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.
]]>The proposed mining project has caused social conflict in this area of Peru. The problems started when the communities denied the company their authorization for the use of their lands, which the firm needs under Peruvian Law No. 26505. The Peruvian Ombudsman office verified this, and communicated the decision to the Ministry of Energy and Mining, which disregarded it. After that there have been several violent conflicts between the security forces hired by the company and community members, two of whom died.
In recent weeks, the Zijin consortium has offered $40 million to the community of Yanta, and the same amount to the community of Segunda y Cajas, to be paid over the duration of the mining project. The latter community held an assembly and decided not to accept this proposal, which conditioned the disbursement to the approval of the mining project. The former will decide in the following days.
"This plebiscite is taking place because the population has asked for it," said Fernando Romero of Oxfam International. "The citizens of this zone want to express their opinion about an activity that would profoundly affect their lives. This action respects the right to express one's opinion, a very fundamental right," he added. "Oxfam International decided to support the referendum because it is a legal mechanism that does not pretend to go further than what the law recognizes as a matter for local governments, as it has no legal implications. We think it is crucial to collect the communities' opinion and establish a dialogue between the authorities, firms, and civil society." Romero emphasized that, according to Oxfam's experience, only by listening to the population can social conflicts be mitigated.
In the last few days some Peruvian authorities have publicly criticized the referendum. The National Election Board, the body that regulates elections, has declared it an illegal activity because local authorities are not supposed to hold referenda in which citizens decide about extractive industries. The Ministry of Energy and Mining has said that local authorities cannot make declarations on a national issue. President Alan García and the Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo have publicly opposed the referendum.
Nevertheless, the office of the Peruvian Ombudsman has declared that the referendum is not an illegal activity because it is within the jurisdiction of the local authorities. The Ministry of Justice has made similar statements. The organizers have stated that the referendum lies within the responsibility of the local government, and that it is meant to reflect public opinion, which they want the authorities to consider when it is time to make decisions.
"We make a public call for this activity to be held in peace, for the different points of view to be heard, and for the authorities to give the necessary help and make sure there is adequate security for everyone," said Romero. "Oxfam is opposed to any type of violence or coercion and supports freedom of expression and participation for everyone involved. We expect this opportunity will be used to hear the population's opinion and find the best solution for the social conflict that has been brewing. The communities of these three districts have sought a way to express themselves in a peaceful way, and this is a will and a right that should be respected."
]]>At 39, he’s content there—even if he doesn’t have enough money to build his animals a shed to protect them from the cold and snow. That will come in due time, he says. For now, he’s focused on another project that has helped to make his life in these remote mountains a little more secure: the field of barley growing on a steep slope near his hut.
That barley, soon to be harvested and carefully stored in a giant pit not far from the field, represents a lifeline for the 100 head of alpaca from which Gonzalez and his family make their living. The nutrient-rich grass will help tide his herd over should severe cold and snow damage their pasturelands again, as it did—with devastating consequences—in the winter of 2004.
With the help of Oxfam America and its local partner, Asociación Proyección, herders in this rugged region of southern Peru have learned how to seed and harvest small plots of barley and oats at an altitude some people thought was just too high to yield a productive crop. They were wrong.
“Two-and-a-half years ago we came here because the local government asked us to come, and when we suggested planting barley, everyone said we were crazy,” said Arturo Rivera Vigil, the field coordinator for Proyección. Today, small patches of deep green barley and oats dot the mountain plains, a buffer against future disasters.
“It has changed all of their lives,” said a translator, speaking for Gonzalez.
“The most important thing now is they can harvest and save the grasses for when the wind and snow hit,” said Simon Quispe Chipa, the mayor of nearby Caylloma, who has been supportive of the program. “Before the project, they couldn’t do anything to save the grasses.”
With the help of the two agencies, villagers planted a total of 110 hectares—about 272 acres—with barley. Family plots are more than half an acre in size—large enough to produce sufficient fodder to help sustain their animals through the roughest weather between May and September. The yield was about 23 tons per family. And since the first successful season, the families and the wider Caylloma community have been buying the seeds themselves, without the assistance of the two agencies.
The mayor has stepped in to help. Shoving open the door to a storage room in the Caylloma town hall—about a three-hour drive from Chiosiri—he showed off a huge stack of sacks. They bulged with barley seeds, filling the air with a sweet, earthy smell. The local government has been buying the seeds in bulk at a low price and selling them at cost to community members.
But it’s not just the barley that is helping to keep the region’s alpaca herds strong. Oxfam and Proyección have also been working with the community on restoring and expanding 272 acres of swampy natural pastures on which the livestock grazes.
By digging a series of narrow channels at a slight slope, villagers have fed water down into the pastures, allowing them to thrive and expand--with the help of clover they also planted.
Speaking through an interpretor, the mayor, Quispe, emphasized the importance of these simple, but vital projects.
“He knew how important it was to have shelter and improve the planting and seeding,” said the interpretor. “He knew that people living here didn’t have a chance to get a better quality of life, and felt strongly the people should improve their lives where they live.”
]]>In a place where there is no electricity to run a pump, where llamas instead of trucks transport many of the goods, and where most people rely on a local spiky grass for their cooking fuel, gravity is the free and super-abundant energy source that is now powering Simon Ccalachua's sprinkler. And beneath the arc of water it sprays, a new growth of hardy rye grass is now sprouting—the guarantee that Ccalachua's alpacas will have the nourishment they need.
Here in Jachaña, a small hamlet in the district of Caylloma, Oxfam America and its local partner, Asociación Proyección, have launched a pilot project aimed at helping poor herders find ways to improve their resources so they can better withstand the hardships of mountain living—the cold, the snow, the remoteness. The sprinkler systems—there are now three scattered around the district—are part of a larger program that has helped 355 families in the area with everything from veterinary services to the production of high-altitude barley for their animals. The effort is part of Oxfam America's strategy to help Andean communities adapt to climate change, some signs of which are already apparent.
"They used to rely on nature and now they know how to work on channels and sprinkling," said a translator, summarizing the benefits for Ccalachua. "Before this project, the mortality of the animals (was very high). Now the mortality is 3 to 10 percent".
Using the resources at hand—a mountain spring and the pull of gravity—the agencies worked with Ccalachu to irrigate about two-and-a-half acres of his sloped, rocky land. Well-watered and well-fertilized (naturally, with alpaca droppings), a pasture that size is big enough to keep 20 alpacas happily nourished, said Arturo Rivera Vigil, the field coordinator for Proyección. The trick is to fence off portions of the pasture after the animals have grazed, allowing the grasses to recover. By the time the herd completes a full rotation, the grass where they started will be ready to eat again.
The system has a number of benefits, said Rivera. The robust diet the animals get encourages them to produce more wool. Instead of one or two pounds of wool, each alpaca can produce between two and four pounds—which in turn means more income for herding families. Keeping watch over the animals in a fenced pasture is a great deal easier for a herder than following them high and low as they roam freely looking for natural grasses, added Rivera. And the mechanism is easy fairly easy to construct: A small reservoir above the field, lined with plastic, is connected it to a pipe running down the hill. With the twist of a valve, the reservoir opens and the water gushes down through a pipe, shooting through slow-spinning sprinklers set in a line across the field.
The only stumbling block is cost. The price tag on each of these sprinkler systems is $1,625, and that doesn't include the cost of the machinery used to help dig the small reservoir.
"That's why (Caylloma) City Hall has to get involved," said Angel Chavez, an Oxfam America humanitarian officer who has worked on the project. Using tax dollars, local government needs to help support these kinds of projects, he added.
That's what the people of Jachaña want too—more sprinklers like the one Ccalachua has. A few pipes hooked to a few small reservoirs could go a long way toward improving the resilience of these mountain families. And though life at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level can be hard, there is no other place some herders can imagine living.
"There is no pollution. The water is nicer. And we have open fields," said Timoteo Ccalahua Quispe.
This activity is part of Oxfam America's adaptation strategy on climate change in Andean communities where already there are some signals of the climate change effects.
]]>It’s the kind of place Oxfam America and its partner, Asociación Proyección, are working in now—at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level in air so thin that newcomers lose their breath and no other aid agencies have the fortitude to venture.
The place is the district of Caylloma, and the people who live here are alpaca herders. Oxfam’s mission is to make sure that when trouble does come—as it has in the past and surely will again because of the changing weather patterns families in these Andean hamlets are already grappling with—they will be prepared to cope.
Three years ago, after a severe cold snap wiped out tens of thousands of llamas and alpacas across Peru’s southern highlands, Oxfam and Proyección joined forces to find a way to prevent a repeat of the suffering people experienced then. Their proposal—a form of disaster risk reduction—included a range of self-help ideas, a smattering of technology, and the most important tool of all: planning.
Today, acres of barley now grow on the slopes—a buffer against food shortages for livestock. New adobe sheds with metal roofs stand in some of the coldest mountain pockets, offering critical shelter for alpacas that had none before. Gravity-fed sprinklers irrigate enclosed pastures of rye grass, guaranteeing a steady source of nourishment for animals. And a handful of radio towers dot the district, connecting far-flung hamlets with the world at large.
Simon Ccalachua, who lives in the little village of Jachaña, put it this way. Without this project, nothing would have changed for him and his family. They had no choice but to accept what nature brought, good or bad. If the cold came, their animals died. But now, armed with new ways of growing the grasses their alpacas need and a way to shelter them, families like Ccalachua’s can overcome the troubles nature brings—on their own.
For Arturo Rivera Vigil, a field coordinator for Proyección, the importance of equipping people with tools to solve their own problems was a lesson he learned the hard way, and one he vowed to share with Caylloma.
Working in another region of Peru during a different emergency, Proyección decided that the best approach would be to provide direct aid to the families in need. So the agency purchased vast quantities of dried alfalfa to help feed the livestock on which those families depended. But that commodity was in short supply because of the emergency, and instantly, its price nearly tripled. Nevertheless, Proyección moved ahead with its plan, delivering tons of alfalfa to the troubled communities. But when the supplies arrived, Proyección learned there was no place in which to store it all.
“We realized we weren’t teaching anything to the communities,” Rivera said. When the cold snap paralyzed Caylloma, Proyección and Oxfam decided to take a longer-term approach—and find sustainable solutions to the problems rather than offer a temporary fix.
But that decision required a new way of looking at the situation: Could there possibly be things communities could do to prepare for disasters at such high altitudes?
“The typical thinking was people living up so high were so remote and had their own culture and own system of raising animals,” said Rivera. “No one thought they could help them, and no one thought anything could grow up that high.”
Proyección and Oxfam proved them wrong.
“We came here because the local government asked us to come, and when we suggested planting barley, everyone said we were crazy,” Rivera told a crowd during a recent ceremony at the Caylloma town hall honoring the project’s high-altitude accomplishments for 355 families. “Three years later, here we are.”
Oxfam and Proyección have helped Caylloma take solid first steps towards addressing a problem that is all too familiar to poor people living in precarious places around the world: When something goes wrong in their environment, they suffer the most.
Cataclysmic events—deep freezes, drought, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions—only turn into disasters when people get caught in them and have few means for managing the consequences. That has been the case in the Caylloma district.
From the hamlet of Chinosiri, for instance, it’s an all-day walk down to the town of Caylloma for help. When the storm hit, assistance didn’t arrive for a week. In sturdy, four-wheel trucks, it’s a three-hour drive from Caylloma to Chinosiri along a rutted track that snakes in hairpin turns up the sides of ridges and back down through streams.
Even at the end of the summer the weather at this height is harsh. Thunder rolls over the mountain plains as hail ricochets off the stony ground. At higher elevations, snow blankets the thin pastures.
Far from one another stand tiny dwellings, made of stone or adobe with thatched roofs. Inside, small fires burn. There is not a tree or bush in sight for fuel, so families make do with dung and Ichu, a spiky grass that livestock will only eat when it’s young and tender.
Widespread poverty across the region means that beyond elementary school, there are few opportunities for learning. Students determined enough to attend one of only two high schools in the province wrestle with a good deal of hardship in pursuit of that dream. The son of Jose Gonzalez Condo, now in his second year of high school, walks four hours to get there in the morning, and another four to return home at the end of the day.
For Gonzalez, the effort his son is making is worth every step: An education will give the boy the tools he needs to live a better life—not necessarily far away in a city, but right here in Chinosiri, perhaps.
With the uncertainty that lies ahead for herding families in Caylloma, education is an important asset and it has been a component of Oxfam’s and Proyección’s disaster risk reduction program. For example, the agencies have produced a series of colorful guides on storm alert systems, the construction of livestock sheds, and improving the use of water resources.
Lately, families have begun to worry about shifting patterns of rain that are affecting the growth rate of the grasses on which their animals feed. The rains are supposed to fall in November, but for the past two or three years, they haven’t come until January, stunting the progress of the grasses. That in turn prevents them from dropping their seeds to start a new round of growth before the May ice season arrives.
Having the means to cope with the consequences of those changes—stores of barley, irrigated pastures—will go a long way toward easing the hardships people would otherwise face. And that explains the enthusiasm with which the mayor of Caylloma has embraced this disaster risk reduction project.
“A project like this can be applied to the whole province,” said Simón Quispe Chipa, the mayor. “This project has been a real motivation for the whole town.”
]]>"We are disappointed that the IFC has decided to fund the second phase of the Camisea project. We believe the board of directors should have requested a delay of the vote in order to more fully assess the environmental and social impact this project will have on local communities," said Ian Gary, Oxfam America's Senior Policy Advisor for Extractive Industries and a member of the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Advisory Group.
The region surrounding the Camisea project is home to indigenous communities, notable biodiversity, national parks, and reserves. Communities in the Lower Urubamba area were particularly neglected by the first phase of the project, with serious compensation agreement problems and little spending of royalties by local governments for increased social services. And these communities have not been fully consulted on the second phase.
"The IFC declined to participate in the first phase of the Camisea gas project, and, with support for Camisea II, runs the risk of being further tarnished for its financing of oil, gas and mining projects, such as the Chad-Cameroon oil project, with dubious development impacts," said Gary.
In April 2006, the IFC instituted new "Performance Standards" to manage social and environmental impacts and enhance development opportunities for all financed countries. The standards require that the company sponsor obtain "broad community support" for high-risk projects within affected communities.
"The IFC has greatly undermined its new environmental and social policies by not fully applying these standards to the gas fields in the Peruvian Amazon, which will supply the export facilities financed by the IFC and other lenders," said Gary. "The narrow parsing of this project, done in order to avoid addressing serious problems, sets a disturbing precedent and will do significant harm to the credibility of the IFC's social and environmental risk management."
"We have yet to see, for example, how the IFC demonstrates compliance with its 'Broad Community Support' requirement, within the narrowly-defined transportation/export portion of the project, let alone for the upstream gas fields that supply the project. 'Broad Community Support' is an important new feature of the 'Performance Standards,' but it is unclear how, or whether, the IFC ensures compliance," said Gary.
Now that the World Bank Group has decided to support the project, it must address serious failures, risks, and concerns still pending from the first phase of the project and from new gas development in the Amazon. These include:
We were there, together with Angel Chavez, one of Oxfam America’s humanitarian officers, to gather stories about Oxfam’s work with alpaca herders. They had suffered serious losses in 2004 when a severe winter storm killed many of the wooly creatures that are the backbone of the local economy. So vital are these camel cousins to the well-being of the families scattered across the mountains that many of the shelters they have built for the animals are superior to their own mud-brick and stone homes.
The income from alpaca wool—softer than cashmere when it’s cleaned, spun, and woven—feeds and clothes families, buys them medicine, and helps cover the occasional extraordinary expense. Without the few hundred dollars herders earn each year from the sale of the wool, life in these barren, thin-aired mountains would not be possible for them. And for many, it’s the only life they have ever known, helping to account for Peru’s position as the world’s top producer—by far—of alpaca wool.
About 80 percent of the wool now on the market comes from this South American country; Bolivia produces another 15 percent; and the rest comes from a smattering of countries including Australia, Switzerland, and England. So you would think, given Peru’s dominance in the industry, that the work of these Caylloma herders would guarantee their families a measure of security. Not so.
There, at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level, nothing is certain: The cold kills, and changing weather patterns are robbing the region of the rain it needs for mountain pastures to grow. Life is hard, and people are very poor.
Oxfam’s work with Proyección has been to help Caylloma herders find ways to buffer themselves against future disasters by improving pastureland; planting barley to serve as an emergency reserve for their animals; and developing an early alert system, including the installation of a simple radio network—all at an altitude that has scared off just about every other aid group.
“Nobody has worked at this height,” said Rivera. “No one wants to come up here. Only us.”
There’s a reason: To reach Caylloma’s remote communities requires a degree of energy that would exhaust a lesser field coordinator and his team. But for Rivera, that challenge—and the need that is so evident among the families of this rugged terrain—is the inspiration that repeatedly draws him up the steep slopes to Chinosiri, Jachaña, and a handful of other hamlets.
From Arequipa, a city in southern Peru where Proyección has its offices, the drive in a pair of heavy-duty pickup trucks to the town of Caylloma took us about seven hours through rain, hail, and snow on a rutted mountain road—and that was just the first half of the journey. Following a night’s rest, we left at 6 a.m. for the three-hour climb to Chinosiri, the belly of our truck scraping the ruts as we inched around hairpin turns and splashed through streams carving gullies in the dirt track.
The snow was falling in fat, wet flakes, blanketing the mountains in white, when Rivera, in the truck ahead, pulled over and jumped out, signaling that this—of all high and remote spots—was just the place for a group picture.
“Beautiful!” he said, surveying the vast emptiness around us: no trees, no bushes, no dwellings—only mountains and more mountains with sharp rocks underfoot.
It wasn’t until I scrambled up the slippery bank to where Rivera and Chavez were already standing in the snow that I realized just how hard the work in Caylloma could be: Without the sea-level amounts of oxygen I was used to, a few quick steps at 15,748 feet high left me breathless and exhausted. Puffing hard, I slipped back down the embankment and into the truck, grateful to be sitting once again, and marveling at the stamina of my colleagues. Could I do this, like them, on a regular basis? Could anybody?
Rivera had already answered that question: No.
The air at the end of this Andean summer was cold and damp, and all of us in the pair of trucks were bundled in just about every stitch of clothing we had brought. I had on two shirts, a sweater, a fleece vest, a fleece jacket, a down vest, a windbreaker, thick wool socks, and a wool cap—just enough to keep the chill at bay.
So I was surprised to see, beyond the steamed windows of the warm truck, two boys hiking hard and fast through the mud on a slope of pasture: They had only sandals on their feet—no shoes, no socks to keep the cold away. They’re boys, I thought, and that’s what boys do: tough things.
But as we bounced along, there were others—men, women, children—all wearing sandals in the frigid air. And as the clouds swept across the sky, occasionally unleashing a shower of cold rain, some of the mountain dwellers hardly seemed to notice, and simply wrapped themselves tight in their woolen blankets and ponchos.
Jose Gonzalez Condo, who has lived all of his 39 years in the tiny community of Chinosiri, explained that he and his fellow villagers are used to the mountain weather and its variable conditions. Chinosiri is home, he said, and he likes it.
But as weather patterns have begun to change—the rains are coming late, which in turn delays the growth of pasture grasses and threatens the health of herds—raising alpacas at this altitude has become increasingly difficult, said Gonzalez. And in the recent past, there was no way to get the word out about challenging weather conditions—be they drought or cold waves—unless someone made the 30-mile trek down to Caylloma to ask for help. The only way to get there is on foot, and the walk takes a day.
Chinosiri’s new two-way radio, installed by Proyección in February, has connected this remotest of villages to the outside world. And with that connection has come the sliver of hope that a way of life for the 70 families there—and for more than 3,400 rural residents scattered across the Caylloma district—is now more secure.
]]>Oxfam America and Peru's National Human Rights Coordinating Body are both publicly denouncing these threats and expressing concerns about the safety of the individuals being intimidated. Oxfam America calls on the legal authorities to protect these individuals, and investigate the death threats and attacks.
Javier Jahncke is the coordinator of a technical support team that advises communities affected by the Rio Blanco mining project in the Huancabamba and Ayabaca provinces of the department of Piura. Jahncke is also a member of FEDEPAZ, one of Oxfam America's partners, as well as the Muqui Network, which is an association of national and local organizations working on the environmental and social effects of mining.
The Rio Blanco Project is run by the Majaz Mining company, an affiliate of the British Monterrico Metals company. Critics of the Rio Blanco project contend that mining could transform an environmentally fragile area of cloud forests and high plains into a mining district that will degrade natural resources and pollute the Piura and Chinchipe rivers. (The Chinchipe is part of the Amazon Basin.) Peru's Public Defender office (a government ombudsman agency that protects the rights of citizens) has said that the mining company started the mining exploration project without the approval of the communities, as required by law.
Civil society groups including the Front for the Sustainable Development of the Peruvian Northern Border have proposed community consultations so that people can express agreement or disagreement with mining activities on their lands. The Front is formed by representatives of farming communities, social organizations, the mayors of the Provinces of Ayabaca and Huancabamba, in Piura, and of Jaén and San Ignacio, in Cajamarca. Javier Jahncke is member of the technical team that advises the Front.
FEDEPAZ has for several years assisted the communities of Ayacaba and Huancabamba in filing claims of illegal land seizure by the Majaz Mining Company.
The death threat against Jahncke is the latest in a series of threats and attacks against community rights advocates in Peru:
In December 2006, Father Marco Arana of the GRUFIDES organization in Cajamarca was being followed, threatened, and intimidated in retaliation for his work advocating for the rights of communities affected by mining.
In February 2007, a man driving a car shot at, but did not hit, Nicanor Alvarado, coordinator of the Environmental Apostolic Vicarage of Jaen, a member of the Muqui Network.
Oxfam America has joined with Peru's National Human Rights Coordinating Body (Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos del Perú) in expressing concern for the safety of environmental and community advocates, and calls on all sides of conflicts related to mining projects to resolve them through dialogue and other non-violent means.
]]>These were the questions taken up by the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a special session to discuss "Human Rights Violations and the Responsibility of International Financial Institutions."
Financial institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank loan huge sums to governments and companies in Latin America. In 2006 it provided more than $6 billion for 112 projects. World Bank lending in the region was more than $5 billion in 2005. Yet despite the power to affect the lives of millions across the region, these bodies have always claimed they are not bound by international human rights law.
"This was the first time the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has held a hearing on this topic, and they seemed quite enthusiastic about becoming more engaged on the issue," said Ian Gary, Oxfam America's policy advisor on extractive industries. He delivered remarks specifically on the $1.7 billion Camisea gas pipeline in Peru, which benefited from $135 million in financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank. Broader legal arguments regarding the need for international financial institutions to comply with human rights norms in their projects were made by representatives of the Indian Law Resource Center and the Center on International Environmental Law.
Critics of the pipeline charge that it runs through national parks and environmentally sensitive areas of Peru without the proper consultation of indigenous communities living there, a violation of the International Labour Organization's Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal People in Independent Countries. The five spills since the pipeline was completed in 2004 have affected the right to a livelihood of indigenous communities – communities say project impacts have contributed to a decline in fish stocks and access to wild game.. A delegation of NGO representatives led by Oxfam America visiting the pipeline area in 2006 were told by local groups that little of the gas royalties given to local government had been used for social programs, such as schools or health clinics, to help the indigenous people in the area.
"This hearing was an important first step to bring public agencies like the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank within a system of accountability to address human rights abuses," Gary said. "Our prospects for sustainable reforms are greatly enhanced when we support local partners to defend their rights and, at the same time, make these arguments in important venues such as this."
Oral Presentation by Ian Gary, Policy Advisor for Extractive Industries, Oxfam America, March 1, 2007
Indigenous groups, Peruvian and international environmental and human rights NGOs expressed serious concerns about the project prior to the IDB's decision to co-finance the project. Unfortunately, many of the concerns related to the rights of indigenous peoples and environmental damage have been borne out.
Furthermore, they will weaken existing regional processes of integration and co-operation. Trade rules with the Andean region need to be substantially modified in order for development to become a priority once again.
]]>The discussions on the future of the International Coffee Agreement present an historic opportunity to address the ongoing crisis facing smallholder coffee farmers and farmworkers by contributing to sustainable coffee supply chains. At the 2nd World Coffee Conference in September 2005 several organizations presented the International Coffee Organisation and its delegates with the Carta de Salvador—the Salvador Declaration, which stressed the ongoing effects of the coffee crisis facing small-scale family farmers and farmworkers. This paper calls on International Coffee Organization members to support small-scale farmers and farmworker organizations by ensuring space for their direct participation in international debate, creating mechanisms that enhance the availability of market information to small-scale farmers, and maximizing opportunities to develop cohesive international strategies to provide technical support, access to credit, and direct access to markets.
]]>For that reason Oxfam America's duty is clear: We and our project partners must help reform government policies, laws, and social injustices that deny people the right to live a decent life. We do this by providing funding, training, and the moral support people need to make real, substantive and transformative changes. The courageous and visionary people who do this work are setting out to build a movement for social justice—and Oxfam America is one of the few organizations to which they can turn for the help they need.
]]>My grandmother told us that we were many, many Secoyas, between the Rio Napo and Putamayo, near the frontier with Colombia. We must have been over 8,000 there?
At the time of the Spanish conquest many people died from measles and mumps. And even when my grandma was a little girl, she had to escape into the jungle to avoid such terrible diseases. She said that nobody came to help them; people were dying in their houses, like chickens.
Then came the rubber boom. The rubber producers held the Secoyas as slaves. Many Secoyas drank poison to liberate themselves from the indignity of forced labor. Others fled deeper into the jungle.
After all this dislocation the Secoyas regrouped in about 1970. We were only 120 people. And those remaining 120 people, along with their children and grandchildren, were the ones who had to endure the impact of the oil companies. And of those 120, I was one.
This is to contextualize what is happening today. These 120 continue to suffer. Two [just] died of cancer, and eight years ago more people died of cancer. So we wonder, for those 120 native people and their descendants, if our days are numbered too; if some sickness will take us instead of a natural death. This is to say that life is uncertain now.
The oil companies have had a significant cultural impact, especially on our territory. How we used to live—naturally, that is—is no longer natural. We are experiencing the impact of many other cultures, especially from [modern-day migration]. Before we didn't need money because we had everything we needed. There were animals and fish; there was fruit, and medicines. Everything was found in the forest. But now we must go out to buy everything.
We also need to buy notebooks and school supplies. We are now surrounded by school walls in order to learn. The education beforehand for the Secoyas began at four in the morning. The elderly people in the community worked with the young people, teaching them weaving. They also told stories, legends, which taught respect for older people.
Though we agree that education should take place in the classroom, we are not in agreement that the only thing that should be taught is what the government decides should be taught. We see that we are not educating ourselves and our children in the way that our ancestors taught us. In that sense we are losing our culture. Now the youth doesn't know about our legends and our stories and our customs. And this is why now, through our own bilingual education, we are trying to reintegrate our own values, our own cultures, and our own traditions into our education.
Another great impact is on the environment. For example, we no longer have animals because one step behind the oil companies came the colonists. And every time the colonists found an animal they had to shoot it, they had to kill it. [The animals] withdrew farther and farther away. And now we no longer have territories in which we have everything we need around us; in which we can go from one side to the other. Everything has its owner. Now there are other communities—Shuar communities and Kichwa communities—which were ours before. This is a reduction of our territory. Right now we're enclosed and circumscribed by different pacts. There is one pact with the oil company; the African palm company [harvesting hearts of palm]; the colonists; even other indigenous people who have migrated here from their ancestral homes in other provinces.
What has really damaged us is the pollution in the rivers. This is really the worst part, along with the contamination in the air and the earth itself on which we cultivate our plants and our food. These are the terrible effects that have been visited upon us.
Although we talk about remediation, I think it will be difficult to repair what has been damaged. I think perhaps we will never be able to, because even though we might repair the natural environment, modern society is here among us—on our doorstep—and we will never be able to repair that.
We have seen many new sicknesses that we didn't see in our people before. We the Secoyas knew how to cure ourselves when those sicknesses were natural sicknesses. But now, with these unknown diseases, not even the best healer among us knows how to cure them. I think if we don't now have people who really know how to cure those previously unknown diseases, if we don't resolve this case against Texaco, then the very few Secoyas that remain—about 400 of us—will lose our culture and we may be finished off by sickness or disease. Or for other reasons we will disappear bit by bit. This is what I can tell you about the impact of the oil industry on the Secoya people.
Yes there is a hope for us, in the way that we have been organizing around Texaco because the Sionas, Secoyas, and Cofanes, we are the ones who have lived here in Sucumbios. We are the original owners of these territories and we have seen all of the damage that has been done here. So we organized through some friendly organizations—they came and told us about human rights—before we knew nothing about human rights. And through friends and allies the Sionas, Secoyas, Cofanes, and Kichwas started to organize in order to bring justice to this case.
We, as one part of the affected people, believe that since we have already waited 10 years [while the case languished in the United States courts]; we could wait and continue another 10 years if necessary. This is our priority. People are saying: "If we don't get this resolved, what are we doing? If we can't drink the water from our traditional sources—then what?"
So we are newly united since the case has been presented in a court here, and now we are just waiting for the judge's decisions. We are assisted by Oxfam America and other people. We feel we are engaging in common work to ensure a future for the people who are in danger of disappearing.
We can't waste time being sorry about what has happened. We have to be able to defend and exercise the same rights as Spanish-speaking mestizo people do in our own territory.
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