Since 2006, Peru has seen an impressive annual economic growth rate of more than six percent. Mining has been the main driver of this impressive growth with copper production doubling and gold production up 30 percent over the past five years. Peru's mineral wealth has attracted investment from a wide range of foreign mining companies, including 13 of 17 members of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). Mining exports surpassed $17 billion in 2007, amounting to 62 percent of the country's total exports.
"In the midst of this economic windfall, Peru's regulatory infrastructure remains weak and under-resourced," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. "Forty percent of all Peruvians remain in poverty; in the mineral-rich Andes region, poverty rates exceed 70 percent."
Since large scale resource extraction generates relatively few jobs, mining benefits must trickle down to communities through government programs that redistribute revenues. In Peru, this redistribution process has proven highly problematic because of limited governmental capacity to regulate the industry. Currently, the Ministry of Energy and Mines is tasked with both promoting mining investment and enforcing social and environmental regulations—a problematic conflict of interest. The new Ministry of the Environment should assume this role to regulate mining and strengthen the independence of this ministry.
"There is a justifiable sense of frustration among the Peruvian people impacted by mining who have not reaped the benefits of resource wealth generated from their lands," said Offenheiser. "They have not seen these revenues translate into health services, education, or infrastructure to improve their everyday lives."
In many areas around large-scale mining operations, this frustration has lead to conflict and violence. The Peruvian government's public defender's office, Defensoria del Pueblo, recently counted more than 70 active conflicts around mining operations spread across the country.
"Communities do not trust the government to address their concerns and protect them from pollution and other harms that mining can cause," said Offenheiser. "They're left believing organized protesting is the only option for making their voices heard."
The Peruvian government has cracked down on social protests and criminalized activities defined "anti-mining" for fear that local protests could potentially disrupt foreign investment in mining. To make matters worse, some mining companies have exacerbated social tensions by using private security forces that have been accused of violating human rights.
Several steps, outlined in a new paper from Oxfam America, need to be taken by government, mining companies, international donors and civil society groups to reduce conflict and preserve the long term viability of the mining sector in Peru. These include recognizing the right of community consent; condemnation of all threats and harassment; strengthening government capacity and independence; and full disclosure of information on the social, environmental and economic impacts of mining.
At a minimum, mining companies should actively participate in Peru's Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) process, a global initiative designed to promote disclosure of revenue payments by oil, gas and mining companies. Members of the US Congress can help take this a step further by supporting legislation to make revenue disclosure mandatory. The Extractive Industry Transparency Disclosure (EITD) bill was introduced in the House and Senate in 2008. This legislation, expected for reintroduction in 2009, would require all oil, gas, and mining companies registered with the SEC to disclose their payments to host countries and extend transparency as a truly global standard for company operations.
"By publishing what they pay to the government, mining companies could help communities hold the government accountable for ensuring local economic development," said Offenheiser.
International donors, like the International Finance Corporation, can support these efforts by insisting on transparency, backing government efforts to strengthen capacity, supporting civil society efforts to hold mining companies accountable for compliance with human rights and environmental standards, and helping the Peruvian government diversify its economy in order to the reduce the country's dependence on resource extraction.
"Acting with full transparency and involving affected communities in the process from the start will go a long way to address the underlying cause of conflict," said Offenheiser. "This would open lines of communication that could foster the long term viability of the industry and the ability of mining to contribute to the development in Peru."
]]>Oxfam America is joining other groups in Peru in calling for a complete investigation of these events, and for the individuals responsible for these crimes to be brought to justice.
"We are requesting that the Public Ministry [public prosecutor] and the police carry out an investigation," said Javier Aroca, coordinator of Oxfam International's extractive industries program. "It is essential that these accusations be investigated and that those responsible are punished to ensure that the laws of our country are enforced and that the fundamental rights of our citizens are protected. In the future, we must be able to attain peaceful solutions to social conflicts."
In January 2009 the National Human Rights Coordinator released a report alleging that 28 community members, who were concerned that mining exploration was being carried out on community farm land without their permission, were kidnapped and detained for three days. They had been marching to the mine site, where the Majaz Mining company (now known as Rio Blanco Copper) was exploring for copper deposits. The community members came from Segunda y Cajas and Yanta in Piura, and Jaén, and San Ignacio in the neighboring department of Cajamarca. According to the report, the march was peaceful—no participants carried any weapons apart from the machetes and whips customarily used when traveling by foot in the rough Huancabamba mountains. According to local leaders, they intended to go and speak with the representatives of the mining company, since other attempts to discuss their concerns had failed.
According to the report published by the National Human Rights Coordinator and FEDAPAZ, the community delegation of approximately 400 people was camped out the night before their planned arrival at the mine site when they were attacked by helicopters shooting tear gas. Soon after, police entered their camp and burned their equipment, food, and medicine. The next day the group was attacked again when it arrived at the Majaz mining camp, one person was killed, 40 were injured, and 28 were kidnapped and detained inside the mining camp. The National Human Rights Coordinator report says the detained individuals were subjected to "diverse forms of physical and psychological torture. As well as being savagely beaten…they were kept hooded, sprayed with tear gas and blindfolded, with no warm clothes in spite of the low temperatures." They were released after three days.
The kidnapped community members made formal legal complaints, but the public prosecutor in the region did not conduct an investigation. Instead, the government accused these individuals of terrorism, and they have been under police investigation. In June of 2008 the Human Rights Coordinator and FEDAPAZ filed a legal case in Piura against the police officers and employees of the security firm Forza who were working for the mine company. The suit also included the public prosecutor and medical examiner, who are alleged to have been aware of the kidnapping and torture, and failed to take proper legal action against the perpetrators.
In January of 2009 the national Human Rights Coordinator received photos taken during the three days in 2005 when the community members were detained at the mine site. The organization says the photographs, submitted anonymously, clearly verify the accounts of the detained individuals and have shocked many in the country.
The Prime Minister and Minister of Justice have issued statements urging a thorough investigation of the incidents in 2005. However the police still have not identified any of the officers involved.
"People living in a democracy should not be kidnapped, tortured, and persecuted just for expressing their opinion and raising their concerns," says Oxfam's Javier Aroca. "We need our institutions to create avenues for dialogue so we can avoid conflict and ensure our laws are respected."
]]>CEJIS went on to say that the attack was similar to others inflicted recently on four other civil society organizations in the area, all of which have been working in the region for many years in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples and peasant communities in Santa Cruz.
Oxfam America's South America regional office expressed concern and sympathy regarding the attack. "CEJIS has been working with Oxfam America in Bolivia for several years now," declared Raul Ho, Oxfam America's coordinator for sustainable livelihoods and environmental programs. "CEJIS has played a key role in obtaining land titling for the Chiquitano indigenous peoples," said Ho.
CEJIS has 30 years of experience working on the deepening of democracy, social justice, human rights, and the democratic freedoms of indigenous people, peasants, and civil society. The organization reaffirmed its commitment to continue working on development of the region and throughout Bolivia despite such attacks and intimidation. This is the second firebomb attack on CEJIS' office since November 2007.
This attack occurred two days before an indigenous peoples' celebration of the historic March for Territory and Dignity held in Beni on August 15, 1990. This march marked an opening of the pathway to justice and equality, as new agrarian reform laws have allowed the Chiquitano people of Santa Cruz and other indigenous groups to claim their right to communal lands in Bolivia.
"Oxfam America expresses its solidarity with CEJIS" added Raul Ho, "and conveys its concern in regards to acts of violence and disrespect for this social organization and its headquarters. We also trust that the authorities will prosecute and punish those responsible as required under Bolivian law," he said.
]]>"While Peru's macroeconomic indicators are improving, individuals feel frustrated because they do not perceive their income to be increasing as a result of the country's economic growth," Baca said. "Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana recommends that the government implement policies that increase the benefits of economic growth to excluded populations, improve the efficiency of social programs, and improve the quality of education and health services."
Baca spoke at a panel discussion at Oxfam America's headquarters in Washington titled "Peru's Windfall—The Challenge of Harnessing Extractive Industries Revenues for Poverty Reduction." He said that while the extractive industries such as gold and silver mines and natural gas pipelines are leading Peru's booming economy and contributing more than $2 billion per year to government accounts, half the country still lives in poverty, and Peru is not converting its resource wealth into benefits for its poorest citizens.
One example is the municipality of Echarate, in the Urubamba River valley in the department of Cusco. This area has recently seen rapid development of the Camisea gas pipeline, which is expected to bring Peru $10.8 billion over the 30-year life of the project. The pipeline is being run by an international consortium, and partly funded by $135 million from the Inter-American Development Bank.
Research by Baca and Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana shows that while Echarate's budget for infrastructure projects was less than $700,000 in 2003, by 2007 it was more than $65 million as a result of Camisea royalties. Although the municipality has constructed a new office building, indigenous people in outlying villages report limited presence of government representatives in their communities.
"While indigenous communities have suffered from the negative effects of the gas project—including pipeline spills, decline in fish populations and environmental degradation—they have not significantly benefited from this municipal government windfall nor do they have adequate influence in determining how this money should be spent," says Emily Greenspan, policy advisor for Oxfam America in Washington, who recently returned from a visit to the Camisea project zone in the Peruvian Amazon.
Citizens of Peru already have the right to ask for information about revenues and spending, and companies are required to publish this information. But there is no government office overseeing the information requests, and companies do not always divulge the information requested, says Javier Aroca, an attorney who is Oxfam America's advisor on extractive industries in South America.
Aroca says lack of transparency makes it impossible to determine what companies are contributing to local and national governments. "All transactions related to extractive industries must be clearly defined and described, so that all the information is included in the national budget," he says. "National and international companies must meet international standards of accounting, audit, and publication of accounts. The management and final use of the funds must be published, especially at the regional and local levels. This would help increase trust in public institutions and ensure there is no corruption."
Baca made a number of recommendations about reformulating the laws governing distribution of mining and hydrocarbon revenues. He also recommended systems for fair allocation of the revenues to both producing and non-producing areas, and creating a system that is more transparent, predictable, and equitable.
One way to increase the transparency of extractive industry revenues would be to implement the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international agreement that requires companies to disclose payments to governments so that citizens are aware of what their country's natural resources are worth and where the money is being used. In Peru, the national association for the oil, gas, and mining industry (Sociedad Nacional de Mineria Petroleo y Energia, or SNMPE) has succeeded in having all royalty and gas payments to be published as a lump sum (including all companies together), instead of by each individual company. That makes it hard for people to know how much a specific company is contributing to the government and what portion of that should be coming to the communities that are producing minerals and hydrocarbons.
Complying with the highest standard under EITI would require each company to disclose its tax and royalty payments. Oxfam America is calling on the SNMPE to encourage its member companies and the Ministry of Energy and Mines to support a company-by-company, rather than aggregate, reporting standard for royalty and tax payments as a means to increase transparency of Peru's revenues.
]]>This report explores the basic concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and explores key social issues the mining industry must face in Peru. It includes a summary of the main national and international regulations, standards, and guidelines that will help Peru’s mining sector implement essential aspects of a good CSR program.
The report also recommends that the government, mining industry, and civil society jointly develop reference guides for employment, land acquisition and voluntary resettlement, public consultation, participatory monitoring, and social investments.
Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mining Sector in Peru seeks to take a first step towards meaningful dialogue about CSR among the different actors involved to help civil society obtain the highest benefits from CSR policies and actions implemented by government and corporations.
]]>Shivankoreni, Lower Urubamba, Peru
The small Machiguenga village of Shivankoreni is located within the Lower Urubamba region of eastern Peru, a remote forested area extremely rich in biodiversity. The village lies within the heart of the Camisea project zone, an area being exploited for the wealth of natural gas contained beneath the forest floor. Several other groups of indigenous peoples—both contacted and living in "voluntary isolation" within a state-protected reserve—also inhabit the fragile ecosystems of the project zone. Since the launch of the Camisea project in 2002, indigenous communities have raised growing concerns regarding project impacts to Peruvian authorities, companies (particularly Argentina's Pluspetrol, which leads the upstream consortium), and project financers such as the Inter-American Development Bank.
Unfortunately, to date Camisea project activities have presented several threats to the cultural and biological diversity of the Lower Urubamba. For example, five spills have occurred in the gas liquids pipeline, with serious health and conservation repercussions for local communities. According to Marianella Mata, a Shivankoreni resident, "Since the December 22, 2004 spill we've had very few fish to catch. We've been greatly affected—everything has changed since the spill." Increased boat traffic on the river also contributes to loss of fish, and represents a potential threat to community safety when not managed properly.
Community members have also expressed frustration with other challenges associated with the project:
Shivankoreni community members have been assertive in making their voices heard in response to these challenges. The community twice demanded a delay in consultation on environmental assessments for the project because they did not have adequate assistance, and sought support from an Oxfam America partner organization, CEDIA, in order to more effectively navigate negotiations with Pluspetrol. To call attention to the need for improved government support in dealings with the company, Shivankoreni and two other affected communities issued a declaration demanding that Defensoria del Proyecto Camisea (a body sponsored by the company to address community grievances) be deactivated and that an improved mechanism for community participation and consultation be developed.
After a delegation visit by Oxfam America and other groups, Shivankoreni community leaders successfully convinced Pluspetrol to restrict helicopter overflights in order to reduce fauna disturbance. However, much more needs to be done to promote transparency and prevent future environmental degradation in local communities like Shivankoreni. The second phase of the project, entitled "Camisea II" or "Peru LNG," includes expansion of the gas fields and construction of a new pipeline and a gas export plant on the coast. As in the past, Oxfam America will continue to support local community efforts to ensure the responsiveness of government authorities and company leadership to their concerns.
]]>Paso suspected the reason for this neglect, and it became clear when one health official told Paso that he was not fit to wash dishes in their office because he was an indigenous Quechua speaker, an ethnic group at the bottom of the social order in the scenic region of Cusco. Paso was so discouraged that he almost believed him.
"I was lost," says Paso, now 37, married, and the father of three young boys. "I did not know what culture I belonged to."
Racism, and the discrimination it breeds, erodes the self-respect of the highland indigenous people of Peru. They turn away from their culture and slowly drop their traditional ways of living and working that are so well suited to the Andes. As a result, indigenous people are among the poorest in the country. Paso could see it around his village: farmers like him were not following their traditions of helping each other in their fields; they were poor and ashamed of their culture.
To get some perspective, Paso visited the Centro de Bartolomé de Las Casas, known by its initials CBC, because he had heard on the radio that it was running a bilingual education program designed to help indigenous leaders like him reconcile their place in Peru, learn about their human rights, and develop skills to represent their community with government officials. He joined the program and began learning to read and write in his own Quechua language as well as in Spanish, and he is now more confident in his ability to function in his own indigenous world and the official, Spanish-speaking culture of Peru.
With grants from Oxfam America, CBC had just finished a year-long consultation with Quechua-speaking community leaders and had jointly developed a curriculum designed to help young leaders value their own culture while operating in Peru's modern, post-colonial culture. "We have created a way to help people see they are part of one culture, but they recognize the other," says Nicolette Velarde, an anthropologist at CBC. She says this helps the community leaders create a "dialogue of respect and recognition of one culture with the other."
"Both are valuable," Velarde says. "I am different from you, you are different from me, but there is dialogue and respect."
After developing the curriculum, CBC is now in the midst of training its first group of leaders, which included Paso and 30 others from Cusco and Apurimac.
One of them is Guillermina Mamani Huamán, 53, a mother of four and grandmother of seven. She had a similar experience to Paso's the first time she visited the city of Cusco, 15 years ago. "It was the first time I ever left my village ... Every time I think of it I get emotional," she says, sitting at her loom, staked out on the ground on the banks of the Mapuche River rushing past her father and sister's house.
Huamán went to Cusco to ask a government agency for help in marketing artisan products, but, over the course of four days, she was repeatedly denied the courtesy of even a short consultation. She struggled to find her way in the city, unable to read the street signs, frustrated by her illiteracy, and discouraged by her confrontation with institutionalized racism.
Indigenous women get little help from government agencies whose mission is to assist them. And indigenous women have special problems, even within their own culture, in that men do not always respect the work they do in their homes, and artisan women find that their handicrafts do not fetch a very high price. Huamán intends to learn how to better promote indigenous artisanry and build respect for the work of women. "We need to value fairly what we produce," she says. "This traditional way of weaving is the fruit of our culture, and every weaving has its own character—each woman puts in the way she sees the world."
Paso and Huamán and all the other leaders are planning how they will use their newfound knowledge and leadership skills. Paso is planning to run for public office so he can better represent his community and ensure it gets the schools, health care, and clean water it deserves, without forsaking its cultural identity.
Huamán wants to continue her work to promote the handicrafts produced by women in her community so that they can be more financially independent. "I want to help women educate their children," she says while weaving next to the rushing river, "so they can read and write, and not face the discrimination that I have."
]]>"In the past, indigenous people, especially those from the lowlands in Bolivia, lived in [conditions of] slavery, without any knowledge of their rights. This was mostly in the era of the rubber boom, when their ancestral lands were taken from them and they were forced to work in the rubber fields. Later on, during the era of the creation of large ranch estates, or haciendas, they also worked 14-plus-hour days, were whipped, and died trying to escape. Some of them were able to escape and hide out in inhospitable lands with little water. But in these places they were able to maintain their culture, like in the case of the Chiquitanos of Lomerio.
"The law in Bolivia, as well as the constitution, didn't recognize their rights. For example: The Agrarian Reform law of 1953 referred to them as forest people living like savages and required them to have a legal guardian in order to gain access to land. The concept of indigenous identity was totally unrecognized. The state, which was motivated by mono-cultural, integrationist, and colonialist ambitions, failed to recognize the indigenous people. To gain access to lands they were required to form a peasant union. Then they could get individual parcels of land of 50 hectares (about 124 acres) per family, which ignored the collective vision of land tenure of the indigenous people. Up until the 1980s, indigenous people were prohibited from walking on the sidewalks. They were referred to by the derogatory term, paicos.
"So they decided to organize themselves as an indigenous community starting in 1985, to demand their rights. Foremost were the right to dignity, and the right to their land. That was fundamental to them—as they said, 'without land there is no life.' They said that their land was the key to life for the indigenous people, and that it would allow them to recuperate and once again value their cultural identity. In 1990 the indigenous movement convened an historic march in Bolivia, called the First Indigenous March for Land and Dignity. This marked the movement's emergence from the underground, to make its demands known. And the Chiquitanos participated in this.
"The Chiquitano people have consolidated their territory, and have gone from being excluded by the state to being recognized by it. Now the local authorities treat them equally. There is still some discrimination, but now indigenous people occupy local positions of power. Never before were there indigenous mayors; now there are. There are senators, representatives in the constitutional assembly, and congressional representatives. It's not enough, but there has been some progress. For example, in the constitutional assembly there are four indigenous members, two of whom are Chiquitanos. There is more work to be done, but now the lowland indigenous people are represented. That, along with the consolidation of their territory, gives them more security; they can access more local power and exercise their rights.
"In 1889, indigenous people from all over the country were taken to work on rubber plantations. The Tacana Indians were taken from north of La Paz to the rubber forests. And here in Santa Cruz the indigenous people were captured and taken. They tell stories of how they'd be invited to big parties, where they'd be given alcohol and told that they should go work the rubber, that there was a boom and that they'd be paid well. Some accepted and went. Others went as indentured workers. On their way to the barracks they weren't given anything to eat, some even died in jaguar attacks.
"Men and women worked there, some as young as 12. They tell stories of how they were forced into couples to have children to satisfy the need for workers. They were given one piece of clothing to use year round and they worked all day long. If they didn't come back with what the boss had ordered they would be whipped by the foreman. Many died trying to escape. There is one place everyone calls 'the tragedy,' because an entire family of indigenous people who attempted to escape was killed there.
"After the rubber boom in the late 19th and early 20th century, the estates, known as haciendas, became the new development model in the country. But they were very traditional, feudal style haciendas, where everyone worked for the owner. They produced sugar cane and yucca, which was taken from the communities and sent to Santa Cruz to be sold on the national market. Indigenous people worked 15-, 16-hour days, they were whipped, and there was forced labor. There was also indentured servitude in which you were hired and your basic needs were provided for. They gave you clothes and you could have dried meat, lard, and salt. They wrote down in a book everything you took and at the end of the year the owner balanced the books. Many couldn't read or write, but they were told, for example, 'your work has earned you 100 pesos, but you spent 200 pesos at the company store and so you owe me 100 pesos.' So they'd have to stay and work another year for free—you'd never work off your debts.
"When the Agrarian Reform Law was passed in 1953, stating that land belonged to the people who worked on it, there was an article of the law that was very important to the indigenous people: It prohibited forced labor and slavery. In the western highlands the indigenous people took over the haciendas and the law was applied quickly. But in the eastern lowlands it was a long time before the law was applied. It wasn't until 1965 that people started leaving the haciendas and some owners refused to let the workers go saying that they were indebted to them. So the government had to intervene and it wasn't until nearly 1970 that they were able to form new communities and assert their identity."
]]>Charupá does not seem particularly worried, as he is used to the uncertainties of raising cattle. Moreover, he is confident about the long-term prospects of his community: in June of 2007, the president of Bolivia announced that the Chiquitano people had successfully completed all legal requirements to attain title to a vast area of Santa Cruz's eastern forest known as Monte Verde.
The indigenous people took advantage of an agrarian reform law passed in 1996 that allowed them to claim "original community territories" known by their Spanish initials as TCOs. The Monte Verde TCO has immense significance for the Chiquitano people. Their ancestors were moved out of Monte Verde in the 1700s by the Spanish and relocated to communities run by Jesuit priests. Chiquitanos were enslaved on haciendas and eventually forced to tap rubber trees in the early 20th century. The area near Charupá's village is part of San Antonio de Lomerío, a place of refuge for escaped slaves. Their descendents organized groups to work on the legal claim for their territory, while illegal logging decimated their forests.
It took more than a decade of hard work and sustained Oxfam support for the Chiquitano people to achieve their goal. Oxfam helped three local organizations, in Lomerío, San Javier, and the village of Monte Verde to coordinate their work and collaborate with the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research (known by its Spanish initials CEJIS) to get the technical training to gather satellite positioning data on the TCO borders and investigate 158 land claims by ranchers and other nonindigenous people trying to grab a piece of the territory. Only a small number of these claims were legitimate, and it was only through the legal support, technical data, and satellite photos gathered by the community members and CEJIS that the Chiquitanos could defend their claim from these interlopers, some of whom were using forged documents.
Violence has been a continuous threat to the Chiquitano people for the last 200 years. Individuals forced into slavery were murdered if they tried to escape, and later when the ancestors of escaped slaves in Lomerío organized to win back their territory, their leaders were intimidated and attacked. "We heard of incidents in other communities where entire families had been pulled out of their houses and hung by their wrists under trees," Juan Soqueré, leader of the indigenous Chiquitano community in San Lorenzo said.
Opposition to the land investigations and the legal process from civic committees, representing nonindigenous business and ranching interests opposed to the indigenous people, became violent. When the land investigations exposed fraudulent claims, there was a strong reaction. One of the worst incidents involved Leonardo Tamburini, now 41 and the director of CEJIS. In 2001 while investigating one fraudulent claim, he was kidnapped.
"They beat me so badly they almost killed me," Tamburini said. "They put me in a pick-up truck, and took me to the Cattlemen's Association headquarters in San Javier—which is next door to the church. They had me there for about an hour. There was a cattlemen's congress going on, and they paraded me around the patio of the restaurant, all beat up and bloody, saying 'This is what we do to the people who want to take our land away from us.'"
Tamburini refused to sign a document recognizing the cattlemen's claim to half the territory of Monte Verde, and after the mayor of San Javier intervened he was released. "They didn't accomplish what they wanted," he said.
Juan Soqueré said that gaining the legal title to Monte Verde has brought peace for the Chiquitano. "There are no more threats. And those that threatened us before have left the territory, and now we are all calm, living in peace."
There are 33 communities, comprising roughly 5,000 people living in or near the Monte Verde TCO. They are now looking to the future and envisioning the best ways to manage and enjoy the roughly 3,830 square-mile territory.
Lorenzo Charupá says such planning will be essential for the future. "We are deciding together what areas are for crops," he says. "We are setting aside areas for grazing, hunting, and to preserve trees. We have a map showing all the different areas and what we will do there. Everything has its place."
José Luis Rivera, president of the indigenous organization of San Javier, says they have several ways of making more money:
With the legal title in hand, the community has the confidence to make proposals to development organizations that might have otherwise been reluctant to support agricultural projects on lands the community did not legally own. "These institutions will have no doubt we can do these projects on our own land," Rivera says. "We have the right to our land and can respect our culture."
Outside Rivera's temporary office, his compañeros are building a new office to replace the one burned down by thugs last December. The walls are up, and the smell of sawdust mixes with the wood smoke and cooking scents from a nearby restaurant. Pablo Solis Chuviru, 57, is looking at the new building and reflecting on the struggle to gain the legal title to Monte Verde and what it means for the future for his small village, Turuxnapez, which means "Heaven's Door" in the local Bésiro language. "I hope we can hunt and fish, and use our trees in an orderly way," he says, resting in a chair in the winter sun. "Now we are using a forest management plan so that our children will benefit from the forest. This is the future for them; they can see the fight we won. For them it is a treasure."
]]>"We get water from this ditch, which is a very dirty and murky channel, where garbage is dumped and even dead animals have been found," says Huarcaya, who lives in the town of Huaya Chica. But now, with the help of Oxfam, many families in Huarcaya's town have clean water to drink—thanks to the distribution of water filters and the training in how to use them. So far, the organization has provided 870 water filters in the districts of Humay and Independencia. The goal is to improve significantly the quality of the local drinking water, which often comes from unsafe sources.
Not only did the quake obstruct canals and collapse water treatment and distribution facilities, it also revealed how poor the water quality was in some areas of the countryside. Before the quake, many families had to buy water from tanker trucks or draw it from wells and irrigation ditches. In all these cases the water was unhealthy. The earthquake worsened this situation by increasing the risk of disease.
With the filters Oxfam has been distributing, people are able to remove impurities and sediments. Water that was initially murky, contaminated, and unfit for human consumption becomes clean and free from harmful micro-organisms.
"We get home tired after doing agricultural work (cotton cultivation) and now we have clean water without having to boil it first," observes Delia Mendoza Suárez, a 50-year-old mother of seven children in the village of Palto. Paltoand six other villages now have clean water for drinking and cooking.
Oxfam has been distributing water from tanker trucks in districts where the population does not have sources from which to draw water. The agency is working in coordination with other institutions, such as United Firemen Without Borders (Spain), Pompiers Sans Frontières (France), and Action Against Hunger (Spain). Oxfam has successfully put into service three water treatment plants and has installed 45 water distribution points, including tanks (of 600 and 1,100 liters) and water storage bladders (of 1,500, 3,500, and 6,000 liters), making available an average of 20 liters of water per person per day in each village within the districts of Humay and Independencia.
"Children and adults get stomach illnesses because the water is not clean. After the earthquake, the situation had worsened since there was no water. Now we have it again but it continues to be dirty," said Amalia Valdiviezo Meza, whose family now drinks filtered water.
To help address the ongoing problems, Oxfam is also coordinating a public health campaign through the local press. It's helping to spread information on the proper use of water, latrines, and hygiene to avoid the spread of disease.
"A month after the earthquake, the health risks keep increasing and we must not lower our guard. On the contrary, we will double our efforts to promote hygiene and good health," says Mónica Ramos, Oxfam's public health promoter in Pisco.
As part of that effort, Oxfam has distributed 1,650 hygiene kits, which include soap, shampoo, brushes, and towels, among other items. To achieve a more complete response, latrines and accompanying sinks for washing are also being installed.
Helping Oxfam to achieve its goals have been members of "Jovos," or Young Volunteers for Disaster Prevention, who came from Moquegua, in southern Peru. Assistance has also come from members of the "Grufides" group who have been helping with the installation of tents and temporary shelters as well as with the promotion of public health through talks on hygiene and the proper use and maintenance of water filters.
Maribel Sanchez is the communications officer for Oxfam International in Pisco, Peru.
]]>Although Minera Majaz has not yet submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), there is reason to be concerned about the area's environmental future, especially if Río Blanco proves to be just one part of a mining "district," or group of mining operations.
First, mining is an activity with high environmental risks, as a list of hundreds of environmental liabilities compiled by the Ministry of Energy and Mines reveals. While it is true that a given mining operation usually affects a local area in a concentrated and relatively small manner—according to the company, the total area to be directly affected by the Río Blanco project will be around 4,450 acres (1,800 hectares)—it is also true that aquifers can be severely affected many miles downstream.
The potential contamination of the Río Blanco has become one of the main causes of unease for the people in the area, given that the proposed mining project is located in the river's headwaters. The Río Blanco is a tributary of the Chinchipe River, which forms the most important valley in the neighboring province of San Ignacio, in the department of Cajamarca. According to the study "Mining and Development in Peru, with Special Reference to the Río Blanco Project, Piura," written by a multi-disciplinary team led by Anthony Bebbington, professor of the School of Environment and Development of the University of Manchester, the most serious environmental problems that the mine could generate are "the leaching of acidic mine waters (AMW) from the mining site, the heaps of tailings, and the piles of excavated material." According to the study, the high precipitation in the area (2,000 millimeters (6.5 feet) or more per year) "raises the possibility that rainwater could filter through the piles of tailings and excavated material, transporting contaminated metals to both surface and underground waters." The study indicates that another worrisome potential problem is AMW contamination of the water table, because the open-pit mine would probably be deeper than the groundwater in the area.
After analyzing the environmental variables and reviewing the technical proposal by Majaz, Bebbington and his team concluded that "it would be possible to handle the environmental impacts of the project as designed," provided that this is an isolated mining project. If Río Blanco became part of a large mining district, the situation would be different and the risks to the environment, and water resources in particular, would increase considerably.
At the same time, the team had reservations, given that the proposed mining technology "has never been used in an area with as much precipitation or a history of seismic activity" and hence "the possible combination of tailings/wet excavation material and seismic activity is a reason for serious concern."
Minera Majaz states in many of its official notices that using of state-of-the-art technology will protect the environment. However, simply complying with Peruvian laws, which are regrettably weak, is no guarantee of true protection from environmental contamination. Vito Verna, Director of the Indigenous Communities and Environment Program in the office of the Peruvian Ombudsman observes that "the Peruvian state apparatus lacks an integrated environmental policy. For example, each industrial sector has (or should have) its own maximum allowable pollution limits, and there should be national quality standard for water, soil and air. The system does not work because the ministries have not yet put these standards forward, and consequently the National Environmental Council (CONAM) cannot approve them."
As a result, Peru has approved standards only for air and non-ionizing radiation [such as emitted by radio waves, or microwaves], but not for water (the existing standard is obsolete) or soil. Although a mining operation is required by law to treat its waters before discharging them into a body of water, the maximum allowable limits are so lax that they could even be Class III—waters suitable for irrigation or livestock, but not to sustain aquatic life. Thus, in Peru, a mining operation could exterminate fish, amphibians, and other river wildlife without breaking the law.
But the potential environmental impact of the Río Blanco project does not end there. The project site, in addition to being at the headwaters of a river basin, is located in the heart of a vast area of high-altitude cloud forests—the last sizeable area of tropical rain forests remaining in the department of Piura. These forests have great value in themselves, owing to their diversity and the fact that they form an extension of the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, and thus contain flora and fauna rare in Peru. Yet their greatest value is the connection they provide between the Tabaconas Namballe National Sanctuary (SNTN) in neighboring San Ignacio, and protected areas extending to the Ecuador border. The Río Blanco forest creates a "biological corridor," serving populations of animals that require large areas to be viable, such as the spectacled bear and Andean tapir—two endangered species protected by law.
A large open-pit mining operation in the midst of these forests, and the resulting human activity, represent a threat to the very survival of this corridor. Without it, the spectacled bears and tapirs of the sanctuary, which would lack the space necessary to survive, would be condemned to extinction. A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study of the biodiversity of the sanctuary and its neighboring zones concluded that "the protection of a biological corridor between the SNTN in Peru and the Podocarpus National Park in Ecuador is critical for the preservation of the species that inhabit those areas."
A final consideration: Minera Majaz is not the only company interested in conducting mining operations in the area. A glance through the government's Cadastral Mining Atlas reveals, in addition to the Río Blanco project, concessions of several thousand acres in Carmen de la Frontera. Many of these are adjacent to the Río Blanco project—forming, on the maps produced by the National Institute of Concessions and Mining Surveys (INACC), a solid block of mining concessions in the forests of the Yanta and Segunda y Cajas communities. In context, then, the Río Blanco project is just the first of many future mining operations, which, as a group, constitute a potential new mining district in Peru—and whose environmental impact would be considerably more serious and significant than any single project such as Río Blanco.
It is imperative that the Peruvian government consider all the environmental issues at play in the Río Blanco case, both as part of the dialog process following the referendum and when it evaluates the EIA that the company must soon deliver.
]]>According to published figures, of the individuals qualified to vote in the referendum, there was a turnout of 50.9 percent in Ayabaca; 59.1 percent in Carmen de la Frontera; and 70 percent in Pacaipampa. Consulta Vecinal reported that of 31,388 registered voters, 18,107 cast ballots—a turnout of roughly 60 percent overall. Of these votes, 17,033 said NO to the mining company and 285 said YES. There were 239 blank ballots and 460 disqualified votes.
"Participation has been successful and voluntary," said Fernando Romero, coordinator for Oxfam International. "We believe that the referendum has succeeded in allowing the people of these three districts to voice their opinion regarding the Rio Blanco project."
The referendum has brought to light the issues at the heart of the Majaz case. First, there is a weak or nonexistent state apparatus in Peru for dealing with such issues—making plain the need for an environmental authority capable of regulating and supervising corporate conduct. Second, there is an urgent need for a land-use plan that would identify sites suitable for mining projects.
After explaining that this is a non-binding referendum that would not translate into law, Romero went on to say that "the inhabitants of mining areas are interested in voicing their opinions and being heard by the authorities."
"This is a call for attention and a reminder that these communities are part of the country and should participate when decisions are made that affect their way of life and their future," Romero said.
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