By Lorena Mendoza and Guisela Loayza, Communications Officer for Peru and Legal Advisor at the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance
Following the ruling issued by the International Rights of Nature Tribunal (An International ethical court created by civil society to defend Nature), Indigenous Peoples warn that decades of oil activity have demonstrated that there are no conditions to reactivate the oil block Nº 64. They are calling on the Peruvian State to halt the expansion of fossil fuels in Indigenous territories.
Luego del veredicto emitido el pasado 19 de agosto por el Tribunal Internacional de los Derechos de la Naturaleza, representantes de las naciones Chapra, Achuar y Wampís llegaron a Lima para dar a conocer la importancia de la sentencia y las razones por las cuales defienden sus territorios frente a la intención estatal de reactivación del Lote 64.
Throughout the week, Indigenous leaders participated in interviews with national television, radio and print media, delivering a common message: no to the reactivation of oil block 64 and no more promotion of new oil blocks in Indigenous territories and protected areas. They also called for an end to harmful dependence on oil and for progress towards diversifying our energy sources.
The Tribunal's ruling, issued in Puyo, Ecuador, represents an ethical endorsement for the three nations in a struggle they have sustained for the past 30 years. The Tribunal called on the Peruvian State to suspend the reactivation of oil block 64, respect the rights to prior consultation and consent, restore affected ecosystems, and guarantee the protection of nature and indigenous rights defenders.
Tatiana Roa, Judge of the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, stated to Chapra, Wampis and Achuar Nations: “Your resistance matters, your knowledge matters, and your defense of the territory is legitimized as a possible future, because perhaps justice does not consist solely in repairing harm after it occurs; it also consists in ensuring that a people can continue to be a people, and that a territory can remain a territory of life.”
More Than Three Decades of Struggle
Oil block 64 is located in the rainforest, precisely in Morona district, Datem del Marañon province, in Loreto, and overlaps with the ancestral territories of the Chapra, Achuar and Wampís Nations, directly affecting 22 of their Native communities. However, the risks are not limited to the area covered by the oil block activity. According to information from Petroperú and the environmental impact assessment submitted unsuccessfully by GeoPark in 2019, the crude oil would be transported by barge along the Morona River (a river system on which numerous Indigenous communities depend) before being pumped at the Morona station into the Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline.
The three Nations have been resisting oil extraction in Block 64 for 33 years. Their opposition is also grounded in their direct experiences of pollution in their territories and in neighbouring areas.
During their interviews with the media, representatives referred to the contamination caused by oil spills and environmental liabilities affecting Indigenous Peoples living around Blocks 192 and 8. Olivia Bisa, President of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Chapra Nation, stated: “Their sons and daughters have blood contaminated with lead, cadmium and heavy metals. Their future is contaminated.”
The Indigenous Peoples point out that although activities in the block have been suspended since 2020, they themselves have experienced spills linked to oil infrastructure in 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2024. Among the most recent incidents, they recall the spill that occurred in September 2022, when a section of the Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline ruptured as a result of corrosion, according to findings by OEFA, Peru's Environmental Assessment and Enforcement Agency. The spill affected the lives and health of communities belonging to the Wampís and Chapra Nations.
Communities reported delays in containment efforts and damage to streams and cochas (Amazonian lagoons used as essential sources of water and food, as fish are a staple of their diet). These communities also lack access to piped water. The President of the Chapra Nation stated that her efforts to raise the alarm about this ecocide resulted in four criminal complaints being filed against her by Petroperú, which alleged that she had obstructed remediation efforts. She maintains that the accusations were unfounded, as she was not even present in the district at the time. One of these complaints has since been dismissed.
In 2024, Petroperú, through one of its contractors, was conducting a pressure test on the Northern Branch Pipeline when it ruptured at kilometre 12. In this area, the pipeline lies on the bed of the Pastaza River. The crude oil spread rapidly through the river and reached lakes, cochas, agricultural plots and riverbanks, affecting more than 13 communities of the Achuar and Kichwa Nations, according to Elmer Kunchim, President of the Federation of the Achuar Nationality of Peru. Because there is no access to safe drinking water, the spill contaminated the communities' primary sources of water and food. To this day, communities report that they continue to find traces of hydrocarbons in these ecosystems.
According to official information generated by OEFA and OSINERGMIN and analysed in the Shadows of Hydrocarbons Report (2024), between 1997 and May 2023, 1,460 oil spills and hydrocarbon leaks occurred in Peru. Of these, 831 - or 57% - occurred in the Amazon, primarily in Indigenous territories, while 43% occurred along Peru's coast, in territories inhabited by fishing communities. The trend is also increasing. The annual average number of spills between 2021 and 2023 increased by 353%, reaching an average of 146 spills per year, more than three times the annual average recorded between 1997 and 2019, when the average was 41.3 spills per year. Petroperú has accumulated 191 spills, ranking second among the companies with the highest number of recorded spills.
In their interviews, Indigenous leaders also highlighted that, according to the findings of the report mentioned above, 72% of crude oil spills are linked to operational failures and corrosion.
For the Indigenous Peoples, these incidents demonstrate that the impacts of oil activity persist for years and directly affect water, food security and the lives of their communities.
A Questioned Project and Unresolved Rights
The experiences of contamination are compounded by concerns regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment submitted by GeoPark in 2019, when the company was the operator of Block 64. The assessment received more than 100 observations, several of which were submitted by the Achuar and Wampís Nations. These concerns addressed, among other issues, the identification of existing environmental liabilities in the area, which cannot be left unattended, the insufficient information regarding waste management, and the transportation of crude oil by vessels along the Morona River. The company failed to address the observations, withdrew from the assessment process and ceased operating the block in 2020.
The three nations also argue that the project is marked by violations of their right to prior consultation and to free, prior and informed consent. They question any attempt to reactivate the project without first resolving these outstanding issues.
Our Territories Are Not Sacrifice Zones
Defending their territories has also placed Indigenous leaders at risk. Olivia Bisa has been granted personal protection measures due to the threats she has received. However, she argues that these mechanisms do not function adequately in the Amazon, where the State's presence is limited.
In response to the proposed reactivation of Block 64, the three nations are putting forward an alternative: to stop expanding the oil frontier, advance towards an energy transition, and address the damage caused to the health of communities and nature by decades of extractive activity.
For the Chapra, Achuar and Wampís Nations, an energy transition cannot simply mean stopping the approval of new projects. It must also mean healing the territories and the communities that protect them—territories and peoples that have already been harmed by an industry imposed upon them.
