The Kichwa indigenous community wins an important legal victory against the exclusionary conservation of the Cordillera Azul National Park in Peru
In 2020, the Kichwa community of Puerto Franco and the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA) filed a lawsuit against the Peruvian Government and the Cordillera Azul National Park. The Kichwa community took out the lawsuit because it had been dispossessed of its territory by the Cordillera Azul National Park and forestry concessions.
The organisation that runs the national park, Centro de Conservación, Investigación y Manejo de Áreas Naturales (CIMA), created the Cordillera Azul National Park REDD project in 2008. The REDD project has sold more than 30 million carbon credits for more than US$80.5 million.
The Indigenous Kichwa community was not consulted before national park was established on their territory. Neither was the community consulted before the REDD project was started.
And the community has so far not benefited from the sale of carbon credits from the national park.
On 22 March 2023, the public hearing of the lawsuit took place in the Mixed Court of Bellavista of the Superior Court of Justice of San Martín. The court ordered the Regional Agrarian Directorate of the Regional Government of San Martín to initiate a titling process of the territory traditionally used and occupied by the Puerto Franco Kichwa community.
The court also ordered the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) to carry out a free and informed consultation for the creation of the Cordillera Azul National Park. And the court ordered SERNANP to instruct park rangers to allow the Puerto Franco Kichwa community and other affected communities to access to natural resources and to benefit from conservation activities carried out in their territories.
This includes conservation activities and benefits associated with the Cordillera Azul National Park.
In a statement on Forest Peoples Programme’s website, the president of CEPKA, Apu Reogildo Amasifuén, states that,
“It is a joy for us and for the Kichwa people and for Puerto Franco, a base community of CEPKA, to know that the ruling is in favour of what is ours, because the law itself protects us and it would have been illogical for this case not to come out in our favour. And to say to our brothers and sisters: the struggle continues! Even if Puerto Franco’s lawsuit against Cordillera Azul came out in our favour, we must continue to fight for more in defence of the Kichwa territory.”
Forest Peoples Programme reports that Simona del Socorro Torres Sánchez, the judge of the Mixed Court of Bellavista, granted each of the claims requested in the lawsuit. Forest Peoples Programme summarises the orders made by the judge as follows:
That the Regional Agrarian Directorate of the Regional Government of San Martin initiate the land titling process for the entirety of the territory traditionally used and occupied by the community. That articles 11 and 18 of Law 22175 and 76 of Law 29763, which regulate the titling of the lands of native communities with a form of leasehold use contract, known as “cesión en uso”, be inapplied. And that the Regional Government of San Martin titles the entirety of the traditionally occupied territory of the Puerto Franco community.
That the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) resize the Permanent Production Forest (BPP) that affects the territory traditionally occupied by the community.
That the Regional Environmental Authority of the Regional Government of San Martin declare the forestry concessions within the community’s territory null and void.
That the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) carry out a free and informed consultation of D.S. 031-2001-AG that created the Cordillera Azul National Park and its Master Plan 2017-2021.
That SERNANP instruct the Park's rangers not to impede access to natural resources for members of the Puerto Franco community and other affected communities.
That SERNANP complies with the right of the native communities over which the PNCAZ overlaps to benefit from conservation activities in their territories (such as the Park's REDD+ Project, in accordance with Article 15.2 of Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation).
SERNANP should comply with the right of the native communities over which the PNCAZ overlaps to participate in the management of the Park with decision-making capacity.
This is good news for the Kichwa communities. They will now have a free and informed consultation process about the national park that was established on their land more than 20 years ago. They will also receive some of the benefits from the REDD project - benefits that are long overdue.
However, Shell and TotalEnergies have bought 87% of the carbon credits issued by the REDD project. The court ruling will do nothing to stop these massively polluting fossil fuel corporations from greenwashing their operations and continuing to make the climate crisis worse.
In June 2022, three organisations of the Kichwa people in the San Martin region of Peru put out a statement opposing “opaque carbon trading” from the Cordillera Azul National Park REDD project (which is abbreviated as PNCAZ in Spanish):
No to the false climate solutions offered as “Nature Based Solutions” and “carbon neutrality” by oil and mining companies that pollute in other regions of the world, such as Shell, Total, BHP, and others, who buy carbon from the PNCAZ.
That is wonderful news. Will Shell and Total have to pay back the money, or how can that missing money be retrieved for the benefit of the Kichwa?