…en Perú - Travel Culture History News

The Amazon Rainforest is full of isolated indigenous peoples. They exist in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brasil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru. For President of PetroPeru Daniel Saba speaking of this is like speaking of the Loch Ness monster. Faced with protests from organized native groups, who point out the dangers for uncontacted and isolated tribes of selling off huge areas of Peru’s Amazon, he declared in April of this year “no one has seen them, so what uncontacted people are they talking about?” Surely Saba is not so unbelieving now, after the publication of photos taken from the air on the 18th of September by a group of belonging to the Zoological Society of Frankfurt and the National Institute of National Recourses of Peru, showing some 20 isolated and previously unknown villages along the Los Piedras River.

Beatriz Huertas, anthropologist and writer of the enlightening book Los Pueblos En Aislamiento, says that “it is terrible, criminal even, that the National Institute of National Recourses has published the co-ordinates of where they saw these villages. I have received a lot of letters in protest and also a lot of letters from people wanting to contact them such as Christian missionaries, film makers, television producers and journalists. But this is not good for these communities, not at all”.

The law relating to isolated peoples and first contact does not guarantee these groups territorial rights. “It is very ambiguous”, Huertas says, “it indicates that once they remain sedentary, and give up their patterns of migration, then they begin to have rights. This means they have to give up their way of life to have any form of protection.”

Before they were known as “uncontacted tribes”, now they are known as being in “voluntary isolation”. Both descriptions don’t really describe the reality. According to Klaus Rummenhoeller, a German investigator with 25 years of experience in studies of Amazon natives, “the indigenous peoples, including those considered to be in isolation have maintained and continue maintaining contact with their indigenous neighbours”. They are not isolated from each other, they are isolated from us.

Neither is it entirely true that the people want to isolate themselves, clarifies Beatriz Huertas, but some feel it is the only way to protect themselves against threats from the outside world. Some communities were enslaved in the times of the rubber boom and by illegal loggers. They also have a fear of outside illnesses – they can die just by catching a cold.

Now the phrase “first contact” is used to define a phase when the natives have started a process of interaction with national society. Generally this is an absolute failure. As Antonio Iviche, a Harakmbut native and President of the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios river explains “we were once 30,000 people – until they contacted us. They infected us with illnesses that we had no immunity to. We couldn’t work. We began dying. Now there are only 1500 of us.”

There are five reserves that have been created by the state for the native tribes; Kugapakori, Isconahua, Mashco Piro, Madre de Dios, Murunahua, and there are petitions from the native federations to create five more, but this is all on paper only. In practice these territories are being sold off to oil companies and their peoples are being killed. Currently, the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios (Fenamad) and Interethnic Association of Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (Aidesep) are arguing their case with the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights in Washington.

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The following article has been translated by me from an insert of the newspaper El Comercio, regarding the sale to oil companies of a large part of the most biodiverse place on earth, the Amazon rainforest of Madre de Dios in southern Peru.

No one is against the exploitation of oil per se, but when it is done within the boundaries of a national park of such importance as the Bahuaja Sonene, declared by the National Geographic Society as one of the seven most emblematic natural sanctuaries of the world, it is a different story.

Behind everything is petroleum. Behind wars, behind global warming, behind the insane position of wanting to mutilate a national park. “The news impacted me but didn’t surprise me”, said Daniel Winitzky, an Argentinean of 48 years, who has visited Candamo some thirty times (in 1999 he presented an excellent documentary about “the last jungle without man”). He explains that we are at a breaking point, that if Candamo can hold out 25 years, and the fever for oil, then we might be able to save it. Meanwhile, so much is going to be in danger.

Winitzky, who was in Candamo in January of this year, explains that due to its isolation, this site is unique in the world. “Thomas Vallqui, the ornithologist, was seated in the jungle and a deer passing by bumped into him”. Tigrillos (wild cats), sachavacas (pig-like creature) and ronsocos (large bear-like rodents), they all curiously approach these strange two-legged almost hairless creatures exploring their jungle. They don’t fear humans. But they should.

James D. Gilardi, PhD, a British biologist specialising in ornithology in tropical forests and marine vertebrates, is the director of the prestigious World Parrot Trust and is extremely worried by the storm that awaits Bahuaja Sonene and, like Winitzky, considers this a key battle for sustainable development. “To save a natural gem requires more than drawing lines on a map. It’s in moments like these, when nature is threatened with the exploitation of gas and petroleum… we can only hope that the spirit that formed this national park remains strong”, expressed Gilardi. “There are more species of parrots and macaws in Candamo than any other place on earth, of all the forests of the world. Of all those forests that deserve to be saved, Candamo is, in my opinion, the most important”.

Obviously, the ministers of the Government don’t think the same way. 70% of the Amazon rainforest of Peru has been sold in lots for oil exploration and exploitation. The problem is not this in itself, but where and how it is done. The regional president of Madre de Dios, Santos Kaway, only found out about the sale of 209,782 hectares of the Bahuaja Sonene national park after being told by a journalist, two days after the national government made the sale to oil interests. Luis Alfaro, then chief of Peru’s National Institute of National Recourses was abruptly removed from his job, after he expressed his deep discomfort with the sale, declaring it unconstitutional and breaking various international agreements. He says the sale has demonstrated the weaknesses and susceptibility of the Government in regards to oil contracts.
The sale even violates conditions of the hard-fought for Free Trade Agreement with the United States, violating chapter 18, where it expressly prohibits reduction of protected areas and destruction of rare natural resources.

In this case, one fifth of the Bahuaja Sonene reserve, right in its nucleus, is being removed and sold.

Author of many books dealing with ecology and director of the conservation program Peruvian Society of Environmental Rights (SPDA), Pedro Solano, recently attended the Congress of Parks in Argentina. The participants were dismayed by the “lack of stability in the conservation policies in cases like this, where the government itself only in recent years stated that this national park should and would be permanently protected under the strictest possible orders.” Solano continues, “It appears incoherent, that all the studies done on the Candamo are to be ignored in order to take a new decision – one that allows the area to have absolutely no protection. The justification for this, ‘that there’s oil’, is no justification to reduce the size of the park, patrimony of the nation. The Government will not explain how this natural heritage can continue to be viable if you destroy it’s most important and pristine part”.

Kurt Holle, president of the Peruvian Association of Adventure and Ecotourism is clear that this sale will tremendously affect tourism in Madre de Dios, which happens to be consistently increasing between 15 and 20 per cent annually, becoming the principle destination of 50,000 foreign visitors a year. “The impact on the tourist’s perception of Peru is serious. This destination loses its integrity being next to a petroleum operation. Besides, many species such as the jaguar, the huangana (a jungle pig) and the macaws need large territories to survive. The famous mud-licks of the macaws, that attract so many people are going to lose their splendour. And, the area sold being at the head of a river, the fish and the water are going to suffer the consequences. There are 40 tourist-frequented look-outs along the length of the river Tambopata and river Madre de Dios that will be affected and no longer receive investment”, Kurt says.

For Daniel Winitzky, the new bill permitting the sale is disappointing because “since the park was created, the amount of wildlife has increased noticeably. You can now see Arpia Eagles only 15 minutes from the city of Puerto Maldonado”. Adding to the destruction in the region is the Interoceanic Highway from Pacific to Atlantic oceans, which “is going to unite the most devastated area of Brazil’s forests to the least devastated of Peru’s. Imagine how this collision of distinct economic cultures is going to be”. In Madre de Dios the vision until now has been one of eco-tourism, conservation and sustainable development, for this is considered the world capital of bio-diversity. “All this scarce wilderness is valuable. In 10 or 15 years, what forests are their going to be to capture and trap carbon and provide fresh water? Tropical forests will be very scarce then and their value will increase, even economically”.

Puerto Maldonado does not care much for oil companies. When ExxonMobil were exploring there in the 1990s, they had to hire staff from elsewhere, as the locals, who lived relatively well, didn’t want to give up their lives and families for such hard work. They didn’t live in luxury, but they were happy with their sustainable approach. Winitzky says, “when the oil companies come they promise only good things, but they don’t mention the social costs. Who is going to pay for the loss of tourism, for the death of the river’s fish, for the forest fires, for the water filtration the people will now need, for the health costs?”

This decision to exploit the national park opens the door for the sale of other protected areas, like Huascarán or even Manu. Behind this virtual collapse of the idea of protected areas, behind this irrational short-sighted action that compromises the future of the next generations, behind all of this is petroleum. 30 to 40 years of a fresh source of cash and afterwards… nothing, an Amazon with humans, but without animals, with no possibility of that they can return. Millions of years of evolution thrown away.

***
Readers might also be interested in my blog, Half the Peruvian Amazon covered with oil leases.

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The building of the central andean railway heralded the birth of the town of Chosica - Lima’s residents favourite place to avoid winter days and breathe some fresh air.

Emilio Agustín del Solar y Mendiburu was a public prosecutor for the Supreme Court, a council member for the Province of Lima and a top lawyer for the company that ran the new railway. It was when he was inflicted with a debilitating illness that he decided to leave Lima’s damp humid environment and move to an area along the Rimac river known as Chosica Vieja. This place, in the middle of no-where, kilometres along the railway outside of the city was blessed with sunshine year round and a dry desert climate. No longer able to live in Lima, he decided to found his own small city, Nueva Chosica, and bring Lima to him. To form what he called his new society, he invited his friends from Lima’s elite to build their houses next to his, and they did. The excellent year round climate made the town a successes, and Nueva Chosica became known as just Chosica, or more often as Villa del Sol, Town of the Sun. This was in 1864.

It wasn’t long before everyone who was able to decided to come to spend the winter in Chosica, from the middle-classes to Presidents such as Prado, who lived in nearby Chaclacayo. Urbanisation spread and the town grew. It was soon declared as the capital of the district of Lurigancho, and in the early 1920s the the town’s cathedral was built.

With the building of the Carretera Central, a highway that leads off towards Huancayo or into Chachamayo in the jungle, the area along the river Rimac became more industrialised, and thousands more people began building homes on the surrounding hills.

Nowadays, Chosica is widely visited during the winter months, only an hour and a half away by bus from Lima. The wealthy have their private clubs and the not so wealthy have a large plaza and various fountain-lined promenades. The plaza and surrounding area is packed full of places to eat. At night street-carts sell anticuchos and chicha music is heard playing from passing mototaxis. The towns latest attraction is its large Cristo Blanco, an image of Jesus Christ with a massive desert hill looming behind. The murals on the other side of the river Rimac, crossing the bridge, are also a recent addition.
Photos - Read the rest of this entry »

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Well they didn’t really. They mostly stayed at home with their families waiting for Government volunteers to arrive and ask them a few questions. The streets were quiet - there were no cars and police were stationed at major junctions. Although it looked like a scene out of the movie 28 Days Later, fortunately there were no zombies to be found.

Today was the day of the national census, as explained here, and while officers went door to door to collect information, a curfew was in affect. This meant no travel, no open shops and people having to stay at home all day. Of course this caused havoc last night as millions of Peruvians turned up at supermarkets and gas stations 5 minutes before closing time.

Throughout today here in Lima, the curfew was mostly respected. A few taxis drove around, I saw a restaurant open, empty, with the disgruntled owner sitting outside on the curb, and a few people like me wandering around in awe. No noise, no fumes and empty highways.

If you’ve ever wondered what a Lima street looks like without thousands of cars, combis and taxis, you’ll have to look at the photos attached to this blog of the Ovalo Higuereta area, were Av. Benavides crosses Tomas Marsano and meets Av. Aviación.

Update:
I also thought this photo was pretty good, captured by BG Peru on Avenida Brasil in Pueblo Libre.

La Combi no viene…
The bus isn’t coming…

More Photos - Read the rest of this entry »

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Arroz con Pato (Rice with Duck) is a tasty traditional Peruvian criole dish.

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Adapted from The Lima Bean.

“On Sunday, October 21st, the whole of Peru is under house arrest. Nobody may leave their home; no business may open; even the homeless will be rounded up and confined to sports stadiums. Police and military will patrol the streets to enforce the “immobility order”.

In addition, the purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages will be outlawed for 24 hours, starting at 6pm on Saturday October 20th.“

Many have been asking me, why is crazy scheme going ahead? Well, the postal system in Peru is so undeveloped that sending millions of questionnaires to peoples home is going to be near impossible considering only a small percentage of the population (in Lima mostly) has reliable mail delivery. 90% of the country does not. So why not just do a sample like in other countries? Well, because those who run the country simply aren’t educated and intelligent enough to think of it. Statistically analysis means nothing to them.
My answer would be to do the census at the same time of any up-coming election, where voting is mandatory here. But, with Government departments not being coordinated, this would probably be as much of a disaster as this.
Peru does most things badly, but with a lot of effort and good intentions. Let’s hope the census results prove useful in the future.

Update:
Tourists will be interviewed on arrival at Lima’s airport, or at their hotels by hotel staff. They will be able to pass freely afterwards.

The fact that the census violates several parts of the constitution, such as the right to move freely and the right to work, is being conveniently ignored.

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Now in it’s third year, World Challenge 2007, in association with Shell, is a global competition that seeks out projects and businesses that not only make a profit, but also put something back into the community. Brought to you by BBC World and Newsweek, it is all about rewarding individuals or groups that truly make a difference through enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level. The winner will receive a US$20,000 award from Shell to benefit their project, while two runners-up will each receive $10,000.

The T’ikapapa Project

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The prolonged wait for spring to arrive in Lima has had me thinking of Piura, a sun-drenched paradise rich in creole culture.
The video below is of the famous Tondero dance of Piura.

The tondero is not only a dance though, it is also the department of Piura’s hymn. It is sung by rural workers dressed in long shorts and women with colorful blouses. The lyrics serve to evoke the true memory of Piura City and after whom it was named:

San Miguel, San Miguel,
San Miguel at dawn,
San Miguel at midnight,
San Miguel at dusk.

The man servants take the maids to the floor waving kerchiefs, while the guitar players strum this celebrated verse that every Peruvian has heard at least once in a lifetime.

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When I visited the small Peruvian village of Antioquía over a month ago, a town that has changed its fortunes by painting its buildings beautifully, I mentioned that the project was being replicated in other towns across the country. I didn’t expect to see another example so soon…

I spotted this in Matucana, where local authorities are trying to take advantage of the area’s spectacular scenery to bring more tourism to the area.

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Continuing my series, Explorando Lima, in which I demonstrate the immense diversity that Peru has to offer without even leaving the region of Lima, I visit the town of Matucana and its surroundings, 75km from Lima at 2378 metres above sea level.

Matucana, some three hours along the Carretera Central which leads to places such as San Ramon, La Merced, Tarma, Juaja and Huancayo, is at this time of year warm, sunny and still mostly green from last rains (Dec-Apr). It’s somewhere ideal to do some light hiking of 3-8 hours. It’s not too hot, it’s not too cold and it’s not too high up.

The town itself still consists of buildings of around 100 years in age, a boom time when the world famous central railway was built. Passenger trains don’t stop here any more, though mineral trains still pass by, which leaves the train station as a preserved historic building.

From the town, there are routes that vary in length from 3-8 hours allowing you to see waterfalls, green mountains and lakes. We opted for a walk to the waterfall of Antankallo, about an hour and a half from the Los Olivos area of Matucana. This mostly uphill route of 2.65km takes you to an altitude of roughly 2700 metres above sea level.

For those with more time, equipment and ability, a route via Markahuasi leads to lagoons under looming mountains. Ask in the towns Municipality building for details.

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