Peru repeals official report on threats to uncontacted tribes

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Peru’s Prime Minister has announced that his government has scrapped an official report warning of the dangers a controversial gas project poses to uncontacted tribes. It is another sign of the intense pressure from the top of Peru’s government to push ahead with the project.

The report was published by the government department responsible for Indigenous affairs – the Ministry of Culture – in response to plans to expand the giant Camisea gas project in Peru’s south-east Amazon.

The gas project lies in the heart of a reserve created to protect several uncontacted and isolated tribes.

The report contains 83 ‘observations’ outlining the dangers the expansion plans pose to the lives of local tribal peoples. It was pulled from the Ministry’s website just hours after it was published, and now the government has repealed it entirely.

Peru’s Ministry of Culture is responsible for protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples, and could reject the plans to expand the gas project further into the tribes’ reserve.

The scrapping of the report has been blasted by Indigenous organizations and some Peruvian press as a tactic by the government to push the gas plans forward, despite widespread opposition.

Nahua Indians, who were decimated following initial gas exploration in the area, have written to the Ministry rejecting the project plans, and several ministers have resigned, allegedly under pressure to give the project the green light.