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.
According to a study by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, as a consequence of this contamination, high levels of lead and cadmium are calculated, already detected in the blood of the inhabitants of the area.
These are people chosen by the community itself
who know the jungle better than anyone and have the mission of
discovering small and large sources of contamination left behind by oil activity. Armed with machetes, sticks, and a cell phone to be able to take photos and videos of what they find, they travel kilometres
of forest to discover sources and points of contamination. They are community environmental monitors who pass the training from one to
another.
They accumulated residual crude in unsealed ponds and “accidents” like oil
spills became usual.
