Participatory GIS - A Paradigm Shift in Development?

An interesting article about participatory GIS use with indigenous Amazonian communities.
Source: Directions Magazine


Participatory GIS - A Paradigm Shift in Development?
By Jen Osha and Daniel Weiner
(Dec 14, 2006)


The potential of participatory GIS revealed itself in a most unexpected way to one of the authors traveling with a group through the Ecuadorian Amazon. As invited guests of the Huaorani people, they recorded testimonies of the personal struggles of the Huaorani to protect local natural resources from oil companies, other foreign interests and the Ecuadorian government. Amo, the guide, often shared stories about how his family was forced to lead a continually diminishing number of Huaorani into the rain forest for subsistence in the face of local missionary activity and oil exploration. Now, however, the Huaorani are worried that they will no longer have any rain forest in which to disappear. Eight oil concessions, operated by six different foreign oil companies, are currently located in the ancestral territory of the Huaorani. In addition, two major oil access roads reach deep into Yasuni National Park, and a third is being built. Despite these threats, the people of Quehueriono village maintain the positive attitude that they will be able to successfully petition the Ecuadorian government to close a portion of their land off to oil concessions. With a wide smile, Amo told his guests that the community felt more confident now about approaching the government because they had a powerful tool. When he disappeared into the forest to bring his surprise, his friends talked about their expectations of the Huaorani's new resource: a jaguar skin, a new blowgun, or perhaps more evidence of the impact of oil extraction on his people. Amo returned from the house, however, with a long tube cradled in his arms. His guests watched in surprise as he delicately removed a rolled paper from the tube and, with the careful help of other warriors, held it down flat on the table.Here, deep in the Amazon, was a map with community input of the Huaorani territory within the Yasuni National Park, oil concessions within the Amazon, and a highlighted area that Amo's community wished to close off to oil extraction. Also included were areas for hunting, firewood, tourism and conservation that the community had designated. The map was generated by community members on transect walks using a GPS in conjunction with the USAID 'Caiman' project, EcoCiencia, TROPIC, and the Instituto Geografico Militar. As the guests watched, the warriors at the table traced the yellow lines of the oil blocks with their fingers to demonstrate how their community was truly surrounded on all sides.

This map shows the Huaorani people's proposed zones. The Huaorani's story demonstrates the power of community mapping and why Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) are diffusing so rapidly. PGIS is the merging of participatory development with various geospatial technologies and has its origins within academia, development agencies and activist communities. PGIS thus contains a broad spectrum of practices, but each has in common the combination of local knowledge and formal "expert" information to produce an integrated geospatial database that addresses community concerns. Of course, communities are socially differentiated, and do not necessarily have homogenous aspirations. As a result, PGIS displays many spatial perspectives and produces outcomes ranging from community produced sketch maps to Web-based multimedia spatial decision making systems. Within the academy, PGIS emerged out of a broadly defined GIS and Society debate. There is now an annual URISA conference that brings academics and community development practitioner/planners together. PGISs in core industrialized countries are increasingly Web-based GIS projects that extend to communities. In developing regions, PGIS tends to be more firmly rooted in practices of participatory development and its increased utilization of geospatial technologies. This intersection is producing a paradigm shift in development practice as evidenced in the recent Mapping for Change International Conference on Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication. The conference was held at the Kenya College of Communication Technology in September 2005. Attending the conference were 154 people from 45 different countries, there to support the belief that PGIS can ultimately "encourage positive social change" (Corbett et al, 2006). The major themes of the conference included networking, the creation of PGIS resource centers and defining good practices. Working groups were also able to collaborate on issues such as:
policies and funding that can either "enable or disable" PGIS projects
building solidarity and a common vision among PGIS practitioners
sharing PGIS experiences such as the representation of local spatial knowledge, ethics of the practice, and ideas on how to protect cultural heritage
regional strategies for supporting PGIS practice Papers presented both for the conference and as a result of the proceedings demonstrated a diversity of PGIS objectives, methods and results, and the rapid diffusion of PGIS practices around the world. For example, Corbett and Keller (2006) displayed a community information system that was used in Indonesia to document traditional knowledge in Indonesia. In this case, the tools used to create the interactive map included digital video, audio recording, digital photos and written text. Rambaldi et al (2006) presented a case study of a Fiji PGIS where participatory orthophoto mapping and 3D modeling were used to document cultural heritages and build support for collaborative resource planning. In Kofiase, Southern Ghana, Khem (2006) introduced the role of PGIS in mediation and consensus building. In Telpaneca, Nicaragua, a geo-referenced community map was created to help prevent and resolve conflicts over local natural resource management (Jardinet, 2006). PGIS applications were also discussed at the Nairobi conference as a way to integrate local knowledge into community forestry planning for carbon certification (Minang and McCall, 2006).In certain cases, more than one tool of PGIS practice must be used, either together or in sequence, to address specific community spatial concerns. For example, the Kayapo people of Brazil accessed both satellite imagery and GPS to make maps of their traditional land use management areas. In this case, the PGIS practice was important as a political tool for the Kayapo to demonstrate territorial unity (Moikarako, 2006). In another case study in the Caprivi Region of Namibia, Taylor et al (2006) shared the potential for PGIS practice to expose and address issues of "identity, rights and land." The authors shared their experiences with PGIS practice for strengthening local rights and increasing the community's capacity to manage a conservation area.The experiences and ideas that were generated from the Mapping for Change Conference extended beyond the conference participants. Contributions were made to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declaration about cultural mapping that helped lead to UNESCO identifying cultural mapping as an important tool and methodology for protecting cultural diversity. In addition, in April 2006, 30 states ratified the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage which both supported the inventory of cultural heritage and raised questions about the ethics of the practice (Rambaldi, 2006). The need for good PGIS practice was another important product of the Nairobi conference. As PGIS is inherently multidisciplinary, it should incorporate a number of different moral and ethical guidelines. For example, participants agreed that the foundations of the 'three T's' must be added to the traditional components of mapmaking. These are: "transparency, time and trust" (Corbett et al, 2006). The authors state that transparency is needed in all interactions, and time and patience are required to build the trust that is necessary between the practitioner and the community. In a paper developed from conversations and ideas resulting from the conference, Rambaldi et al (2006) state that practice of PGIS is "scattered with critical stepping stones all calling attention to troubling dilemmas and overarching issues about empowerment, ownership and potential exploitation." In response to these problems, the authors outlined a "guide to good practice" to help practitioners make appropriate ethical choices. Since maps and their representations are such potentially powerful products, the emphasis on good practice and ethics can be the difference between community empowerment and further marginalization. There is an undeniable excitement within both practitioner and participant communities about the potential for PGIS to be used as an agent for positive change. For example, for the last fifty years of Huaorani history, the Queheuriono community has had reason to associate foreigners with threats to their land and their culture. Amo and his family believe that his people are now fighting for their cultural survival. Yet instead of retreating deeper into the Amazon, they have determined to use the best means available to protect their land. Their decision to use PGIS at this crucial moment in their history is a strong testament to the potential of advanced geospatial technologies to empower communities to protect their land, their culture, and gain a voice in local natural resource management. The choice of communities across the world, as evident in the Nairobi conference, to reach for a resource that is the combination of participatory methods and geospatial technologies may also signify a profound paradigm shift in development planning and practice.

References
Corbett, J., G. Rambaldi, P. Kyem, D. Weiner, R. Olson, J. Muchemi, M. McCall and R. Chambers. (2006). "Overview: Mapping for change the emergence of a new practice." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 1-13, London.

Corbett, J. and P. Keller. (2006). "Using community information systems to express traditional knowledge embedded in the landscape." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 21-28, London.

Craig, W., Harris, T., and D. Weiner (eds.) (2002). Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems. London: Taylor and Francis.

Jardinet, S. (2006). "Capacity development and PGIS for land demarcation: innovations from Nicaragua." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 67-74. London.

Khem, P. (2006). "Finding Common Ground in land use conflicts using PGIS: lessons from Ghana. IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 36-41, London.

Minang, P. and M. McCall. (2006). "Participatory GIS and local knowledge enhancement for community carbon forestry planning: an example from Cameroon." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 85-93, London.

Moikarako, inhabitants of, P. de Robert, J. Faure, and A. Laques. (2006). "The power of maps: cartography with indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 74-79. London.

Rambaldi, G., Kwaku Kyem, P.; McCall P. and D. Weiner. (2006). "Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication in Developing Countries." Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 25 (paper # 1):1-9.

Rambaldi, G., S. Tuivanuavou, P. Namata, P. Vanualailai, S. Rupeni, and E. Rupeni. (2006). "Resource use, development planning, and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage: lessons from Fiji islands." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 28-36. London.

Taylor, J., C. Murphy, S. Mayes, E. Mwilma, N. Nuulimba, and S. Slater-Jones. (2006). "Land and natural resource mapping by San communities and NGOs: experiences from Namibia." IIED, Special Issue on "Mapping for Change: Practice, Technologies and Communication." Participatory Learning and Action, 54: 79-85. London.

Weiner, D. and T. Harris, 2003. "Community-Integrated GIS for Land Reform in South Africa." URISA Journal. 15(2): 61-73.

Indigenous Amazonians use Geographic Technology to Protect their Lands

A very interesting article about indigenous Amazonians using geographic technology to protect their lands from MONGABAY.COM
Source:


AMAZON CONSERVATION TEAM PUTS INDIANS
ON GOOGLE EARTH TO SAVE THE AMAZON
Amazon natives use Google Earth, GPS to protect rainforest home
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
November 14, 2006

Deep in the most remote jungles of South America, Amazon Indians (Amerindians) are using Google Earth, Global Positioning System (GPS) mapping, and other technologies to protect their fast-dwindling home. Tribes in Suriname, Brazil, and Colombia are combining their traditional knowledge of the rainforest with Western technology to conserve forests and maintain ties to their history and cultural traditions, which include profound knowledge of the forest ecosystem and medicinal plants. Helping them is the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), a nonprofit organization working with indigenous people to conserve biodiversity, health, and culture in South American rainforests.

ACT was founded by Mark Plotkin, an accomplished author and renowned ethnobotanist, who has spent much of the past 20 years with some of the most isolated indigenous groups in the world. ACT is active in the Amazon, one of the few places where indigenous populations still live in mostly traditional ways. However, like the Amazon rainforest itself, this is rapidly changing. As forests fall to loggers, miners, and farmers, and the allure of western culture attracts younger generations to cities, extensive knowledge of the forest ecosystem and the secrets of life-saving medicinal plants are forgotten. The combined loss of this knowledge and these forests irreplaceably impoverishes the world of cultural and biological diversity.

Member of the Union of Yagé Healers of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC) using GPS to map a section of forest. Photo courtesy of ACT.

ACT has pioneered a novel approach to address these problems by enabling Indians to monitor and protect their forest home while passing on their cultural wealth to future generations. ACT is working in partnership with local governments to train Indians in the use of GPS and the Internet to map and catalog their forest home, helping to better manage and protect ancestral rainforests by monitoring deforestation and preventing illegal incursions on their land. At the same time the efforts are strengthening cultural ties between indigenous youths and their parents and grandparents.

Googling for forest conservation

While Indian reservations are nominally protected in parts of Brazil — in fact more than 26 percent of the Brazilian Amazon has been set aside in such reserves — in reality Indian lands in northern South America are suffering from encroachment, especially from illegal miners looking to exploit the region's gold deposits. Since the early 1990s the region that includes parts of French Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela, Suriname, Brazil, and Colombia has witnessed a gold rush that has brought tens of thousands of informal miners across lightly patrolled — and sometimes unpatrolled — borders. These mines have wreaked havoc on the local environment, causing deforestation, mercury pollution, and sedimentation of otherwise pristine rivers. The influx of miners has social consequences as well, ranging from violence between miners and indigenous populations to the introduction and spread of diseases like malaria and AIDS. The situation is so problematic that the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), the world's largest scientific organization devoted to the study and protection of tropical ecosystems, recently passed a resolution calling upon governments to take action to stop this illegal and destructive mining.

GPS data gathering on a mapping expedition in the Amazon. Image courtesy of ACT.

Due to the scale of mining operations and the remoteness of the area, illegal mining has been exceedingly difficult to detect. A clandestine airstrip in cleared forest or a series of riverside sluice boxes can be nearly impossible to pinpoint on the ground, given the vastness of the Amazon. But technology is changing the picture. Google Earth and GPS are proving to be key tools in battling deforestation and helping Indians protect their lands.

Indians, who have access to the Internet at the ACT offices in several locations in northern South America, use Google Earth to remotely monitor their lands by checking for signs of miners.

“Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance,” Vasco van Roosmalen, ACT’s Brazil program director, said in an interview with mongabay.com. “Indians log on to Google Earth and study images, inch by inch, looking to see where new gold mines are popping up or where invasions are occurring. With the newly updated, high-resolution images of the region, they can see river discoloration which could be the product of sedimentation and pollution from a nearby mine. They are able to use these images to find the smallest gold mine.”

Vasco van Roosmalen, ACT’s Brazil program director, with a Xingu elder in the southern Amazon. Image courtesy of ACT. GPS mapping of Tumucumaque in Brazil. Image courtesy of ACT.

Once the Indians pinpoint suspect areas using Google Earth, they note the coordinates, then go on foot patrol to investigate further or mark the spot for future airplane flyovers, where five to six Indians go up with government officials to scout for illegal incursions. Van Roosmalen says that without the aid of satellite imagery, flyovers can be of limited effectiveness due to the extent of the forest.

“The high-resolution images make it a lot easier to actually find these areas,” said Van Roosmalen. “When Google Earth updated these images earlier this year with higher resolution versions, we could find nearly all the disturbances in the forest. Our guys have been finding gold mines we didn't know about at all.”

Van Roosmalen said that ACT has spoken with Google Earth about the project.

“We made a presentation earlier this year explaining how we use the images,” Van Roosmalen recounted. “We offered the Google Earth team a list of coordinates where it would be helpful to have sharper images. We also discussed the possibility of finding ways to include the Indians’ nonproprietary data, as a layer with Indian names, on Google Earth.”

Beyond the forest-monitoring capabilities, Google Earth and more generally the Internet, is also helping to strengthen bonds between indigenous children, hungry for technology, and their parents, who are interested in protecting their homeland.

“We have three Indians working in Macapá, the state capital,” Van Roosmalen explained. “The kids are spending time on the computer now and learning very quickly. They are helping their parents use Google Earth to find gold mines near the borders of the indigenous reserve. Not only are the kids having fun with it but they are helping preserve the forest.”

"This is the perfect combo of western technology and indigenous custom and know-how," said Plotkin, president of ACT. "We've got guys painted red and nothing else, walking through the jungle with GPS units mapping their land. That's the sweet spot, the best of both worlds."

Two headed invisible jaguars here

"Westerners maps in three dimensions: longitude, latitude, and altitude," explained Plotkin. "Indians think in six: longitude, latitude, altitude, historical context, sacred sites, and spiritual or mythological sites, where invisible creatures mark watersheds and areas of high biodiversity as off-limits to exploitation."

A model map created by Indians in Brazil. Image courtesy of ACT.

Their maps are also meticulously detailed, including virtually everything associated with a place.

"Indians mark where they get materials for houses, bamboo, specific vines, places where they find honey and wood for canoes, anything they eat in terms of palm nuts, brazil nuts, Açaí -- rich palm fruit. For example we're working with the Wayana, a warrior tribe. They have marked two specific parts of the forest where they can find wood hard enough for arrow points. They've marked another point on the other side of the reserve where they get hollow wood to craft the arrow shaft," added van Roosmalen.

The Indians also chart the distribution of medicinal plants -- they use hundreds -- but for security reasons, some highly coveted medicinal plants are not published. In the past there have been problems with biopiracy where outsiders trespass on lands to illegally collect these plants for export. The Indians saw nothing in return.

In addition to plants, the Indians mark all the places they see animals, including game animals and mythological animals that have deep spiritual meaning.

"On one of the maps the Kamayura had drawn a two-headed animal, so I asked the shaman what it was," recalls Plotkin. "'A two-headed invisible jaguar' he told me. So I asked if he'd ever seen one. 'No they are invisible and dangerous so we don't go there,' he said. Later I learned that the area marked with the invisible jaguar was a strict no-hunting zone, which was preserved to ensure a breeding refuge for forest wildlife. This was his way of saying that it was a protected area where hunting was not allowed."

Plotkin with Amasina, a shaman of the Trio tribe in Suriname. Photo courtesy of the Amazon Conservation Team.

There are good reasons that Indians say certain sites are sacred. Watersheds, which ensure clean drinking water, are off-limits to disturbance as are areas of high biodiversity and places with sacred plants. Indians don't want these places over-exploited.

Besides indicating the location of resources, villages, and geographical features like rivers and creeks, the mapping process has helped reestablish bonds between generations in a society where culture is at risk of extinction.

"The Tumucumaque map has over 2000 Indian names that never before had been registered," said van Roosmalen. "This is extremely important because behind each name is a story that can serve as a tie to the land."

"For example when we did one of the first mapping projects, Indians went out into villages and forests to get the names of the places. When they returned, they said it was taking longer than expected because the elders spent half an hour telling them the story behind the name, before they revealed the name. Well, some of these guys thought this through and asked us for tape recorders so they could record these stories, transcribe them into their language, and make a book with the stories behind the names on the map. Now, for the first time, they have educational material about their culture."

"Look, you want to map your land so you head into the forest with GPS and mark your waypoints and your routes, but the monkey at the end of the creek isn't going to tell you the name and history of a place. All the technology in the world is not going to explain to you the spiritual significance of a spot. No, it's the old guy sitting at the back of the hut, the one you've ignored since you were a kid. He's the one with the knowledge. All of a sudden these old guys are being appreciated as tremendous sources of knowledge by the younger generation, conservation organizations like ACT, and government agencies. Now they see the value of these elders when before no one cared."

In Brazil, Van Roosmalen says that the maps themselves are helping younger generations better understand the struggles of their parents and grandparents in the 1970s and 1980s to acquire rights to the land.

GPS Workshop for Union of Yagé Healers of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC) in Colombia. Image courtesy of ACT. Vasco van Roosmalen with Xingu Indians in the Xingu Indigenous Reserve in Brazil's southern Amazon. Image courtesy of ACT.

"The elders are dying. The younger generation hadn't been learning about the stories of their ancestors or their ties to the land. There were no materials for the school. The main reason the elders asked for these maps was the huge responsibility to hold on to their lands. Their forefathers fought so very hard for these territories -- not having ways to learn about this history, the younger generation is not interested in the land."

"Just last month a researcher told me, 'I thought this land has always been ours. I didn't know we fought so hard for it. Now I need to do a better job of managing it and protecting it.'"

The maps change all this -- they make culture relevant to the new generation and present an easy way for the old generation to pass on their knowledge. Most importantly, the decision to make the maps was that of the Indians. Van Roosmalen says that ACT just comes in with the methodology, but doesn't tell the Indians what to map.

"They know they are making these maps for themselves. They decide what goes into these maps," he says. "The maps empower them and make them more self-reliant."

The maps also have important legal implications for Indians. Maps can be used to establish land rights. For example, says van Roosmalen, in Suriname where there are no indigenous land rights, the maps serve as a very basic tool to help them get rights to their land. In Brazil, vast quantities of land are set aside for Indians but don't have title, meaning that if there is a change to the constitution, they could lose their land.

"A common question from politicians and developers is 'Why do so few Indians need so much land?'" said van Roosmalen. "When you can illustrate it with these detailed maps -- showing that they are using it for all their various purposes -- it's a much more powerful argument than just having a blank map with a green rectangles drawn on it."

Eyes and ears for the government

The maps and Indian involvement also pay dividends for the Brazilian government, concerned about illegal activities and border security. Van Roosmalen says the government has taken an active interest in training Indians in GPS so they can monitor forest areas.

Keenge downloading GPS mapping data in Suriname. Image courtesy of ACT.

"Brazilian security agencies are very interested in information from indigenous park guards. These guys know these areas better than anyone -- they are the eyes and ear on the ground. With GPS and the Internet, Indians now have the means to pass on information in a form that is useful to the government. Before this technology was available, an Indian might come upon a new airstrip or hear a plane overhead, but he would have no way to communicate with officials. He might know the traditional name for that place but there was no map to identify its location. Now he's able to plot the point on the GPS and look it up on Google Earth. Today he can hand in an entire report with all the supporting information. The government has even linked a database updated by indigenous park guards to national security databases."

Indigenous people can save rainforests and biodiversity

The involvement of Indians in monitoring could play a key role in rainforest conservation efforts. Research has found that indigenous reserves have lower deforestation rates than unprotected regions and observations cited by Plotkin, suggests that indigenous reserves may preserve biodiversity and forest cover better than traditional protected areas.

The story of ACT's chief cartographer in Suriname, as told by Mark Plotkin One of my great heroes - Wuta of the Trio tribe in the northeast Amazon - packed up and left the forest to go to the city about a decade ago. He ended up finding employment as a night watchman at a milk factory. You can imagine how much a night watchman makes in a third world country! He started losing weight because he couldn't pick up his bow and arrow to hunt. His kids got malaria because they were living in a slum. He ended up going back to the forest with his family and is now our lead cartographer in the northeast Amazon. He has personally been in charge of mapping 20 million acres of rainforest and training members of four other tribes to do so. But the point to all this is he made his own choice, he moved to the city, and once he was there, he said "this is not an attractive proposition here." I believe our job as conservationists in a lot of these cases is to help people make informed choices. I've taken Indian chiefs up in planes, flown them over deforested areas, and said "yes, you guys get jobs if the loggers come in, but what are you going to eat when there's no rainforest?" We've paddled through rivers where gold had been mined and said, "Yeah OK, these guys made some money but now they can't drink the water or the money either - so what are they going to do? But it's your choice."

Plotkin points to Tumucumaque indigenous reserve on the Suriname border as an example.

"Tumucumaque indigenous reserve is inhabited by 2000 Indians and has one gold mine," he said. "Tumucumaque national park is about the same size, maybe a little smaller, on the border of French Guiana. It's officially inhabited by no one has between 10 and 25 gold mines, depending on who you believe. The fact is where you have people with poison-tipped arrows it's a lot less attractive a proposition to destroy that territory and the one next door."

Plotkin says that Brazil's extensive indigenous reserves - which cover more than a quarter of the Brazilian Amazon -- have more conservation potential than the country's poorly patrolled national parks which cover less than 7 percent of the territory.

"If we can help Indians look after their lands as well as watch over after neighboring nature preserves, we'll have tremendous conservation leverage," said Plotkin. "It's our strong belief that the people who best know, use, and protect biodiversity are the indigenous people who live in these forests," said Plotkin.

Plotkin adds that conservation initiatives would be better-served by having more integration between indigenous populations and other forest preservation efforts since "you can't have rainforest Indians without the rainforest. The best way to protect ancestral rainforests is to help the Indians hold on to their culture, and the best way to help them hold onto their culture is to help them protect the rainforest. "

Half the Peruvian Amazon Leased for Petroleum Development

Source: Environment News Service

Half the Peruvian Amazon Leased for Petroleum Development

WASHINGTON, DC, December 4, 2006 (ENS) - Conservation groups based in Washington warned today that the Peruvian government is signing so many contracts with multinational oil companies that half the rainforest of the Peruvian Amazon is now covered with oil leases.

The Peruvian Amazon contains some of the most pristine and biodiverse rainforests on Earth, says said Dr. Matt Finer of Save America’s Forests, who has spent years working as an ecologist in the rainforests of Peru and Ecuador.

“Over 97 million acres of the Peruvian Amazon, roughly the size of California, is now zoned for oil and gas exploration and exploitation,” he said. “That represents well over one-half of the remaining intact Peruvian rainforest.”

PlusPetrol gas well in Peru's Camisea region (Photo courtesy PlusPetrol)

There are now 39 active oil concessions in the Peruvian Amazon, all but eight leased in the last three years. In 2003, Peru lowered royalties on exploration, intensifying interest from foreign oil companies.

“Eighteen different multinational companies currently operate concessions in the Peruvian Amazon,” said Ellie Happel of Environmental Defense. “These include American companies Occidental, ConocoPhillips, Barrett, Harken, Hunt, and Amareda Hess.”

In addition, Pluspetrol of Argentina, Petrobras of Brazil, Repsol of Spain, Petrolifera of Canada, and Sipet of China are all operating multiple concessions.

Most new oil concession contracts establish a seven year exploration phase consisting of seismic studies and the drilling of several exploratory wells in remote jungle areas. The total term for most contracts is 30 years for oil exploitation and 40 for gas.

“Amazonian diversity for plants, birds, amphibians, and mammals all peak at its upper reaches in Peru and Ecuador,” said Dr. Clinton Jenkins of Duke University.

Endangered jaguar in a Peruvian animal orphanage (Photo courtesy Amazon Animal Orphanage)

“The Peruvian oil concessions overlap with some of the most biodiverse areas of rainforest on Earth.”

More than 20 oil concessions now occupy most of the northern Peruvian Amazon. This region is the ancestral territory of the Achuar, Quechua, Urarina, and Secoya indigenous peoples.

“Virtually all of the concessions overlap indigenous territories,” said Trevor Stevenson of Amazon Alliance. “Most troubling, some of the concessions overlap areas that are home to uncontacted tribes living in voluntary isolation.”

The two most active hydrocarbon fronts are in the north near Peru's border with Ecuador, and further south in the Camisea region.

In the north, there were two new oil discoveries during 2005. These new fields complement another recent discovery in the area, fueling speculation that much of the region is oil rich.

AIDESEP, Peru’s national indigenous Amazonian federation, says that people living traditionally in voluntary isolation inhabit the same general region where the new oil reserves have been discovered.

Achuar men engage in a tribal ritual (Photo courtesy Eric Schniter)

Many of the indigenous communities in the north and their representative organizations oppose new oil development, citing the widespread contamination of the two producing oil blocks in the region.

Frustration among the Achuar people over the dumping of contaminated wastewater grew until in October a federation of Achuar communities shut down operations of these two oil blocks for 14 days, blocking 50 percent of national production.

For 35 years, the Achuar said, contamination from current drilling by PlusPetrol Norte and previous drilling by Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Petrolifera Petroleum Ltd. had been affecting the health and territory of native people.

Up to a million barrels a day of contaminated wastewater was dumped by the oil companies directly into local rivers, not re-injected back into the ground as is done in the United States and more modern operations in the Amazon.

The blockade was lifted after the Peruvian government and PlusPetrol accepted the demands of the Achuar, which included accelerated plans to re-inject wastewater.

Achuar woman and children prepare a meal of fruit. (Photo courtesy Amazon Watch)

Achuar traditional authorities had demanded re-injection of up to 100 percent of the toxic waters back into the ground within 12 months, a new hospital and health services, a one year emergency food supply for communities affected by pollution, five percent of the state oil royalties for community development and acknowledgement of the Achuar's opposition to further oil exploration in the region.

The Achuar did not win a promise that no new oil activities would be permitted on Achuar territory, a likely indicator of serious problems to come, the U.S. environmental groups warn.

Members of the Achuar communities are now facing a government investigation and possible jail terms for their occupation.

Charges against them, filed by Pluspetrol, allege "coertion, criminal trespassing, aggravated kidnapping, and assault against public security."

Amazon Watch, an Amazon defense organization based in San Francisco says, "These charges are disconcerting given the peaceful nature of the protest and the abundant evidence on the vulnerable health status of the Achuar people in Corrientes and the profound oil contamination of their territories. If the charges are allowed to stand, they would set a disturbing precedent against the right to peaceful protest in Peru."

The 11,000 Achuar who live in the remote northern Peruvian rainforest are some of the most traditional indigenous people of the Amazon basin. Their ancestral lands are one of the last refuges for plants and animals found no where else on Earth.

In neighboring areas, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, and Petrolifera own drilling rights to a vast, intact area of tropical rainforest also inhabited by the Achuar. Unless both oil companies make a commitment to respect the environment and Achuar health, there are likely to be more confrontations.

Achuar leaders have been touring the United States since November 16. They are in Los Angeles this week and travel to Houston next week, raising public awareness of their cause.

Industrial engineer Dr. Daniel Saba de Andrea is chairman of the Board of PeruPetro. (Photo courtesy PeruPetro)

The Peruvian national oil company, PeruPetro, recently announced that 18 new concessions will be ready for tender in the first half of 2007. There will be a road show in Houston in January to promote the 18 areas. Dr. Finer warns that the last of the unspoiled Peruvian Amazon is about to disappear, saying, “We’re looking at a critical situation where every inch of the megadiverse Peruvian Amazon not currently within a National Park is fair game for oil companies."

Exploitation of Shipibo Territory

As printed in the Village Earth Fall 2006 Newsletter:

Above: Shipibo-managed hunting grounds.

Below: Traditional Shipibo hunting grounds sold by the Peruvian government to a multinational corporation and ultimately destroyed.

Currently, two-thirds of the Shipibo’s legal territory and resource base is under threat from hydrocarbon (oil and natural gas) exploration and exploitation. Exploration of future drilling sites can be just as environmentally-damaging as actual exploitation when land is cleared during seismic testing, test wells are drilled, and other infrastructure is built in remote forest areas. Oil exploitation has had detrimental effects on many indigenous groups throughout the Amazon, most notably over the past twenty years in Ecuador. With more companies in pursuit of the world’s remaining oil reserves, the Amazon basin is coming under more and more pressure as one of the last untapped reserves. Unfortunately, the indigenous people of the region are paying the price for the rest of the world’s oil consumption habits.

One of the most detrimental oil projects in Peru has been the Camisea pipeline farther south in the remote Lower Urubamba Basin, up river from Shipibo territory. Block 88 was leased to the Multi-national oil conglomerate Pluspetrol working in close ties with such US-based multinational corporations as Hunt Oil and Halliburton. This pipeline has ruptured five times since its inception in mid-2004. It has caused untold environmental damage and adversely affected the many indigenous groups in the region. More than 60% of Block 88 is located within the Territorial Reserve set aside for uncontacted indigenous peoples.

When a Village Earth representative visited the region in July-August 2006, the Shipibo and local indigenous organizations expressed great concern about their indigenous neighbors suffering from this grave exploitation. They also expressed concern that their territory was next in-line for this type of environmental and cultural devastation. As expressed by the head of the AIDESEP (Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon) women’s program for ORAU (AIDESEP Regional Organization of the Ucayali) in Pucallpa, "Our market are the rivers; our economy is our natural resources." By polluting the rivers and destroying the natural resources of the Shipibo - not only is the environment affected, but also the Shipibo way of life.

Village Earth will continue to work with the Shipibo as an ally. By facilitating greater Shipibo intercommunity cooperation, the Shipibo can organize for greater political and economic clout against these destructive outside forces. Through each small step forward, whether it be a strategic planning workshop or the formation of a small business cooperative, the Shipibo will be one step closer to the goal of indigenous self-determination.

For more information or to make a donation, please contact: kristina@villageearth.org or check out the Shipibo Webpage