A year and a half following the deaths of at least thirty three indigenous and non-indigenous civilians and police near the town of Bagua, Peru, anthropologist Frederica Barclay suggest that the Peruvian government has failed to implement any significant changes toward greater consultation with indigenous peoples whose territories are being affected by sprawling logging, oil, hydroelectric and mining concessions in the Peruvian Amazon.
On December 6, 2010, the Achuar of Peru were allowed to proceed in U.S. federal court with their case against Occidental Petroleum, the California-based oil giant that has been exploiting and polluting their homeland for over 30 years. The Achuar community is claiming that the company violated Indigenous rights enshrined in Peruvian and U.S. law by dumping toxic waste, including cyanide, lead, arsenic, and mercury, directly into their rivers and streams and failing to warn them of potential health impacts.
Forum of Indigenous Peoples Mining, Climate Change and Well Being
National Museum, Lima, 18 to 20 November 2010
Indigenous peoples, communities and social organizations Abya Yala, brothers of Africa and Europe, children of Mother Earth, assembled in the Mining Forum, Climate Change and Good Living in the city of Lima, after three days of deliberations and declare:
Whereas:
After a three-day Forum on Mining, Climate Change and Well-being at the Museum of the Nation from November 18 through 20 in Lima, Peru, Indigenous delegates from all over Latin America issued the so-called Lima Declaration demanding the end of large-scale mining by multinational corporations on Indigenous lands.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
