monday, april 23, 2007
Julio Cusurichi and the plight of Peru's indigenous peoples
On Sunday, Julio Cusurichi – a Shipiro Indian from the Madre de Dios region of Peru – was awarded the Goldman Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for environmental activism.Cusurichi was recognized for his work with the Native Federation of Madre de Dios, known as FENAMAD, in creating a 3,000-square-mile reserve in the Southern Peruvian jungle for tribes that choose to have no contact with the outside world.
Loggers looking to harvest valuable old-growth mahogany have encroached on these peoples in recent years, and the result has been devastating to the tribes. They are vulnerable to outside disease and reports of violence against them are becoming more common.
My story on the award and the problem of illegal mahogany logging in Peru, The mahogany wars of Peru's rain forests, is in Sunday’s edition of The San Francisco Chronicle.
But there is a lot more to this story than what I was able to fit in the confines of one newspaper article.
The actual number of indigenous peoples living in the Peruvian jungle is not exactly known but estimated at between 250,000 and half a million. That’s a sizeable number in a country of 28 million but it’s spread out over an incredibly large and remote piece of real estate.
The economic realities of this situation are coming into conflict with development interests. This is a region rich in natural gas deposits, medicinal plants and many other resources big companies are trying to find ways to exploit.
Cusurichi is clear he isn’t against these interests. He understands how logging concessions and petroleum industry development is a way to foster economic development. His main concern is ensuring these interests give back to the area.
“This is an issue of human rights,” he explains. “It is about protecting the rights of people who have no way to defend themselves.”
To report on the story I traveled to Puerto Maldonado in the heart of the Madre de Dios department. From there it was several hours on a small canoe-like boat up the Las Piedras River to the Boca Pariamanu Indian Village.
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It’s a place lacking in plenty but not overburdened with want. The stereotypes of grass-skirted tribesmen or impoverished poor living in squalor are completely incorrect. But that isn’t to say the life here is easy.
A single day hiking through the jungle left me exhausted. I slept for 12-hours straight when I got back to the hotel in Puerto Maldonado. And I was in good enough shape to survive a marathon not too long ago.
Given the struggle, it is little wonder these people’s lives are torn asunder when forces from outside come to bear on them.
In my time in Peru, the plight of the poor is something you live with every day. The amount of poverty in the country makes it inescapable. But one thing that has struck me about this vast segment of the populace here is they almost always seem to be motivated by the understandable desire to build a better life for their children.
Yet it is a concern they do not see reflected in the efforts by the government and various businesses that have come to the jungle in order to develop it. In many cases, it isn’t that these interests don’t care about these populations – they actively think they are stupid.
Cusurichi has an environmental impact report recently prepared by one company with intentions of drilling for natural gas in the Madre de Dios region that is clearly just a copy of an older report prepared for a region of the country more than a thousand miles away. None of the names of cities or rivers have even been changed.
“The oil industries that do not have any concern about our future,” Pedro Porras, 43. “We are going see more contamination in our water, we will have more problems with the companies and we will not see a single bit of help because of it.”
The help they are looking for is improved health facilities. Assistance in their various agricultural programs. Educational opportunities for their children.
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It's a point of view these people see as patronizing as well as harmful in it's own way as the exploitation of the jungle by big businesses.
“Many of these organizations only think to save the little tree and the little bird,” said Wilber Jnuma Belluma, 34. “We are more concerned with the people living here. The social theme and the conservation theme must go hand in hand.”
With such conflicting forces to contend with, perhaps the greatest weapon Cusurichi bring to bear in his fight to represent his peoples on such a broad range of issues is a sense of balance and perspective.
"Changes happen little by little," he said. "You have to do your work looking at the whole picture. You have to make sure the things you do today won't hurt your people tomorrow. Keep that in mind and you can be confident things will work out."
more: Human rights | Observations | Peru | Stories & Writing | The San Francisco Chronicle
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