Wikkaritama

Amazon – Peru

There is a corner of the Peruvian Amazon where the environmental
liabilities generated by the oil industry have already left passivity behind. After forty years of hydrocarbon exploitation, the consequences are alarming both for the land and for the indigenous communities
that live there.

La revitalizada galería de arte está llamada a redefinir el paisaje cultural.

The gravity of the situation spurred the Amazonian indigenous strike of Saramurillo in 2016, where members of 125 communities from the different basins of the region moved to take over a Petroperú pumping plant,

Despite the fact that the government declared the area an environmental emergency in 2013 and a health emergency in 2014, the conflict continues to drag on without any action from the public administration. Indigenous communities, abandoned by the State, fear
becoming environmentally displaced in the face of the growing threat that affects their territory and their way of life.

It’s estimated that there are 45,000 people currently living in the area from different indigenous peoples, amongst them the Kokama, Urarinas, Achuar, Quichua, Shawi, Wampis and Awajún, mostly communi-
ties dependent on tributaries of the Amazon, such as the rivers Marañón, Chambira, Corrientes, Pastaza and Tigre.

The land absorbs the pollu-
ted water from the river and it causes vegetation to dry up, and during
rainy season, the oil even reaches the crops of plantain, chilli or cassava.