Peru: Indigenous organizations denounce “extermination campaign” against uncontacted peoples
September 29, 2025
Peru’s leading Indigenous organizations have called on the US and European governments to stop financial support to the country’s forestry industry, following an unprecedented legislative assault on Peru's uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
The organizations have written to the governments of the UK, Norway, Germany, the US, the German Development Bank (KFW) and the World Bank, calling on them to suspend their climate-related funding to Peru’s government and forestry industry until the authorities resume the proper recognition of uncontacted Indigenous peoples’ rights.
Among those who have signed the letter are AIDESEP, Peru’s national Indigenous rights organization, and several of its regional organizations.
In recent weeks, national and local politicians who oppose recognition of uncontacted Indigenous peoples’ rights have mounted a series of attacks:
- A proposed reserve known as Yavari-Mirim for uncontacted peoples in NE Peru which proceeded through various stages of approval for the last 20 years was blocked at the final stage. Key ministries — which should have been present — boycotted the final vote.
- A proposed law has been introduced to Congress that would allow for the “review” of all existing reserves for uncontacted peoples every 6 months. A new “review commission” could reduce or cancel any of Peru’s 8 such reserves. This would be a fatal blow to Peru’s whole system of protection for uncontacted peoples’ territories — which has existed for decades.
- Another proposed bill would open up all protected areas to oil and gas drilling. There are about 18 such areas in Peru where uncontacted Indigenous people live.
- One of Peru’s leading anti-Indigenous politicians, Congressman Juan Carlos Celis Mori, has denied the existence of uncontacted peoples in the northern Loreto province, even though their presence there has been comprehensively documented over decades.
AIDESEP has also released, through Survival International, a series of new aerial photos taken this summer which reveal malocas (communal houses) of uncontacted Indigenous people in both the north and the south of Peru, as further proof of the already extensively-documented existence of these peoples throughout the Peruvian Amazon.
Julio Cusurichi, of AIDESEP, said today: “We call on you not to allow the approval of these nefarious bills. They will simply finish the job of the genocide of the uncontacted peoples that began during the rubber boom, for the sole purpose of giving them carte blanche to exploit and plunder these territories and enrich themselves at the cost of the lives of thousands of our most vulnerable compatriots".
Survival International’s Director Caroline Pearce said today: “What’s happening in Peru now is an unprecedented attack on the very existence of uncontacted peoples in the country. These measures, if passed, will condemn them to destruction, slowly but inevitably. Their territories, so vital to their survival, will be opened up, mined, drilled and destroyed. We stand with AIDESEP and all the other Indigenous organizations in Peru that are resolutely fighting these genocidal proposals.”
Editor’s note
The 'Extermination Bill' is: Proyecto de Ley 12215/2025-CR. The Bill to open all Protected Areas to oil and gas extraction is: Proyecto de Ley N° 11822/2024-CR.
