Indigenous organisation demands new uncontacted tribes' reserves

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Peru’s national Indigenous organisation, AIDESEP, has urged the Peruvian government to create five new reserves for uncontacted tribes living in the remote rainforest.

The demand was made in the lead-up to a key meeting coordinated by Peru’s Indigenous affairs department, INDEPA, to discuss the new reserves.

AIDESEP’s president, Alberto Pizango Chota, emphasized that the Anglo-French company Perenco is currently working in one of the possible new reserves.

‘What is development?’ Pizango Chota asked. ‘It is not about destroying the environment – on the contrary, it is about conserving it, protecting it, and allowing it to flourish. For Indigenous people that is the real definition of development.’

INDEPA’s meeting was held yesterday, 31 March, in Iquitos in northern Peru. Five reserves have already been created for uncontacted Indians, but oil companies are permitted to work there and loggers often invade illegally.