Associated NGPA research project
Pratt, INGO Engagement with Indigenous Social Movements in the Peruvian Amazon|
Project dates
15 September to 15 December 2006
Constructing Coalitions To Defend The Rights Of Indigenous People In The Urubamba River Valley, Peru
If successful, this fellowship application will enable the Regional Director of Oxfam America, who has directed a program in support of the indigenous peoples of the Urubamba River Valley in Peru for the last eight years, to work with the "Indigenous social movements and international NGOs in the Peruvian Amazon Project of INTRAC" in order to produce a paper analyzing the experiences in building coalitions between local and regional indigenous organizations, national and international NGOs and the concerned public in the North in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples impacted by extractive industries in the Andes.
Oxfam America has worked with indigenous peoples and their representative organizations in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia for the last twenty years and has played a key role in the emergence of indigenous movements that have become important political actors in Ecuador and Bolivia. In Peru, the word "indigenous" has been associated with Amazonian peoples since other indigenous people and their representative organizations have preferred to underplay or even deny their indigenous identity in a political and social context characterized by discrimination and exclusion.
During the 1990s concerns about the growing activities of exploration and exploitation by mining companies in the Andean highlands and petroleum and gas companies in the Amazon Basin of Peru were increasingly voiced by indigenous leaders unfamiliar with these activities and unsure about their rights. In response to these concerns, Oxfam began supporting a number of activities aimed at increasing the understanding of both staff and key partners of the nature and scope of the mining, oil and gas industries in the region and the rights of those communities impacted by their activities, especially their rights to participate in decisions about the initiation of exploration and exploitation, to defend the integrity of their territories and natural resources as the basis of their livelihoods and to receive some share of the wealth created by such activities on or near their lands.
This lead to the creation of an extractive industries program within Oxfam. This programme was designed to support indigenous communities in the Andean highlands in the defense of their rights in the face of expanding mining operations and indigenous communities in the Amazon Basin in the defense of their rights vis-à-vis the activities of oil and gas companies.
OXFAM has supported the creation of mesas técnicas, coalitions of NGOs supporting an organization representing communities impacted by an operating mine or proposed mining project, which have educated local people about their rights, especially under Convention 169 of the ILO, provided technical information about proposed projects, especially during the environmental impact assessment approval processes, advised communities and their leadership during negotiations with government and/or companies and helped them carry out advocacy activities both nationally and internationally, including lobbying international financial institutions and the presentation of cases to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.
In the process, not only have some individual conflicts been resolved, either through cancellation of a project, as in the case of Tambogrande whilst others are still in negotiation. To ensure that lessons from some of these is shared with other groups internationally, Oxfam and its partners participated actively in the Extractive Industries Review process of the World Bank. EarthWorks and Oxfam have developed the No Dirty Gold campaign in the US to persuade leading jewelry chains to demand that the gold they purchase conform to a series of standards that were developed through consultation with community representatives from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile and with industry specialists.
In this way, a program which was developed in response to the needs of Andean indigenous communities has lead to the development of a global movement linking communities affected by mining in South and Central America, the United States, West Africa and South East Asia and the Pacific with national and international NGOs and other allies in both the South and the North, and increasingly including concerned individuals and companies within the mining sector itself.
While the focus has mainly been on mining, Oxfam worked closely with partners in Peru and allies in the US, as well as with consultants from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and US Government, with the result that unprecedented conditions were placed on a loan to the consortium that built the pipeline for the Camisea natural gas project. This arose out of Oxfam's support during some fifteen years for a development NGO working with the Machiguenga indigenous and their representative organization, COMARU (Machiguenga Urubamba River Council).
However, in the two years since the loan was made and the gas pipeline constructed only a core group of NGOs in Peru with support from environmental and indigenous rights allies in the US have continued negotiating with the IDB to design and implement an independent monitoring system. This situation is about to change, due to a number of factors: an increase in the capacity of Oxfam and some environmental organizations to monitor the project; the granting of concessions by the government to develop gas fields adjacent to the original Camisea bloc; a succession of five leaks in the pipeline in less than two years of operation; and recent reports from E-Tech International and Peru's national ombudsman documenting serious problems with the pipeline and unresolved impacts on indigenous communities. Thus, the conditions seem promising for promoting changes in government and company policies and practices and a more active participation by civil society in the monitoring of the project and its impacts.
Since 2004, as part of a grant from the Ford Foundation, Oxfam has developed a number of case studies and related materials based on its extractive industries work in the Andes and Amazon. These include case studies of the advocacy campaigns around the Camisea project, as well as the Texaco case in Ecuador and the Tambogrande, Tintaya, La Oroya and Yanacocha cases in Peru, a draft summary of Oxfam's role in developing an international coalition around these cases and training materials for advocacy by indigenous peoples in defense of their rights. All these materials represent basic inputs for a potential book which would present the lessons learned from a global advocacy initiative aimed at reforming the extractive industries in order to overcome the so-called "resource curse".
The Dr Martin Scurrah has been responsible for the overall direction of this bottom-up approach to campaigning which has spread to involve a number of regions and other NGOs. He will be retiring from Oxfam in the second half of this year and has decided to devote the following year to completing the collection and analysis of the available information and writing a book as a contribution to our understanding of the globalization process of which this campaign forms a part.
The fellowship being sought will allow him to work closely with INTRAC colleagues who have been doing research on the relations between international NGOs and indigenous organizations in order to enable him to write that part of the book focusing on advocacy around the Camisea project while at the same time contributing to the discussions and reflections of his INTRAC colleagues. It will enable him to test his ideas and hypotheses with both academics and practitioners and have access to a wider range of theoretical approaches and literature than is available in Peru, where he resides. The expected result will be a revised chapter on the Camisea project and strengthening of the theoretical and interpretive chapters.