Indigenous leaders loyal to Evo Morales voted to remove Adolfo Chávez as president of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Oriente (CIDOB)—as CIDOB’s march in protest of a jungle highway advances on La Paz.
The Transportation Commission of Peru’s Congress approved a new road through remote jungle thought to protect isolated indigenous peoples. Madre de Dios indigenous leaders protested that they were not consulted.
Survival International is calling upon Mick Jagger—recently named by Peru as an “environmental ambassador”—to demand answers on Lima’s “secret plans” to expand the Camisea natural gas bloc into a reserve for “uncontacted” indigenous tribes.
The Asháninka indigenous people helped beat back the now-resurgent Shining Path in Peru’s ApurĂmac-Ene River Valley, but now oppose a government hydro-electric mega-project that would flood their traditional territories.
Two ministers have resigned and the army chief has been sacked after charges that Peru’s armed forced abandoned stranded troops in a guerilla-controlled jungle. Local indigenous residents now charge a “dirty war” is being carried out in the zone.
Plans by Anglo-French company Perenco to exploit oil deposits slated to transform Peru’s economy have been slammed as a “1970s-era” project and forecast to cause huge unnecessary environmental damage to the Amazon.
Peru announced that it will implement its own climate change initiative, in light of the continued absence of an international treaty. But the Environmental Investigation Agency finds that illegal logging thrives in Peru due to endemic corruption.
Indigenous leaders gather in the jungle city of Trinidad for a new cross-country march to oppose the proposed highway through Bolivia’s Amazon region—while supporters of the project pledge to block their advance.
Peru’s Panamericana TV broadcast an interview with the leader of the Sendero Luminoso guerillas who last week took hostage some 40 Camisea gas pipeline workers—adding further confusion to the already extremely murky affair.
Six days after they were abducted by Shining Path guerillas, hostage Camisea Consortium workers were freed in the rainforest of Peru’s Cuzco region—but accounts are sketchy and contradictory on exactly how the captives were released.
A National Police helicopter searching for 40 hostages held by presumed Sendero Luminoso guerillas in a rainforest area of Peru’s Cuzco region was fired upon, killing a police captain on board, and wounding three others.
In a surprise move, Bolivian President Evo Morales rescinded the contract of a Brazilian firm to build a controversial highway through the Amazon rainforest. But opponents of the project suspect a move to undermine their struggle.
