Protecting Shipibo Territory

Here is a story from Village Earth which focuses on the work of the Shipibo People in Peru to defend the rainforest and their own communities — as well as a project to aid in the defense and protection of Shipibo territory, by creating GIS layered maps of the region.

From the article “an aggressive program of Amazonian “development” has been promoted during the past 50 years, which has fragmented Shipibo territory by the incursion of non-indigenous colonists, government “development” projects, and foreign corporations exploiting the land by logging, hydrocarbon extraction, and industrial-scale agriculture. However, protecting indigenous land rights has come to the forefront in their struggles for self-determination as the Peruvian government continues to open up the farthest reaches of the Amazon basin for oil exploration and other extractive enterprises.” (source)

Aswell, here’s another story about the work of the Shipibo against the Mahogony industry.

I admit, the article says some pretty poor things like “stone age tribes” – but they interviewed Julio Cusurich, who started the Native Federation of Madre de Dios, which brought together 27 communities in the region. He had some good things to say:

“Changes happen little by little,” Cusurichi said. “You have to do your work looking at the whole picture. You have to make sure the things you do today won’t hurt your people tomorrow. Keep that in mind and you can be confident things will work out.”