Massive Amazon Oil Discovery Threatens Peru’s Uncontacted Indians
posted on February 17th, 2009 in Amazon Jungle, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Peru
Groups say Peru oil project threatens Indians
The Associated Press
January 26, 2009
LIMA, Peru: The development of a remote oil field in Peru’s Amazon jungle could threaten the survival of isolated Indian communities in the region, an Indian rights group said Monday.
This month, Peru’s Finance Ministry approved plans submitted by Anglo-French oil company Perenco SA to invest $1 billion over the next three years to extract crude from an oil field in the northern province of Loreto near Ecuador’s border.
An international tribal-support organization and local Indian rights groups say the oil field is the ancestral home of up to three nomadic Indian communities living in voluntary isolation.