24, Jan 2018 | CJP Team

The Guardian reported that Peru’s congress has passed a law that would permit roads to be constructed in the most remote and unspoiled region of its Amazon rainforest, an area abundant in mahogany trees and “a haven for isolated indigenous groups”. The area includes four national parks, and could impact five reserves that are home to indigenous peoples who live in “voluntary isolation”. Lizardo Cauper, who heads Peru’s federation of native Amazon peoples (Aidesep), told the Guardian that the area has “isolated people who are extremely vulnerable,” adding, “Roads bring outsiders who traffic our land, log our timber, as well as drug traffickers and illegal miners”. The law says road construction in border areas is of “national priority and interest”; Julia Urrunaga, Peru director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, told the Guardian that 95% of deforestation takes place less than six kilometres from a road, and that this law conflicts with a previous court ruling that said protecting the forest was in the national interest. The law is also in conflict with multiple international commitments that Peru has made related to climate change and trade with the United States and Europe. Pope Francis, who recently concluded a trip to Peru, cautioned in a speech there that indigenous people in the Amazon have “never been so threatened in their territories as they are now”.