French oil company hits Peruvian headlines
June 26, 2010
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French company Perenco has hit Peru’s headlines after a controversy over oil exploration in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon.
Perenco was featured on page six of the daily newspaper La Republica after Indigenous leader Alberto Pizango criticized the company for claiming uncontacted tribes in the region where it is working, known as Lot 67, do not exist. Pizango made the comments, in a letter to the government’s Indigenous affairs department, shortly after returning from eleven months in political asylum in Nicaragua.
The headline of the Republica article is ‘Warning: Pizango says there are uncontacted tribes where oil company Perenco wants to build a pipeline.’ The article cites Pizango’s letter, saying that independent anthropologists, the regional government and the company that worked in the region before Perenco have all recognised the existence of the tribes.
Perenco recently admitted transporting, by helicopter, ‘seven Eiffel Towers’ worth of ‘material and consumables’ into Lot 67. It is also hoping to build a pipeline to help move the oil from Lot 67 to Peru’s Pacific Coast.
