Servindi, June 20, 2019.- The Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) and the National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru (ONAMIAP) accused the Ministry of the Environment (MINAM) of trying to divide the national indigenous organizations.
According to a release signed by both national and regional AIDESEP organizations, there would be manipulation to "impose a group proposal on the regulations of the Framework Law on Climate Change (LMCC)" from which they were excluded.
The incident was exposed during the evaluation stage for the LMCC regulation, which began on Monday, June 17 and in which five national organizations participate, in addition to AIDESEP and ONAMIAP.
According to the complaint, several of these organizations decided to "develop their proposals together with the Ministry of the Environment (MINAM), even though the State should not interfere in this stage of the process."
They stated: "Our organizations denounce that this divisiveness plays into the hands of the government." Faced with this situation, they announce that they will continue to coordinate in order to reach a consensus on a common proposal before the dialogue phase, with "total independence of any government or political interest."
They also demand that MINAM "focuses on preparing ministerial resolutions that provide a solution to our eleven demands, before the end of the prior consultation and before the social conflict increases."
This measure is also supported by AIDESEP's regional organizations such as the AIDESEP Regional Organization - Ucayali , the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Tributaries (Fenamad), the Regional Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Central Rainforest (ARPI-SC) .
Likewise, they support the Regional Coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo (CORPI-SL) and the Regional Coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples of AIDESEP Atalaya (CORPIAA).
MINAM’s Silence
Indigenous organizations are concerned about MINAM's contradictory stance of reducing climate issues to "norms" and rhetoric in international spaces, but remains silent before infrastructure initiatives that affect and threaten the country's climate commitments.
On Tuesday, January 18, AIDESEP organized the forum "The alarming dredging of the Amazon rivers and its global, national and local impacts" in the city of Bonn, where the impact of the dredging of rivers contemplated in the Amazon Waterway project was denounced.
In this event, MINAM had confirmed its participation through the specialist Berioska Quispe, who went to listen to the event, but she did not take the floor.
The MINAM’s position is key to the impact the dredging of the Amazon Waterway Project will have on the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve , a protected area of Peru, located in the region of Loreto.
Pacaya-Samiria has an area of 2 million 80 thousand hectares and it is the largest national reserve in Peru, the second protected natural area in the country and the fourth protected area in all of South America.