AMAZONIA

Carlos Antonio Martin Soria

Instituto del Bien Común, Perú
In Birx, James (Ed.). (2010). 21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Los Angeles, Londres,
New Delhi, Singapur y Washington, DC. Sage Publications.

The Amazon is the second largest river in the world with a basin that encompasses nine countries and is
known as Amazonia. Amazonia, or Amazon rainforest, is one of the largest remaining forests of the
World. It is home to indigenous peoples, both noncontacted and settled, mestizos and European
immigrants’ descendants. A home to megabiodiversity, Amazonia contains plenty of natural resources –
not only land but also, timber, gold, oil and gas. Amazonia is largely a remote rural area with people
living in subsistence economies, but it is also a network of vibrant and chaotic urban centers and towns
that have been supplying natural resources to the world market since as early as the 16 th century. The
export of mahogany, rubber, quinine, fauna, and many other products has always influenced the region’s
economy with a boom and bust cycle. The trail of natural products leaving the region serves as a channel
through the subsistence economy, the mercantilist economy, and the free market economy. The fate of the
forest is very much related to the demands of the world market and the unwillingness of national
governments to invest government resources in an area already ruled by local economies supplying the
world market through the export network.

The Amazon rainforest is divided in the upper and the lower section of the Amazon River basin. The first
one lies between 800 and 3,400 meters above sea level while the second area lies at an altitude below 800
meters. As many other tropical rainforests, Amazonia hosts a trilogy of human and natural resources that
constitutes not only its main value but also the fate of its destruction, indigenous peoples, biodiversity and
natural resources, such as gold and oil. Wood, medicinal plants, food, and firewood are some of the direct
uses of forests. These forests provide for the survival of a number of rural populations, including
indigenous peoples and resource-poor farmers. The standard of living of these populations depends
largely on maintaining rainforest vitality, diversity and coverage. The extraction of oil and mineral
resources has fueled only economies foreign to the Amazon, which usually invest little in the areas where
they mine or extract oil.

Settled Indigenous Peoples

The early works of Meggers and Evans (1957, p. 598) suggested that first Amazonian settlers initiated a
slow process of “filtration” through the main course of the Amazon River and its tributaries. Other works
(Roosevelt, 1991) showed that area in the Island of Marajo and in the main stream of the Amazon River
hosted large, sedentary societies capable of military chiefdoms. The presence of these societies forced
less complex societies to leave the terra firme and moved to 5000 smaller Amazon tributaries and its
headwaters. At the time of the contact around 1542, when Orellana descended through the Napo into the
Amazon, some 5 to 6 million Amerindian peoples lived in Amazonia (Denevan, 1976, 2003; Newson
1996). Since early contact with the Europeans the indigenous peoples’ population rapidly decreased by
epidemics and forced labor.

The web page of the Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georeferenciada (http://
www.raisg.socioambiental.org/node/106) gives an overall estimate of more than 370 Amazonian
indigenous peoples with a total population of 1.6 million people living in 2,200 territories. Additional to
these populations are urban indigenous peoples and the noncontacted indigenous peoples. Bearing in
mind that all estimates are gross, we can say that Bolivia has 31 indigenous peoples with 172,000
individuals, Brazil has 200 indigenous peoples with 213,000 individuals, Colombia has 52 indigenous
peoples with 70,000 individuals, Ecuador has 6 indigenous peoples with 95,000 individuals, Guyana has
9 indigenous peoples with 40,000 individuals, Peru has 60 indigenous peoples with 400,000 individuals,
Surinam has 5 indigenous peoples with 7,000 individuals, and Venezuela has 16 indigenous peoples with
39,000 individuals. Our comparison of these estimates with others cited below suggests a margin of error
between 10 to 15 percent. Now, probably around 1.6 million indigenous peoples live in the Amazon.

Brazil almost 200 indigenous peoples involve the Apalaí, Apinayé, Apurinã, Arára do Pará, Asurini do
Tocantins, Asuriní do Xingu, Atroari, Banawá, Bororo, Caiuá, Canela, Cinta-Larga, Deni, Fulniô,
Guajajara, Guarani Mbyá, Hixkaryana, Hupda, Ikpeng, Jamamadi, Jarawara, Juma, Kaapor, Kadiwéu,
Kaingáng, Kamayurá, Karajá, Karipuna do Amapá, Karitiana, Kaxarari, Kayabi, Kayapó, Krahô,
Kuikuro, Kurâ-Bakairi, Mamaindé, Maxakalí, Mundurukú, Nadëb, Nambikuára, Palikúr, Parakanã,

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Paresi, Paumari, Pirahã, Rikbaktsa, Sateré-Mawé, Suruí do Pará, Suruí de Rondônia, Suyá, Tenharim,
Terena, Waiãpí, Waurá, Xavante, Xokleng, Yanomámi, Waicá Central, and Yuhup, among others.

The large extension of the Brazilian Amazonia and different stages of development among these areas has
meant diverse organizational processes for Brazil’s Amazonian indigenous peoples. Since the arrival of
Europeans to Brazil, the indigenous population that inhabited the main river areas was the first to
succumb to the European expansion and to move westward. During the first centuries of contact, the
indigenous peoples’ population dropped nearly to extinction. The manhunt was carried out by means of
the sword or the crucifix. Many early attempts at evangelization were resisted by indigenous warfare.
However, evangelization gave way to settlements where indigenous peoples were forced to live and work.
The benefits of evangelization are still being debated with the evidence provided by cases of various
indigenous peoples in initial contact. By the beginning of the 20 th century, the ongoing man-hunting for
indigenous peoples was continuing in the hands of the “professional killers” (bugreiros in Portuguese)
that cleared the land. At the same time the evangelization of indigenous peoples had not achieved full
results. In the early 20th century, there were indigenous uprisings outside of the Amazon, in Sao Paulo
state, Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, and Parana that brought the issue of manhunts to
national attention through the media. Internationally, the 1908 16 th International Congress of Americanists
held in Vienna, Austria, received complaints that Brazil was enforcing a national policy of eliminating
indigenous peoples. This bad reputation forced the Brazilian government to act in order to protect
indigenous peoples through the 1910 creation of the state agency Service to Protect Indigenous Peoples
(SPI by its acronym in Portuguese). The man picked as chief of the organization was Candido Mariano
Da Silva, who later changed his surname to Rondon. He was descendant from Terena, Bororo, and Guana
indigenous peoples. From 1889, he helped set up thousands of kilometers of telegraphic lines
-peacefully- in indigenous peoples’ lands; that service led the government to nominate him as the first
director of the SPI.

In the 1940, the Ronçador-Xingu Expedition was in charge of pacifying indigenous peoples, opening
roads, and setting up emergency camps. The brothers Orlando, Claudio, and Leonardo Villas Boas took
part of this expedition. In 1944, the expedition was successful in pacifying the Xavante and two years
later, other 14 indigenous peoples of the Xingu. It was not until 1961 that the Xingu Indigenous Peoples
National Park was set up in support of these 15 indigenous peoples.

The agency decayed by the 1950s and was finally closed and replaced by a new National Foundation for
Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI by its acronym in Portuguese) in 1967. This has meant a different
organizational process from those experienced by their Andean Amazonian neighbors.

In Ecuador, the Amazonian rural population outnumbers the urban population. The Amazonian rural
population has been growing since 1950 when it represented only 1.68 percent of the national rural population
(Ecuador’s National Institute for Statistics and Census [INEC], 1951). In 1990, it was 285,728 and
represented 6.35 percent of the national rural population (INEC, 1991). In 1990, the Amazonian urban
population was 102,215 people and represented 1.86 per cent of the national urban population (INEC, 1991).
In 2001, the Amazonian urban population was 129,861 people while the rural population had reached
233,379 people, for a total Ecuadorian-Amazonian population of 363,240, representing a 2.98 percent of the
national population. This was the result of both migration and colonization.

According to the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederación de

Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador [CONAIE], 1989), the region was inhabited by several indigenous
groups: 60,000 Amazonian Quichuas, in the provinces of Pastaza, Napo, and part of Sucumbios; around 600
Sionas Secoyas; 700 Cofan; 600 Huaoranis; 40,000 Shuars in the provinces of Morona Santiago, Zamora
Chinchipe, and part of Pastaza; and 2,400 Achuars for a total of 104,060 people (CONAIE, 1989; Hicks,
1990, p. 6; Ruiz, 1993, p. 641).

Until 1974, Ecuadorian Amazonian indigenous peoples represented 40 percent of the Amazonian population,
but by 1990 they represented only 28 percent of the regional population (INEC, 1975, 1991). The process of
colonization of the Amazon region pushed indigenous populations toward more remote areas. The
indigenous population had to confront integration or resort to isolation in the forests. Migration to the
Amazonian region grew steadily, threatening indigenous survival. The use of indigenous peoples as labor
force also affected their pattern of settlement and their cultural survival. Since the 1960s the indigenous
population has initiated a process of organization and has demanded land rights. Until 1979, indigenous
peoples did not vote in Ecuador. It was only then that the literacy test was cancelled and indigenous

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peoples were eligible to vote and to be elected (Mumme & Korzetz, 1997, p. 49). Mumme and Korzetz
point out that Ecuador’s indigenous people have defended their environmental interests through the
representation offered by CONAIE rather than through “electorally based representation” (p. 49). The
organizational process gradually expanded throughout the Amazonian region. In 1992, 2,000 Amazonian
Indians marched to Quito and demanded land rights; as a result, outgoing President Rodrigo Borja (1988-
1992) awarded land rights to an extent that surpassed the land titles given by all previous governments
together (Rainforests Action Network, 1997; Sawyer, 1997). These Ecuadorian Amazonian indigenous
peoples’ organizations were part of the social movements’ uprisings that removed presidents Bucaram,
Mahuad and Gutierrez.

In Peru there is a broad estimate of around 48 to 65 ethnic groups belonging to 12 to 14 indigenous

language groups with an estimated population of approximately 300,000 inhabitants in the Amazon
region (Comisión Amazónica de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo [CAMAD], 1992, p. 34; Dandler et al,
1998, p. 9; Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales [INRENA], 1999, p. 3; Yañez, Noejovich & Tobin,
1998, p. 40). The Instituto del Bien Común, a non for profit organization that has mapped an 80% of
Peruvian indigenous lands, registers in its Amazonian Indigenous Communities Information System 59
ethnic groups belonging to 15 indigenous language groups. In 2008, this population was still grossly
estimated around 300,000 people who in fact could be probably closer to 400,000.

In 1969, three indigenous peoples' organizations were born in the Peruvian Amazon. After 3 years of
intense efforts, the Amuesha people from the central Peruvian Amazon created the Congress of Amuesha
Communities (Brysk, 1996, p. 40). In the northern Peruvian Amazon, two indigenous peoples’
organizations were created by the Aguaruna people from the Potro and Manseriche rivers and by the
Achuar from the Huitoyacu, Manchari and Shintusi rivers (Dandler et al, 1998, p. 12). Since then, a large
number of indigenous peoples’ organizations have been created.

Ten years later, the first regional and interethnic indigenous peoples' organization was born: the Aguaruna
and Huambisa Council. That same year the first national organization was born with the creation of the
Coordinator of the Native Communities of the Peruvian Jungle, which in 1980 changed its name to
Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP). In 1984, AIDESEP lead
the process of creating the only Pan-Amazon organization representing the eight countries of the basin,
the Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples Orgnizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). In 1987, a second
national organization was born with the creation of the Confederation of Amazonian Nationalities of Peru
(CONAP). AIDESEP has been active in defending the land, opposing mining and oil prospecting in their
territories and in protected areas, and organizing the grassroots to plan and implement education, health,
and production projects (Varese, 1996). CONAP, which initially had the same view, at some point
changed and decided to sign a deal with Perupetro in 2007, but this is an stance that has a longer history
and has marked the division between the indigenous peoples’ organizations, their non governmental
organizations (NGOs) of support and is influencing many of the organizations of the Peruvian
environmental movement. Perupetro (Petróleos de Perú), Peru’s state corporation in charge of managing
oil concessions differs from Petroperu, Peru’s first state oil company and manager of oil resources, which
is currently only in charge of commercializing some oil products in Peru.

The recognition of indigenous peoples’ lands has had diverse historical processes, legislation, and
institutions involved. In Brazil, after initial eviction and relocation, larger territories were awarded to
indigenous peoples as in the case of the Yanomami. In Ecuador, government had granted small
concessions until the government of Rodrigo Borja when the government granted an amount of land
similar to all that had been granted before in all republican history and introduced the legal concept of
“indigenous peoples’ territory”. In Peru, small land holdings have been granted with approximately 1500
native communities totaling over 12 million hectares of forests. Only the Matses and a few other peoples
have been able to secure larger territories while most have been titled and surrounded with colonists who
are mainly from the Andean highlands and fewer from the coast.

During the 1990s, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) promoted Latin
America land liberalization under the principles of promoting democratic values and free market
principles and thereby created a land market. Thus, counter-reform in México, Peru and Honduras, for
example, proposed to generate employment, promote environmentally and socially sound economic
growth, and political freedom and governance. Land liberalization involved changing the legal framework
to support private sector access to the land market. These reforms affected the most vulnerable, who had
previously benefited by the agrarian reform (Van Dam, 1999, p. 16). During 2008, the Garcia

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government (2006-2011) in Peru was aiming to promote investment in Amazonian lands for biofuels, soy,
and timber. These intentions caused major concern among the indigenous peoples and non indigenous
peoples of the Peruvian Amazonian region who went on strike demanding the nullification of this
legislation. After many days of revolt, the Garcia government overruled two decrees modifying access to
indigenous peoples’ lands by third parties. Similar protests had been occurring in Colombia in 2008
where the indigenous peoples went on a national march to the national capital, Bogota, to press the
government for land rights and to denounce violence.

All Amazonian national governments declare respect for indigenous peoples’ rights and the commitments
of international legislation protecting their rights, while regional and local authorities want to prevent the
enforcement of these rights. World Bank-funded programs have favored individual land titling for
colonists over communal land titling for indigenous peoples. But now with the impulse of a second wave
of privatization, governments of Colombia and Peru are calling for the small land holders to leave the
land. In the case of Colombia, the rural populations are in the midst of the violence that have long
affected this country. Indigenous peoples are easy targets for any of the contending forces involved. The
governments of Ecuador and Bolivia might be more open to listening to the demands for land rights. The
former has been increasing protection to noncontacted indigenous peoples while the second has offered to
continue land titling. However, the same offer has been made to colonists by Evo Morales who emerged
from the Bolivian electorate. Both governments have indigenous peoples as public officials and involve
the participation of indigenous peoples’ political organizations among other social sectors.

The Noncontacted Indigenous Peoples

Of the world’s 100 non contacted indigenous peoples some 85 of these remain noncontacted in the
Amazonian countries. There are 67 noncontacted indigenous peoples in Brazil, 14 of them in Peru and
one of them, at least, in Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador.

The noncontacted indigenous peoples inhabit headwaters, ranges and other higher ground available to
them. Many remain in cloud forests where fauna is more abundant. They live of hunting, fishing,
gathering and incipient agriculture. Reports coincide in their seasonal migration along riverbanks to
gather turtle eggs, on which occasions they move in family groups around 25 people, usually with some
domesticated huanganas that they breed as dogs, and setting camp every five kilometers after a one day
walking journey. In these cases they have been spotted from air while reports by park guards along
riverbanks show huts made of palm leaves, some of them big enough to provide cover for 5 to 6 people.

The noncontacted indigenous peoples bravely enforce, with spears and arrows, their right to remain
without contact. When their possibilities of avoiding contact are reduced by external actors, their
alternative is to move to remote areas where this is possible. Their decision to remain noncontacted is an
evidence of their strong pursuit of their right to be protected from development ensuring their hunter-
gatherer lifestyle. In fact, these people try to avoid contact but when possible and necessary they aim to
scare us out of their land to protect it. They are no more nomadic that many other populations that
seasonally adapt to climate change and availability of resources.

The existence of the last remaining indigenous peoples is denied by those interested in their lands, namely
loggers, cattle ranchers, and oil companies. Those denying the existence of these peoples usually argue
their “absence” in the literature, the fact that the area has been intervened in the last decades, and the fact
that there are no scientific reports stating so. Those affirming the existence of these peoples rely on local
informants, artifacts found in the field such as stone axes, pottery, wooden containers, bags, or signs or
marks on trees, as well as trails and stories of encounters and sightings, human calls in the night imitating
animals, and some spearheaded animals appearing at their campsites. Thus, the matter of probing the
existence of these peoples in a given area is a much debated issue.

Activities by loggers, cattle ranchers, and oil companies can affect the forest where the noncontacted
indigenous peoples live through deforestation and clear-cutting, forests fragmentation and biodiversity
loss, negative effects over the wildlife and protected areas, and ecosystem fragmentation. The presence of
teams of workers, equipment, and tools will produce solid and liquid waste that will be eliminated in the
forests without any more treatment than burying solid waste in the ground. These activities usually
include the arrival of airplanes and helicopters flying over the area. In the case of oil, seismic lines will
cut usually a few hundred kilometers through the forests. These risks all together represent a serious
threat to the health and wealth of these populations by affecting their integrity, their access to food, and
by their lethal exposure to disease.

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Over the last decades Brazil has developed a policy on demarcating and protecting noncontacted
indigenous peoples’ territories. Although not all efforts were successful, they did contribute to the process
of understanding the need not to contact these peoples and respect their right to their land. Since the
creation of FUNAI 13 million hectares of land have been set aside as protected areas for noncontacted
indigenous peoples. Protecting their land is a first priority and should be done taking into account the
need to contain human pressure and to provide buffer zones to avoid destruction and disappearance of
these peoples. Since 1987, FUNAI has focused its work on noncontacted indigenous peoples through
seven teams operating in the states of Amazonas, Pará, Acre, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Goiás. In
Acre, there are 10 indigenous lands, 5 of which belong to noncontacted indigenous peoples. In Brazil,
there is an estimate of around 40 noncontacted indigenous peoples that have been verified and other 27
nonverified which accounts for a total of 67 noncontacted indigenous peoples.

In the case of Peru 5 territorial reserves have been created over 2´812,000 hectares. These are the
Murunahua Territorial Reserve and the Mashco Piro Territorial Reserve in the Ucayali Region (1997), the
Isconahua Territorial Reserve in the Ucayali Region (1998), the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve for the
Mashco Piro peoples in Madre de Dios (2002) and the Kugapakori Nahua Nanti Territorial Reserve in the
Ucayali and Cuzco Regions (2003). However, another five proposed territorial reserves have been
awaiting government approval, some of them since 1999. These are the Yavarí Tapiche, Yavarí Mirim,
the Napo Tigre Curaray in Loreto, the Kapanawa in Loreto and Ucayali, and the Cacataibo in Loreto and
Ucayali. In Peru, the government department responsible for noncontacted indigenous peoples and the
territorial reserves is the National Institute for Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (Instituto
Nacional de Pueblos Andinos, Amazonicos y Afroperuanos [INDEPA]). The executive has reorganized
and reassigned INDEPA between different ministries during 2006 and 2008 until Congress passed a law
restoring the institution’s autonomy. However, it still lacks financial and technical resources to carry its
duties adequately.

In Bolivia, in 2006, the government set up the Intangible Zone for Integral Protection and Absolute
Reserve of the Toromona peoples in the Madidi National Park, which is also inhabited by the Ese Ejja
and the Kapuibo peoples. The Sinabo, who live between the lower Beni and Yata Rivers, are also
considered to be in a situation of noncontact; however, another indigenous peoples, the Warasug’we live
in the Noel Kempff National Park in a situation of initial contact. In both cases, these indigenous inhabit a
national park, a strict protection area with a ban on resource use.

In Ecuador, although there is no general legislation covering this matter, in 1999, the Ecuadorian
government passed an Executive Decree (a Presidential Decree) creating the Tagaeri Taromenani
Intangible Zone. Since then, the Ecuadorean government has failed to delimitate the boundaries of the
area. After some Ecuadorean campaigners lodged a request for precautionary measures to protect the
Tagaeri Taromenani, the Inter American Commission on Human Rights requested the Ecuadorean
government “to protect the life and integrity of the Tagaeri Taromenani, adopting the necessary measure
to protect the territory that they inhabit, including measures to prevent access” particularly from illegal
loggers (see oilwatch report at http://www.oilwatch.org/reparacion/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=62&itemid=56). The delimitation of the Tagaeri Taromenani Intangible Zone is still pending.
Instead, the Correa government proposed in October 2008 a Code of Conduct to be followed by the oil
companies operating in the area.

In 2002, the Colombian government set up the 999.880 hectares of the Pure River Natural National Park
to protect the Aroje, Yurí or Caraballo peoples, respecting their right to remain noncontacted, and
allowing them to settle in the future and turning then the national park into a communally titled
indigenous-peoples’ land. The National Park has among its usual conservation objectives a first and
primary goal to protect the territory of the noncontacted, ensuring their survival and their decision not to
be contacted.

Migrants
Migration is always in vogue in Amazonia. It was so in the 1950s when Brazil aimed to relocate landless
people from outside the Amazon, and it is so today when Andean populations are still moving every day
to live in the Amazonian lowlands. These Andean indigenous peoples move to live in Amazonia to
practice agriculture, cattle ranching, and commerce. These people usually overvalue their own culture in
comparison with that of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. The more commercially oriented Andean
peoples are usually non-Catholic Christians, whereas the Catholic are less organized and lack the

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organizational skills and group support of non-Catholic Christians. Other migrants include coastal and
European settlers.

It usually takes 30 years for many new comers to understand that agricultural production in tropical lands
is quite different to irrigated-land agriculture. In some cases, the migrant population of a rural area has
been there for enough time to have integrated traditional knowledge with the exploitation of their
Amazonian environment. After one or more generations, this mixture has produced a Creole Amazonian
culture of extractive and “riparian peoples” (ribereños in Spanish, ribeirinhos in Portuguese) –
descendants of migrants who over generations had adapted to indigenous peoples’ use of resources- who
are partly a mixture of beliefs involving traditional knowledge on how to harvest the environment. While
Brazil has granted land rights to these populations, other countries such as Peru have not recognized land
rights for these “migrant” peoples and their descendants, despite the fact that many of them live on the
forest and feed on it.

Forced labor is still a common situation in Bolivia and Peru both in artisan gold mining and in forest
extraction. Andean laborers are hired in their towns and sent to the lower Amazonian forests and rivers to
extract resources with a mixture of 15 th century labor conditions and 21st century cheap Chinese
equipment to dig for gold in Amazonian river beds. A small investor usually holds a mining permit that is
not supervised on-site. This means miners usually forcefully enforce their limits with their neighbors
feeding conflict with agriculturalists and other resource users. A laborer is hired for a two year period to
work six days a week, with no holydays and a credit account that can extend its contract.

Urban centers and towns

Amazonian societies at same point generated larger sedentary societies along the main Amazon River and
its main tributaries, such as in the Marajo Island. Many other smaller, non military chiefdom societies
also coexisted in the smaller tributaries and biggest cities. The arrival of missionaries, soldiers, and all
sorts of fortune seekers changed the Amazonian landscape. Since then the region has been exporting
natural resources to the world market. The boom and bust cycle has characterized the export of
Amazonian products, such as timber, gold, leather, pets, and all sorts of products from biodiversity. All
those resource cycles developed a network of rural towns, small cities, and large capitals, such as Manaos
and Iquitos. The rubber boom cycle was the most important of these boom cycles. Between 1865 and
1920 Manaos was Brazil’s most developed city with electric lighting, piped water, and hosting opera
theaters.

Since then a lot has changed in Amazonia and its cities. Some approximate numbers for current urban
Amazonian populations are as follows: Bolivia (Trinidad 89,613; Cobija 32,200) Brazil (Belem
1`912,600; Manaos 1´524,600; Boa Vista 300,000), Colombia (Florencia 150,000; Mocoa 31,000; Leticia
29,666), Ecuador (Lago Agrio 81,918; Puyo 24,881), Peru (Iquitos 396,615; Pucallpa 204,772;
Yurimaguas 41,827; Oxapampa 7,743), and Venezuela (Puerto Ayacucho 52,526). These urban centers
supply smaller towns that are at the forefront of frontier expansion. They serve as networks for the natural
resources flowing to the regional, national, and international markets. Thus, large catfish from Peru goes
to the Colombian market, while Brazil nuts and some Amazonian leathers are commercialized in the
world market.

Outside most of these Amazonian cities and towns remains the rural landscape, more so up the tributaries.
Grasslands and pastures dominate many eastern Amazonian rivers areas, while in the Brazilian Amazon,
the expansion of a network of roads initiated in the 1950s has given space to modern soy crops that
dominate the landscape. In the Peruvian Central Amazon, for instance, an area colonized 150 years ago, the
descendants of European settlers have forced the Yanesha indigenous peoples to the fringes of the valleys
now occupied by pastures, grasslands, and European looking urban settlements. Similar phenomena have
occurred with other European settlers in different areas of the Amazon. Beyond these areas the subsistence
economies of small colonists and indigenous peoples occupy the smaller tributaries with their family
settlements. In the upper section of some of the less occupied headwaters some noncontacted indigenous
peoples still remain. That is the case of the Peruvian-Brazilian border, where the national societies stopped
their search for rubber at the edge of the rubber forests leaving the hills untouched by the rubber trade. In the
western Amazon, many indigenous peoples living in the upper section of tributaries retain their traditional
costumes, language, and organization while those indigenous peoples of the lower lands are commercial,
riparian societies open to commerce and trade since very early times. Traditional Amazonian trade involved
coca, salt, stones for knives and axes, cotton, and fauna among other products.

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The effect of the timber trade
In the last two decades, efforts to produce a tropical forest reform sprouted in the Amazonian countries.
Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru passed new legislation to move away from the mismanagement and forest
mining into sustainable forest management. Forest certification schemes and the support of USAID
helped Bolivia experiment with forest reform in the 1990s. Peru took until 2002 to start granting forest
concessions. However, corruption, mismanagement, and short-term policies favored that the reform did
not change the relevance and priority of illegal logging which feeds the national and international
markets.

In Peru, between 2002 and 2004, approximately 7.8 million hectares of forests where granted in forests
concessions that struggle to comply with the prices offered in the auction and the poorly enforced
management plans. Although forest concessions are the official main source for timber production,
permissions to agricultural producers for habitat conversion also allow them to sell timber, while another
12 million hectares of forestlands are in the hands of indigenous peoples and sought by loggers aiming to
set up contracts with these communities to access the timber. Protected areas and territorial reserves for
noncontacted indigenous peoples are also an important source of illegal timber.

Indigenous peoples are the most deeply affected by the timber trade that drains their forests and many
times their organizations and trust, too. Indigenous peoples are affected by the forest reform through the
overlapping of forest concessions with indigenous lands, particularly, land that is not yet registered; the
lack of an adequate process of consultation prior to the awarding of all forest management categories; the
invasion of communal land and territorial reserves for noncontacted indigenous peoples; and the
government’s failure to meet its offers of technical advice in support of communal forest management. At
the same time, these indigenous peoples can also be affected by corruption from the illegal logging
market.

Recent progress in decentralization does not offer much hope for the forests. Regional and national
politicians in Madre de Dios, Loreto, and other Amazonian regions are proud representatives of illegal
timber interests. The Regional President of Loreto announced in 2008 at an international conference
attended by the Minister of the Environment of Brazil that Loreto will not grant one square meter to
protected areas or indigenous lands, in accordance with the demands of loggers and other extractive
industries. Regional political leadership is very much influenced by the regional economic forces, which
in many cases are also strong local political actors.

To strengthen compliance with forestry legislation, a possible innovation could be the requirement to use
the global positioning system (GPS) to link a forest production area with a log going to the market. This
will trace the route of a legally harvested log instead of supporting a timber market characterized by wood
coming from illegal logging. These actions coupled with a sound database that discounts the timber
harvested can be a useful tool for tracing the origin of legally harvested timber.

Megadevelopments
The asymmetry between the actors involved in land use and extractive industries is a central issue in
socioenvironmental conflicts occurring in the region. The opening of roads and the paving of the already
existing ones will foster the arrival of new populations demanding land and resources and expelling the
old population without land titles or capital to new deforestation areas. When looking at
socioenvironmental conflict around natural resource policies, we find a divorce between the discourse of
the legislation and of the public officials and the implementation at all levels. The assumptions of the
legal framework have very little relevance to resource users making decisions in the forests about how to
manage resources, how to solve conflicts, and how to compensate for damages. Under these
circumstances, the opening of new areas by the South American Regional Integration Initiative (IIRSA by
its Spanish acronym) suggests the intensification of conflicts affecting indigenous peoples, colonists,
peasants, and riparian populations due to the increase in the demand for land, forests, minerals, oil and
gas, and illicit crops.

Until the financial crisis of October 2008, a wealth of financial resources from the international financial
institutions set up the conditions to carry out large-scale projects such as IIRSA. IIRSA aims to develop
road and communications infrastructure to favor trade and economic development. Geopolitically, it is the
affirmation of the continental role of the Brazilian State in the South American region. IIRSA is a
proposal to build not only roads coming out of Brazil to connect with its neighbors but also roads among
Brazil’s neighbors, as well as ports in the Amazon and in both oceans and communication networks.

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The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), whose social and environmental policies are below the
standards of the World Bank, plays an important role in the region financing corporations, governments,
and megaprojects, such as the components of IIRSA. Another important player is Brazil’s National
Development Bank that will invest $220,000 millions as part of a Plan to Accelerate Growth (PAC by its
acronym in Portuguese) by developing infrastructure, telecommunications, and energy lines between
2007 and 2010. IIRSA is one of the projects funded by PAC.

Many Amazonian countries lack adequate environmental and social management of infrastructure
development. Some of the international financial institutions that are financing these projects also lack
these adequate standards. Some governments see these standards as a hindrance to development
preferring, though, to avoid the introduction of necessary reforms or proposing to weaken the
mechanisms already in place.

In Peru, IIRSA is building the Northern (Paita-Yurimaguas-Huallaga-Amazon River) and Southern (Ilo-
Cusco/Puno-Madre de Dios-Assis) Interoceanic Highways while a Central Interoceanic Highway from
Pucallpa to Cruzeiro do Sul with connection to Lima has been proposed. Additionally, at least two
proposals have been mentioned in regards to trains. The social and environmental effects of this
expansion to the last frontier in South America will disproportionately affect on the most vulnerable
populations in these areas, the indigenous populations, both noncontacted and settled, and other rural
populations. For instance, the proposed design for the Pucallpa to Cruzeiro do Sul highway aims to cross
over a proposed Sierra Del Divisor National Park and over the Isconahua Territorial Reserve in Peru for
noncontacted indigenous peoples. The reserve is set up for the noncontacted indigenous peoples, and the
cross over is going to negatively affect them by providing open access to the area.

The implementation of IIRSA will only contribute to accelerate the processes already affecting
Amazonian peoples and their forests. Protected areas and forest production areas will be crossed by new
lines of flow of mahogany and other forest products. At the same time, the national government transfers
few responsibilities to regional and local governments, mainly responsibilities in areas in which the
national government finds no profit such as artisan gold mining, whereas the profitable concessions of
gas, oil, and timber remain in the hands of the national government.

Brazil’s Amazonia can be seen as a showcase of the risks posed by current development as usual to the
region’s rich biological and social diversity. In the 1950s Brazil decided to open two main roads into the
Amazon (one South to North, and another East to West). Along with the road came the settlers into the
newly opened areas. Since then, deforestation has had a significant effect in modeling future climate
change in the region with an expected increase between 2.3 and 5.5 oC for the next one hundred years.
Similarly, other models predict a rainfall reduction around 20% for the same period. This reality is
particularly harsh when we look at the development of urban centers and towns in the Amazon. A study
by the Brazilian based Instituto Socioambiental of seven Amazonian tributaries (Jurua, Purus, Madeira,
Tapajos, Xingu, Araguaia, and Tocantins) showed that unplanned settlement is creating a network of
deforested urban centers that lack recreational areas and tend to elevate temperatures at the local level
thus building islands of deforestation in the Amazonian forest with a tendency to more deforestation.

Oil and Gas

In 1867, only four years after the first pioneer oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, a well was
drilled in Zorritos on the northwest Peruvian Pacific coast. Peru started production in La Brea and
Pariñas oil fields in 1905 (PetroPeru, 1995, p. 5). The first exploration for oil in the Peruvian Amazon
occurred in 1911 on Ashaninka land in the central Peruvian Amazon (Dandler et al, 1998, p. 32).

In 1962, Peru started to import oil (PetroPeru, 1995, p. 5). The military junta led by General Juan
Velasco Alvarado (1969-1974), following the nationalistic trend of developing countries at the time,
decided to expropriate International Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey,
ESSO. As a result of this, the government created the Peruvian state oil corporation (PetroPeru) on July
24, 1969 (PetroPeru, 1995, p. 12). The aim was to develop a national state-oil-corporation able to explore
and produce oil. The junta also decided to build an 854 km-long pipeline from the Marañon river town of
San Jose de Saramuro to the port of Bayovar on the Peruvian north coast. This pipeline has a capacity of
200,000 barrels per day (bbl/d), but it carried only 75,000 bbl/d of crude oil during the 1990s ( Ministerio
de Energía y Minas, 1999, p. 50).

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In the 1960s, Ecuador and Peru initiated the development of oil resources with the collaboration of
foreign corporations; however, these countries had no environmental regulations or any concern for
environmental matters. By the end of the millennium both countries had started to develop environmental
regulations and set up standards to manage the social and environmental effect of oil activities. However,
the transition from discourse into action was and still is slow. This was a difficult issue for Amazonian
populations, particularly indigenous peoples.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Peru's oil production had a downward trend. In 1985, PetroPeru
produced 188.5 bbl/d, and in 1992, oil production was 115.6 bbl/d (PetroPeru, 1993, p. 7). From 1990 to
1992 the oil sector was affected by the economic and political crisis left by the Garcia administration
(1985-1990). The Fujimori government (1990-2001) was confronted by lack of investment because the
country had been declared ineligible by many international financial organizations. Economically, the
country was hit by unusually high rates of inflation and devaluation, while politically, drug traffickers,
and two terrorist organizations were in control of some areas of the country. This economic and political
environment had an effect on an already declining trend in foreign investment in the oil sector. In this
context, in 1989, PetroPeru shared the market with one operation of Oxi-Bridas in oil block XI in the
northwest and an operation of Occidental in block 1-AB (Ministerio de Energía y Minas, 1999, p. 49).

In the case of the environmental and social effects of energy development, the case studies from my
dissertation looking into the 1990s showed how the process of development of the legal framework
evidenced some tension between the text of the law and enforcement of the social fact (Habermas, 1997,
pp. 1-9). On one hand, there is the normative text, the letter of the law, expressing the results of the
political debate, and parallel to it runs the social interpretation of the facts, the interpretation done by
politicians, private sector, NGOs, and the general public. In the Ecuadorian case, there was tension
between the legislation that forbade oil pollution in protected areas and the final interpretation made by
President Durán Ballén (1992-1996) allowing oil activities in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve.
In the middle lay a number of diverse interpretations of the law made by oil companies operating in the
Ecuadorian Amazon. In the Peruvian case, this tension resulted in the modification and overruling of one
third of the environmental code in order to favor foreign investment at the beginning of the 1990s.
However, in early 1999, the Peruvian government approved the National Strategy for Natural Protected
Areas by Supreme Decree 10-99-AG. This decree stated that non-renewable resources could be exploited
only in protected areas were direct use of resources is allowed, a policy which is still in force today.

Since 2004, a second oil and gas boom fed by the growing economies of the United States, Europe,
China, and India and a price hike that reached $140 per barrel in 2008 expanded oil activities in Peru
from a 13% of the Peruvian Amazon to a 75% of this region. This occurred amidst poor enforcement in
environmental management and lack of resources to operate at an adequate level while maintaining very
low legal standards. Political pressure on technical officers caused the Camisea pipeline to fail so bad that
it broke down five times in its inaugural year -amidst claims of human rights violations over the lack of
adequate compensation to local peoples and over its effect on noncontacted indigenous peoples and
indigenous peoples in initial contact. The Peruvian ombudsman’s office produced a report in 2005 based
on citizens’ complaints citing environmental impact assessment infractions. Political pressure came
directly from President Alejandro Toledo who stated that the gas had to arrive in Lima at the city gate on
August 9, 2004. The Ministry of Environment was created in 2008 by the Garcia administration as a
requisite for a free trade agreement with the United States and also by the pressure of the IADB involved
in financing a second Camisea gas pipeline. This new ministry does not oversee oil, gas, electricity, or
piped water. Today, oil activities affect two territorial reserves for noncontacted indigenous peoples and
many protected areas. A second pipeline adjacent to Camisea, which has changed 50% of its original
route, is being built with plans to build a third one. Despite 500 years of European activity and despite
current disturbing and threatening oil exploration, noncontacted indigenous peoples still remain in the
forests in three other proposed territorial reserves.

In Brazil oil activities occurred mainly in the coast. In the 1990s, an oil spill in Rio de Janeiro forced a
change in support of environmental policies in Petrobras. Later on, when Petrobras went into the Urucu
oil fields, it had already improved its environmental and social standards; however, the local populations
near the pipeline to Manaos still had to make demands to obtain gas and other benefits with a $20 million
environmental management plan and a $20 million social management plan package. Petrobras is now
expanding activities in Peru in areas involving non contacted indigenous peoples while some Brazilian
politicians are aiming to mirror such policies in their own side of the Amazon.

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Future Directions
The expansion of extractive industries and the development of road and energy infrastructure are the main
threats to the health of the Amazonian rainforests and ecosystems and its inhabitants. Particularly, the
very vulnerable noncontacted indigenous peoples in Ecuador and Peru are facing the pressure of oil
activities and loggers, while cattle ranchers are the main threat on the Brazilian´s side of the Amazon.
This is an example of a human rights catastrophe that goes unaccounted by regional politicians interested
in accessing natural resources not only at the cost of lives but also at aiming to end a lifestyle that has
kept a healthy forest and ecosystems. Development at the hands of individual interests fails to address the
broader issues of resilience, sustainability, and governance. These latter issues are central considerations
in the planning of a sustainable future for Amazonia. Some Amazonian regional and local governments,
civil society and social movements are demanding accountability in the land-use allocation process; the
overlapping of multiple uses has long been a tradition in the Amazonian rainforests. However, when one
of these uses forbids the possibility of the other uses -as in the case of extractive industries- the recipe for
social conflict is ready, as the processes of social unrest show n Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In the short
term, the need for prior informed consent by indigenous peoples appears to be the key to finally
developing indigenous peoples’ public policies. In the long term, the process of urbanization and its rate
of growth suggest that unplanned development will continue to deplete the forest, affecting the water
rainfall and the climate.

References and further readings

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Comisión Amazónica de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo (CAMAD). (1992). Amazonia sin mitos. Quito,
Ecuador: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo.
Tratado de Cooperación Amazónica.
Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador [Confederation of Indigenous Peoples
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)]. (1989) Las Nacionalidades Indígenas en el Ecuador. Nuestro
proceso organizativo. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Tikuy-Abya Yala.
Dandler, J., Gonzales Urday, A., Llosa Larraburre, J., Moore, T., Roldan Ortega, R., Sivertsen, L., et al.
(1998) Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonia Peruana y Desarrollo Sostenible. Lima, Perú: Hivos, OIT,
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Denevan, W. M.. 1976. The aboriginal population of Amazonia, in W. M. Denevan (Ed.), The native
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Denevan, W. M.. 2003. The Native Population of Amazonia in 1492 reconsidered. Revista de Indias, 63,
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