Author: Aída Gamboa Balbín, coordinator of the Amazon Program for Law, Environment and Natural Resources (DAR)
We are facing, as a country and globally, a profound health crisis that reflects existing inequalities. A fundamental issue is the protection of life and the work carried out by people who protect the environment, such as indigenous peoples, who have been the most impacted by the pandemic not only due to the situation of exclusion resulting from the lack of an intercultural approach in public services, but because of the various aggressions they face for the defense of their territories.
The confluence of territorial threats in Peru determined by the practice of illegal logging, illegal mining, land trafficking and illicit coca cultivation, as well as the continuity of socio-environmental conflicts around extractive or infrastructure projects, have increased the level of vulnerability of environmental defenders.
This serious scenario is evidenced in the Frontline Defenders 2020 report, which reveals that in the past year 331 human rights defenders were killed in the world, of which 69% worked in the defense of the land, the environment and the The rights of indigenous peoples. Of the 331 murders registered, 264 occurred in the American continent. In Peru, the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep) records 15 murders.
However, this was not a priority in the past elections. Proof of this were the electoral debates that lacked this issue and that the political parties did not prioritize the protection of environmental defenders on their agendas, nor the ratification of the Escazú Agreement, the only treaty in the world and for Latin America that incorporates provisions for their protection.
Only 3 of the 18 government plans presented incorporated the Escazú Agreement in their proposals. Now, despite the advances in the justice sector, such as the approval of the intersectoral mechanism for the protection of defenders, greater efforts are needed at the budget level and in the coordination between the eight sectors that comprise it to prevent, mitigate, protect and remedy threats and attacks.
Well, the murders continue. The Aidesep Ucayali Regional Organization (Orau) denounced that on November 30 an Ashaninka leader from La Paz de Pucharini (Pasco) was found dead. The authorities suspect that those responsible would be land traffickers. As in this case, the vast majority of those responsible are unknown and justice is not obtained.
For this reason, it becomes a necessity that the Congress of the Republic put the ratification of the Escazú Agreement on the agenda and that all action on the part of the sectors for the effective protection of these people is carried out in close coordination with indigenous organizations. In the reactivation process, the promotion of business activities should not condition the subsistence of indigenous peoples.
[Publirreportaje]
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Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
