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Indigenous communities across Peru are facing the devastating impacts of ongoing extractivism, while a series of new government laws threaten their right to self-determination, justice and land.

Communities in the Manseriche district, in Peru’s northeast Amazonian region of Loreto, alerted state-owned oil company Petroperú on March 19 about an oil leak from its Norperuano pipeline. The spill entered the surrounding land and river systems, contaminating the drinking, hygiene and agricultural water supply to .

The latest spill is the from the Norperuano pipeline and local communities have resorted to installing their own containment barriers, due to Petroperú’s failure to act quickly following spills. Local communities have also denounced Petroperú for and failing to clean up, leaving oil seeping into the ground and water.��

Attempting to deflect attention away from its , Petroperú claimed that the leak was caused by an “” on the pipeline, despite the broken section being under nearly 2 metres of soil.��

After nearly a month of the government and Petroperú ignoring local communities’ demands for food, water and remediation of the spill, resorted to the oil company’s Station No. 5 — along the Norperuano pipeline — and blockading a nearby road on April 15.��

The communities the presence of government representatives and for penalties against Petroperú.

These formed part of a broader platform of demands — made over decades in the face of government neglect and systemic abandonment — and include demands around infrastructure, funding for bilingual education programs, the establishment of an intercultural university and increases in jobs for teachers, teaching assistants and administrative staff.

After delays, officials from the president’s cabinet, Ombudsman’s office and Petroperú finally met with community representatives on April 23 for a roundtable, in an attempt to reach an agreement. However, the cabinet representatives and roadmap created during four days of negotiations, and instead tried to impose last-minute conditions without discussion.��

Local Indigenous authorities held firm, however, and on April 27 that included: a clean-up and remediation plan, along with the distribution of food kits and drinking water; the formation of an bilingual education institution in the Datem del Marañón province; funding for , a program that trains and supplies bilingual teachers; and a plan to complete unfinished infrastructure works in Manseriche.

The local community to continue their occupation of the Petroperú station until May 2, to ensure that initial clean-up agreements are complied with.��

(48%) of the 1462 officially recorded oil spills between 1997 and 2023 occurred in Loreto, especially from Petroperú’s . A lack of reporting, including oil companies falsifying information about the extent of oil spills or failing to report them at all, means that the extent of contamination is likely much higher.��

Erasure

Along with the devastating impacts of extractivism, Indigenous communities are confronting constant attempts to erase recognition of their identity.��

Following a campaign by Indigenous organisations, a question about “” was included for the first time in the country’s 2017 national census.��

This allowed for more accurate data collection on Peru’s diverse ethnic groups. of Peruvians identified as Indigenous — belonging to one of the country’s — and 3.6% as people of African descent.

However, this year’s census — which will take place between August and October — includes “mestizo” (mixed-race) as a possible response to the question about ethnicity. The term emerged from Spanish colonisers categorising people of mixed European and non-European descent when imposing a racially based caste system in Latin America.

While it is still commonly used to refer to people of mixed ancestry — of Peruvians identify as “mestizo” — the term homogenises and erases diverse Indigenous identities.

The National Organisation of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru (ONAMIAP) declared in a February 26 that the inclusion of the term “reinforces colonial narratives that render us invisible”.��

“This directly affects the accuracy of ethnicity statistics, whose purpose should be to clearly identify Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian peoples, not to dilute their identities in an ambiguous option.”

The technical committee responsible for coordinating census questions relating to ethnicity Indigenous organisations from the planning process. Indigenous organisations a racist campaign by the National Confederation of Private Entrepreneurial Institutions — an influential pro-big business lobby representing the country’s economic elite — as being behind the decision to change the census question.

ONAMIAP previously with proposals to move to an online census, which would affect the accuracy and collection of data in rural regions and communities without internet access.

ONAMIAP organised a and series of political actions in Lima last month, bringing together representatives from diverse regions of the country to oppose the changes to the national census, along with the government’s new authoritarian Law 30793.��

Gag law 

The widely-dubbed “Anti-NGO Law” or “Gag Law” — passed by Congress on March 12 — allows the government to sanction, fine and dissolve organisations for “”.

Critics say the law will be used to , whistleblowers and organisations for exposing government crimes, corruption and negligence and threatens the existence or operations of Indigenous organisations seeking justice for human rights violations committed by the state.��

Organisations can now be sanctioned for launching for violating the right to prior consultation in the granting of mining and oil concessions, causing or allowing environmental pollution and failing to recognise land rights.��

Indigenous organisations, including ONAMIAP, the Peruvian Campesina Federation and the National Agrarian Confederation, released a on March 15 rejecting the law as “a direct threat to our access to justice”.

“For years, Indigenous peoples have faced violence, dispossession and criminalisation, without the state guaranteeing proper mechanisms of protection, reparation and justice.” 

“While the large extractive companies continue to plunder our territories with impunity, the government deepens its strategy of silencing and repressing those of us who fight for life, water, the forests and our very existence.”

The statement said the law is a “frontal attack” on Indigenous organisations, threatening their autonomy and right to self-determination.��

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Congress also approved modifications to on April 7 that allow the official registration of informal settlements established on Indigenous lands between 2005–15. Much of the land was taken by force and without consent for the purpose of or extractive activities, such as mining.��

The Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP) — which represents 109 federations and thousands of Indigenous communities — released a on April 10 denouncing the government’s attack on Indigenous land rights.��

AIDESEP said the new law “opens the way for the expropriation of campesina [poor, small-scale farmers] communities’ land” and “sets a dangerous precedent”.

“This measure legalises systematic territorial dispossession and violates our rights to the ownership of our ancestral land.”

“This is not an isolated measure, but part of the mechanism of dispossession and violence promoted by Congress, the government and the whole system against Andean and Amazonian Indigenous peoples.”