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Peru: The Amazon forest
threatened by
oil palm plantation projects
Oil palm
plantations are expanding in South America: Colombia, Ecuador,
Venezuela and now Peru have joined the commercial thrust.
The companies find profitable opportunities at the expense of
the invaluable Amazon forest and of the lives of peasants who
are displaced from their lands where they obtain their means of
livelihood.
In the year
2000 the Ministry of Agriculture prepared the National Oil Palm
Promotion Plan 2000-2010. With a market approach, the plan
seeks to promote “clusters” in the departments of San Martin and
Loreto until the consolidation of 50,000 hectares is achieved
in the Amazon region which – according
to draft Law 9271-- “has vast and rich
lands where the palm oil industry can be developed.”
In this
context, complaints have been made that 30,000 hectares of tropical
forests located in the valleys of the Caynarachi and Shanusi subsidiary
basins, located right in the Amazon plains and part of the cloud
forest, in the district of Yurimaguas, Loreto region, will be
allocated to the plantation and industrialization of oil palms
by the Romero group, a powerful joint conglomerate involving Industrias
del Espino S.A. (INDESA) and Palmas del Espino y Subsidiarias
(PALMESA). Before the results of the project’s environmental impact
assessment have been made public, it is reported that deforestation
of 2,000 hectares in the Shanusi area has already started.
The State
authorities (the National Environmental Council-Peru - CONAM and
the National Natural Resource Institute - INRENA), have made no
objections to this project not only degrading the habitat of thousands
of forest species, but also carried out at the expense of the
territorial rights of numerous peasant communities. In many
cases the communities inhabiting the project’s area of influence
since 1941 or 1961, have been unable to obtain ownership deeds
for their communal lands because of the high costs involved in
the process. Furthermore, obtaining deeds which takes from one
to three years for a peasant or native community, has only take
three months for the Romero Group and today the company has managed
to obtain ownership of the peasant families’ lands.
Over 40
families living in lands that they have occupied for six years
now feel that the bodies responsible for issuing the deeds have
deceived them as at the beginning they promised to grant the deeds
for their plots, but now tell them that as the lands are within
the area requested by the Romero group company, it is no longer
possible to continue with the formalities. The Upper Shanusi Agrarian
Farmers Association “Centro San Isidro” reported that their members
started legal formalities in 2005 and that the PETT (Proyecto
Especial de Titulación de Tierras – Special Project for Land Title
Deeds) measured up the plots, and therefore they are very surprised
and upset by this decision.
The peasants
of the area know that similar monoculture oil palm plantation
projects in Colombia and Ecuador have led to the destruction of
the environment, mainly as a consequence of the use of agrochemicals
and of their impacts on water, soil, flora and fauna and have
also displaced thousands of peasants. They say that social
aspects do not look good either as the project will affect activities
such as firewood gathering, hunting and fishing, among others.
For its
part, the Board of Directors of the Agrarian Farmers Association
“Centro San Isidro” – APACSI from the lower Shanusi – Yurimaguas,
facing the invasion of oil palm plantations, has issued a declaration
in which it makes a denunciation against the authorities for having
keep silent over PETT’s refusal to grant land ownership deeds
for the lands they have occupied and worked for more than six
years at the same time caring for the primary forest in the San
Isidro Lower Shanusi sector.
They also
regret that a wide sector of the press “is not giving coverage
to this problem which grows bigger every day and which will surely
end in serious and nefarious consequences for our ecology, with
deforestation of a vast territory… and with it the destruction
of thousands of species of flora and fauna. All this for the miserable
objective of planting oil palms for the profitable business of
vegetable oil for the new ‘ecological engines’ that the Romero
group is certainly considering selling in our country. It
should be noted that this palm only grows where there is sun and
water, that is to say that all the vegetation that does not serve
their purpose will be destroyed and with it the beings that inhabit
it. Furthermore, it is not true that this investment will bring
development to the population in this area that has been obliged
to sell their lands in order to implement this eco-suicidal project
that is merely a temporary palliative to the hunger and misery
of our long-suffering peoples.” (see
the complete declaration in Spanish at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Peru/Declaracion_Yurimaguas.html).
Article
based on information from: “Arbitrario posesionamiento del grupo
económico Romero en tierras protegidas de selva virgen de Yurimaguas”,
(The Romero economic group arbitrarily takes possession by of
protected lands in the virgin forest of Yurimaguas) declaration
made on 9 July 2006 by the Board of Directors - APACSI from the
lower Shanusi; “Paralizan titulación de tierras de más de cuarenta
comuneros del Alto Shanusi” (the granting of land ownership deeds
of over forty community members from the Upper Shanusi has been
paralized) Giovanni Acate, Radio Oriente,
http://www.ideeleradio.org.pe/look/Ideeleradio/article.tpl?IdLanguage=13&IdPublication=7&
NrIssue=27&NrSection=50&NrArticle=8898
