Peru indigenous leaders push quick Amazon protection vote

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru’s indigenous leaders have been lobbying lawmakers to pass a bill to declare swaths of virgin Amazon rain forest off limits to outsiders, but they fear opposition by the oil industry may scupper a rare opportunity to secure a vote this week.

With concerns growing that the coronavirus pandemic could devastate remote communities, Congress is considering whether to fast track a bill which would restrict access to a string of indigenous territories near the border with Ecuador and Brazil.

Advocates say the legislation, designed to protect these areas from exploitation by oil and gas, mining and logging companies, would also help protect indigenous communities from the virus.

“Until now, high risk extractive activities have been allowed in these territories,” Jorge Pérez, president of the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, told Reuters in a statement.

“This reform will guarantee the lives and human rights of the un-contacted peoples,” Perez said, referring to an estimated 7,000 people in some 20 groups in the Peruvian Amazon who have very little or no interaction with the outside world.

Preserving indigenous territories in Peru and Ecuador is seen as critical to the wider Amazon ecosystem, which scientists warn is approaching catastrophic tipping points due to climate change and accelerating deforestation in Brazil.

While President Martin Vizcarra’s centrist government opposes the proposed law, political analysts and legislators say Peru’s fragmented Congress has a populist hue after January elections and could pass the bill.