Indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon have blocked a jungle road for two weeks and seized 14 oil wells in a decades-long dispute with Argentine oil company Pluspetrol over local environmental impacts.
“The groups are demanding $33 million in reparations for use of land in the area, which produces about a quarter of Peru’s total 67,000 barrels a day,” Vice News reports. “The government has declared several emergency zones following spills in recent years from leaky, outdated pipelines, with over 90 areas affected. Toxic waste and heavy metals have contaminated waterways and food sources, according to Peru’s Environment Ministry.”
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“People from government are having conversations there again, but what the communities want are solutions,” said Roberto Espinoza, rainforests advisor at the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), Peru’s largest Indigenous network. “Waters full of salt, lead, and barium have entered rivers, tributaries, and gullies, and the environmental damage has accumulated to impact animals.” (h/t to InsideClimate News)
