between those who advocate colonizing the Amazon based on purely economic criteria and those who demand limits to the expansion of the agricultural and extractive front is now taking place in a crucial decade: the last to avoid a point of no return in terms of climate, biodiversity and land degradation, while the world population, And their demands continue to grow. Isolated tribes need large areas to survive physically and culturally, so the defense of their territories is also in the struggle for some of the last continuous forests of the basin and for the material riches they harbor.
Members of the Matsés indigenous community of Puerto Alegre, Peru.Florence Goupil
With the support of allies like Huertas, the Matsés and other indigenous peoples are joining forces to defend the cross-border corridors they share with isolated tribes and protect their right to life, health and a healthy environment.
For example, the indigenous organization ORPIO, of which the Matsés are part, has brought to justice a regional government for granting logging permits within reserves for isolated people, has alerted the authorities to the opening of illegal roads, and as it has advanced, will meet this July with the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javarí (Brazil) to specify joint measures for environmental protection, territorial and health in coordination with the officials of the respective countries.
This movement is leading these and other defenders of the territory to review the lessons of the past, of decades of savage incursion and inequitable development, and the needs of the present – the desire of new generations to join the market economy – to rethink the future of the Amazon.
Isolated: fleeing to live
Abel Bina Shabac Maya, a small and bundled Matsés of about 60 years, spent his childhood in isolation: migrating with a score of relatives among his cassava and banana orchards scattered throughout the Yaquerana River basin; moving to the rhythm of gameanimals and the rainy and dry seasons; carrying bows and arrows to hunt armadillos, sloths and spider monkeys with their uncles. In the Amazonian night, after collecting firewood and taking the second bath of the day in the headwaters of the rivers, they shared roast meat with other groups, told stories and slept in hammocks of palm fiber suspended above braziers.
Lorenzo Tumi (70) and his partner Maria Inuma (52), also contacted for the first time in 1969.
Abel Bina, Matsés Indian. In 1969, when he was still a child, he was contacted by a group of missionaries flying over his territory in a small plane. Florence Goupil
Patricia Cedenteyuki, lying in her hammock. She lived in isolation as a child, and was also contacted in 1969 by a group of missionaries. Florence Goupil
But not all remembrances of this era are good. "My first memory is of an early morning in which we heard mestizos approaching our maloca [communal house]," says Bina, staging the moment spear in hand. "My father carried me in his arms and we ran. We ran a lot! Even then, I knew we were running for our lives." While other children only learned to play and swim, Bina acquired a vital skill for the indigenous people who isolate themselves as a survival strategy: flee.
Like Bina's group, members of 25 villages still in isolation in Peru struggle to maintain their way of life in the face of invaders from their lands. The Peruvian State estimates that the Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) consist of some 5,200 isolated persons and some 2,260 who have recently established sustained relations with the majority society. Its protection in this country lies with the Ministry of Culture.
Reserves for the protection of isolated peoples and protected natural areas with the presence of these groups, in Peru.Pedro Tipula (Institute for the Common Good)
On paper, Peru and Brazil follow a PIACI protection model endorsed by the international legal framework. This model recognizes that isolates lack immunity to diseases common in the outside world. In Brazil, 90% of the Nambikwara were exterminated by influenza, measles, tuberculosis and malaria in the mid-twentieth century, and nearly half of Peru's Nahua died of ailments such as pneumonia after forced contact in the 1980s.
The model also reaffirms the right of PIACIs to freely decide how they want to live and the degree of interaction they wish to have with the rest of society. And to guarantee this right to self-determination and non-contact, their territories must be inviolable: forbidden to third parties and extractive concessions, according to the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) and a score of its national and international allies.
Since 2006, a Peruvian law for the protection of PIACI guarantees the intangibility of reserves, with one exception: "[in] case of locating a natural resource susceptible to use whose exploitation is of public necessity for the State." For example, if hydrocarbons are found.
In the Peruvian regions of Loreto and Madre de Dios, existing hydrocarbon lots under development overlap with territories of isolated peoples. Pedro Tipula (Institute for the Common Good)
The loneliness of a deputy minister
In an interview for this report, Peru's Deputy Minister of Interculturality, Juan Reátegui, stresses that there should be no economic activity, whether formal or informal, in territories of isolated peoples. He affirms this after it transpired that the State is encouraging investments in areas that overlap with two reserves for indigenous people in isolation.
"I am working with the Ministry of Energy and Mines to solve the problem of overlaps peacefully," says Reátegui, whose department is in charge of four million hectares of Amazon forest categorized as intangible reserves for isolated peoples. "There is a double commitment and a dual interest in preserving these forests: if we manage these resources well, we are also contributing to [combating] climate change."
The deputy minister, who took office in April 2023 claiming his Waampis and Awajún indigenous roots, outlines his plans: to provide health personnel, preferably indigenous, to the 800 dispensaries of the Amazon; accelerate the creation of the PIACI Yavarí-Mirim and Sierra del Divisor Occidental reserves, a landscape that extends between Peru and Brazil; get the regional government of Loreto to annul the 47 forest concessions it granted illegally in PIACI territories, and close the year with two new checkpoints and surveillance in the Yavarí-Tapiche Reserve (Loreto), one of them, in the Matsés village of Puerto Alegre.
Reátegui admits that it is urgent to stop the expansion of coca plantations, drug trafficking and illegal logging; and, in parallel, invest in productive projects around the reserves. The idea, shared by both indigenous leaders and experts, is to give economic alternatives to communities so that they can continue to protect crucial forests for the isolated, but also for their own future, instead of becoming pawns of predatory activities.
Otras cuestiones que los líderes ponen en la mesa del Gobierno son la colaboración transfronteriza, la protección de los defensores ambientales y una mayor presencia del Estado en el territorio. Pero para todo ello, hacen falta unos recursos que, de momento, el Estado no está asignando. “Muchos frentes abiertos”, constata el viceministro.
Petróleo en reservas de aislados
Las amenazas a los pueblos en aislamiento del Perú están estrechando el cerco con la complicidad de actores nacionales e internacionales. La empresa estatal Perupetro está incentivando inversiones en áreas que se solapan con dos reservas para indígenas en aislamiento. Según ha podido saber este medio, también planea evaluar el potencial hidrocarburífero en áreas que tocan otras seis reservas: dos creadas en 2021 después de 30 años de espera (Kakataibo Norte y Sur y Yavarí-Tapiche); otras dos para los aislados más numerosos del país (en Mashco Piro y Madre de Dios); la reserva Murunahua, fronteriza con Brasil; y una última en trámite de creación, Napo-Tigre, donde opera un consorcio formado por la anglofrancesaPerenco y una empresa estatal vietnamita.
En paralelo, Perupetro propone modificar la ley de áreas naturales protegidas para que se puedan explotar hidrocarburos y otros recursos en su interior, argumentando que la protección es un “problema” para las inversiones. Según la antropóloga Beatriz Huertas, por lo menos 15 de estas reservas tienen presencia de grupos aislados.
Este junio, Huertas se reunió con Perupetro, acompañando a una delegación de líderes indígenas peruanos y brasileños preocupados por el futuro de los pueblos aislados y por el de sus propias comunidades ante el movimiento ‘anti-PIACI’ en Perú. Trataron todos los temas mencionados. “Dijeron que estuviéramos tranquilos, que no harán nada que la ley no permita”, asegura Huertas. “Éste es, justamente, el problema: la ley protege más la actividad económica de las empresas que los derechos fundamentales de las personas. Es peligrosísimo”.
Miembros de la FENAMAD (Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes) señalan los puntos dentro de las reservas territoriales de la Amazonía en donde se han producido avistamientos y enfrentamientos entre madereros y grupos en aislamiento voluntario.Florence Goupil
Pueblos aislados contra millonarios franceses
La influencia de las empresas extractivas es grande, y los impactos de su actividad, duraderos. La familia de petroleros Perrodo, por ejemplo, es una de las más ricas de Francia, con inversiones en viticultura, charcutería y afición por competir en carreras de coches, haciéndose un hueco en circuitos oficiales a cambio de aportes financieros.
Parte de su fortuna procede del crudo que la empresa Perenco extrae de un territorio amazónico con la presencia, oficialmente reconocida, de cinco pueblos en aislamiento; pueblos que transitan por la frontera con Ecuador, cazando y pescando su sustento en las selváticas cuencas de los ríos Napo y Tigre, muy lejos de las ‘24 horas de Le Mans’, donde el presidente de Perenco ejerce de gentleman driver.
El antropólogo Miguel Macedo, de la ONG peruana Instituto del Bien Común, es uno de los expertos que ha participado en los estudios para documentar la existencia de los indígenas aewa, taushiro, zaparo, tagaeri y taromenaneen la zona de Napo-Tigre con vistas a crear una reserva que les proteja. Como parte de su trabajo, Macedo debía cruzar testimonios independientes sobre la presencia de aislados, por lo que se reunió con comunidades vecinas.
“Empleados de la empresa [Perenco] estaban en estas reuniones; los participantes temían que si daban información, nunca más le iban a contratar”, declara el experto. Bajo la presión de la petrolera de capital anglofrancés y de otros actores económicos regionales, la reserva Napo-Tigre sigue, 20 años después de su solicitud, pendiente de creación.
En respuestas por correo electrónico, la empresa ha afirmado que Perenco “se enorgullece de haber contribuido a desarrollar con éxito el bloque [petrolero] 67, un proyecto declarado de importancia nacional por el Gobierno peruano”, e indica que dispone de un plan de contingencia para encuentros con PIACI en la zona.
Gas, gasolina y flechas
En el sureste de la Amazonía peruana, el río Piedras discurre turbio, entre dos muros de selva bordeando playas donde desovan las tortugas taricaya y nutriéndose de quebradas que se pierden en la oscuridad del bosque. Desde un bote con motor, el líder Pablo Inuma, del pueblo indígena Yine, señala uno de estos riachuelos. Allí empieza una de las reservas territoriales más antiguas del Perú, creada para proteger a su pueblo aislado más numeroso y, para algunos, el más temido. Es la Reserva Madre de Dios, que está en el punto de mira para la explotación de hidrocarburos.
En su juventud, Pablo fue perforista de Repsol en la cuenca del Urubamba, más al oeste. Con ayuda de explosivos, abría líneas sísmicas para encontrar bolsas de gas y de petróleo. “Emparrillamos el bosque, como si fuera una hoja cuadriculada; si hubiera habido aislados, habrían sufrido bastante… Y nosotros también”, dice meneando la cabeza. En los ochenta, su tío era chófer de la petrolera anglo-holandesa Shell. “De vez en cuando, le tocaba recoger el cuerpo de un trabajador atacado por aislados; a veces regresaba a casa con la flecha. Estos casos, la empresa no los reportaba”.
Pablo Inuma, miembro de la FENAMAD (Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes), alumbra el bosque de noche. Hasta la fecha, tres de sus familiares han sido atacados por los grupos aislados, pero Inuma culpa de la violencia a los madereros, quienes extraen recursos violando los derechos humanos de los pueblos indígenas en aislamiento.Florence Goupil
La incursión de Shell en territorio de aislados en los ochenta introdujo enfermedades letales para pueblos que nunca habían estado expuestos a ellas. El 46% de los nahua murieron. Otros pasaron de una vida de autosuficiencia en el bosque a mendigar por las calles de la capital distrital. Algunos de sus descendientes trabajan hoy para la mayor operación de gas de Perú, que explota desde hace casi 20 años las reservas halladas por Shell en la zona del río Camisea. En 2017, se constató que casi el 80% de los nahua allí estaban contaminados por mercurio, pero los estudios independientes para determinar el origen de este potente neurotóxico siguen sin acometerse.
España en la Amazonía
El proyecto Camisea Gas, considerado de “necesidad pública del Estado”, está controlado por un consorcio de seis compañías, una de ellas, Repsol. La empresa española explota otro lote en la misma región de los Andes tropicales, a unos 200 kilómetros en línea recta de Cuzco y del tesoro arqueológico del Machu Pichu. Una de las particularidades de Camisea Gas es que una parte del lote está dentro de la reserva para aislados kugapakori, nahua y nanti. Es decir, se superpone a una zona que debería ser intangible según los estándares internacionales de derechos humanos suscritos por Perú.
En 2022, Repsol publicó el Análisis de controversias sobre el bloque 88. El objetivo de este texto era responder a la alerta de una asesoría internacional, que desaconsejaba invertir en Repsol por su participación del 10% en Camisea Gas. “Sería difícil afirmar que el derecho a la consulta previa [de las comunidades afectadas] estaba garantizado de la forma establecida en las normas internacionales”, indica el informe elaborado por una consultora española. Sin embargo, sostiene que la operación no ha vulnerado derechos relacionados con el territorio, la autonomía y la cultura de los pueblos, y señala la buena relación entre el proyecto gasífero y las comunidades. Shell renunció a explotar los depósitos que había descubierto en Camisea por desacuerdos con el Estado, pero ha acabado invirtiendo en una planta que licúa este mismo gas en la desértica costa peruana.
Ya no hablaban su idioma, ni te invitaban a tomar masato [bebida tradicional fermentada]. Ya todo era negocio. Comimos en un restaurante
Pablo Inuma, líder indígena
In email responses, Repsol has indicated that, following the publication of the analysis of controversies about Camisea Gas, its rating has gone from red to amber. "Camisea is a vital and strategic project for Peru (...) and today contributes more than 40% of the energy consumed by Peruvians," he says. It also adds that gas extraction has generated more than 30,000 indirect and direct jobs, and that it has been developed "always under scrupulous compliance with international standards for the protection of communities in voluntary isolation."
Camisea's story is that of other major investments in remote parts of the Amazon: projects that advance between indisputable macroeconomic benefits and profound social, cultural and public health impacts; some direct, others indirect, and many of them irremediable: collapse of the social structure, generalized anemia, human trafficking, opulent cement pools in villages without basic sanitation. "Grotesque", summarizes the specialist in Amazonian conservation Enrique Ortiz, evoking the feelings of those who visit the area and wonder if the present of the area of influence of Camisea presages the future of other regions. For example, that of Madre de Dios.
"Everything is already business"
Pablo Inuma is one of the indigenous leaders who visited the Camisea Gas project in 2015 as part of a tour organized by Perupetro. The purpose was to show the chiefs of communities of Madre de Dios the benefits of the exploitation of fossil fuels, while the State planned the international tender of 26 hydrocarbon lots, two of which would affect their villages. Inuma had not returned to the Camisea area since 2001, three years before gas exploitation began. Everything had changed.
The leaders admired the technological prowess of the checkpoint, but what impressed them most was the communal hall of Shivankoreni, a community of about 300 people from the Matsikenga people. It had two floors, electrification, computer room, projectors with remote control. A luxury lounge. But walking through the streets of the villages, they were confronted with the other side of the coin.
"They no longer spoke their language, nor did they invite you to drink masato [traditional fermented drink]. Everything was already business. We ate in a restaurant," Inuma recalls today in disbelief. "It didn't look like a native community anymore." The community members were no longer interested in fishing or hunting or cultivating the chacra [orchard], and abandoned themselves to beer waiting to touch the gas royalties at the end of the month, he recalls. Anyway, you would have to walk four or five hours to find animals and the river was not what it had been. The ladies confirmed it: "Now, whoever wants fish, opens a can of tuna."
In spite of everything, the communities consulted ended up accepting an eventual decree for the bidding of the lots in the southern Amazon of Peru. These were not exploited, but they offer lessons learned before the promotion of two new lots further north, one of which overlaps with the Madre de Dios Reserve for isolated.
Previous consultations: lessons from yesterday to today
A study published in the Revista Deusto de Derechos Humanos has examined the prior consultation process that the Peruvian State carried out in 2015 for those 26 hydrocarbon lots, including the two in the department of Madre de Dios. According to the analysis, Perupetro only showed them the supreme decree that was going to authorize the signing of hydrocarbon contracts. It did not provide environmental impact studies or contracts. "Good faith, a basic principle of the consultation process, has been flawed [...] the main reason is that the key information was not available," concludes the research of Peruvian jurist Amelia Alva, affiliated with the University of Ghent (Belgium) at the time of publication and now with Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (Peru).
The study suggests that the result was predictable, given the asymmetry of power and knowledge between the promoter of the measure (Perupetro) and those affected. For example, the process has seven stages, but in the fifth, several communities were still wondering what the right to prior consultation was.
The Peruvian State is not open to discussing alternative development projects
Amelia Alva, Peruvian jurist
In addition, the state has little or no presence in remote Amazonian communities, which accumulate deficiencies in health, education, work and land titling. Prior consultation is, for some, the first opportunity to present their demands to government representatives, says the jurist. Therefore, instead of focusing on assessing the implications of extractive activity, consultations become negotiations on the coverage of basic needs: you promise me a health technician and jobs, I sign the minutes.
"The Peruvian State is not open to discussing alternative development projects," the document states. "On the contrary, hydrocarbons are shown as the only model that will solve the material requirements of the communities consulted."
In statements for this report, Alva recognizes the State's effort to carry out the consultation and believes that extractive activities can be positive, as long as it is guaranteed that companies protect human rights, including those of peoples in isolation. Other recommendations? Respect the right of indigenous peoples to decide on their own development, and appoint an independent consultation promoter. Because, despite the assemblies, the tours, the minutes and the signatures, the one that has the last word is the State.
Mashco piro: futures that are decided in Texas
Those who have no voice, and hence their territorial and political vulnerability, are the isolated indigenous Mashco piro: indomitable archers who roam the ravines of the Piedras River basin, harpoons and spears in hand, accumulating hundreds of kilometers in their wide bare feet; sharpening bamboo canes, now like arrowheads to hunt huanganas, now like leaves to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn, once to defend themselves from the illegal loggers who overwhelmed their farms during the cedar and mahogany fever 20 years ago. They do not imagine that in a place called Texas (USA), near the NASA checkpoints, their territory has been presented as an "excellent opportunity" for investors in hydrocarbons.
Ernesto Alvarado (53), Ashaninka indigenous and head of the community of Monte Salvado, at the bow of the boat that navigates the Las Piedras River. This territory borders the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve for indigenous people in voluntary isolation. Florence Goupil
"The disaster that occurred with Shell and the Nahua people in the eighties could now be repeated with the Mashco Piro," warns Israel Aquise, of the Native Federation of Madre de Dios and Tributaries (Fenamad), which operates in seven surveillance posts for the protection of PIACI. The risks of possible contact with the entry of extractive companies are lethal diseases for entire groups, violent confrontations with workers, forced migrations, conflicts with communities on the Peruvian and Brazilian side that are not accustomed to the presence of isolated groups... The anthropologist shakes his head: "We haven't learned anything."
The area presented to investorsby Perupetro overlaps with the Madre de Dios Reserve, but also withtwo communities of settlers originally from the Urubamba who settled in the territory of the Mashco Piro indigenous people a couple of decades ago, building their wooden houses on stilts next to the Piedras River. Both the communities of Monte Salvado and Puerto Nuevo have official surveillance posts for the protection of PIACI whose objective is to prevent the access of third parties to the Reserve and manage the coexistence between isolated groups and neighboring communities.
Since a hundred isolated people emerged in front of Monte Salvado in 2013, catapulting the village to fame, it has attracted projects that seek to diversify its economy beyond timber, thus helping it to protect the forest and the reserve. Sale of Brazil nuts, handicrafts, state incentives for forest protection, jobs as surveillance agents... The community thrives. However, the dispensary accumulates cobwebs and the young people who migrated to the city are not returning.
The disaster that occurred with Shell and the Nahua people in the eighties could now be repeated with the Mashco Piro
Israel Aquise, of the Native Federation of Madre de Dios and Tributaries (Fenamad)
In Monte Salvado, no one speaks publicly about the new oil lot Perupetro is advertising to international investors, a lot that would affect both his community and the adjacent reserve for isolated mashco piro. Surveillance agents of the Ministry of Culture are not allowed to talk. Perupetro did not respond to requests for comment for this story. And a month after they had transcended the areas in promotion, the indigenous organizations still had not pronounced. "Many open fronts," explained to this media the new indigenous leader of Fenamad, Alfredo Vargas, who in 2015 participated in the prior consultation for the bidding of a lot in Madre de Dios, although this, finally, was not exploited.
In the air, the question of whether Monte Salvado and the rest of the native communities that live with isolated people will resist the advance of the extractivist front. The battle for isolated peoples – and for millions of hectares of forests vital for food security, biodiversity and climate – continues.
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