Oil companies blamed for the extinction of Peru's Mashco-Piro-Inapari tribe
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["Reports from 2050"
is a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, supported by
current news, facts and predictions. To see what's real and what's fake,
click on the links within the text.]
JANUARY 4, 2050 (Lima, Peru) -- Over forty years ago,
a coalition of more than 50 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) called for three major oil companies to withdraw their planned operations from a part of the Peruvian Amazon that is the home to two
uncontacted tribes. Peru has the third largest number of the uncontacted tribes in the world, after Brazil (with 43 confirmed) and New Guinea.
Sent by the international non-profit tribal rights organization
Survival International,
the letter said that these uncontacted tribes are "extremely vulnerable
as they lack immunity to outsidersʼ diseases and they face the very
real threat of extinction if they are contacted."
" Operating
in this area demonstrates an utter disregard for some of the most
vulnerable people on the planet," said Stephen Corry, director of
Survival International, according to a 2010 story by
The Ecologist, part of the
Guardian Environment Network.
"If the companies have any sense, they will leave the area to its
rightful owners before lives, and reputations, are ruined."
The
oil companies never left. The government of Peru approved every single
one of their requests. And now, according to a new report by the
Lima-based non-profit conservation group
Amazonas, Peru's
Mashco-Piro-Iñapari tribe has been declared extinct, after the remaining three members of the group succumbed to
chicken pox, a disease to which the tribe had not developed an immunity.
"The
destructive quest for the South America's fossil fuel has caused the
extinction of many endangered species over the last 100 years," said
Amazonas executive director
Arturo Peralta Miranda, in an email. "Now that quest can claim the destruction of a distinct group of
Homo sapiens ."
Last
year, 13 members of the Mashco-Piro-Iñapari were killed in violent
clashes with security forces guarding a drilling station deep in the
forest.
Since construction began in 2012, over 700 miles (1,100
km) of oil pipeline has been built throughout Peru, impacting vast
tracts of rainforest on either side along its length. Over 2,000 miles
(1,200 km) of
seismic lines
have been cut in order to find oil, a process that includes clearing
paths and detonating explosives throughout what once was one of the
Earth's most biologically diverse regions.
By 2030, oil companies in the country had constructed over 220
heliports in the
selva
(jungle), which has reduced the ability of indigenous tribes to hunt
for food. The heliports have also disrupted the habitats of many
critically endangered species living in
Yasuni National Park in neighboring Ecuador.
"In
Peru, more than 50% of the previously-uncontacted Nahua tribe were
wiped out following oil exploration on their land in the early 1980s,
and the same tragedy engulfed the Murunahua in the mid-1990s after being
forcibly contacted by illegal mahogany loggers," according to
Survival International.
"One
of the Murunahua survivors, Jorge, who lost an eye during first
contact, told a Survival researcher, 'The disease came when the loggers
made contact with us, although we didn't know what a cold was then.
The disease killed us. Half of us died. My aunt died, my nephew died.
Half of my people died.'"
In 2010, Peru was ranked as the 10th worst country in terms of environmental impact according to "
Evaluating the Relative Environmental Impact of Countries,"
a joint-study of 228 nations by Australia's University of Adelaide, the
South Australian Research and Development Institute, the National
University of Singapore, Princeton University and Harvard University.
"Now
that the government has allowed oil companies to destroy our
rainforests and bring diseases that have led to the extinction of one of
our nation's remaining indigenous tribes," Miranda said, "Peru should
be on top of that list."
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Authors Bio:
Reynard Loki is a New York-based artist, writer and editor. He is the environment and food editor at AlterNet.org, a progressive news website. He is also the co-founder of MomenTech, a New York-based experimental production studio whose projects exploring cosmology, post-humanism, neo-nomadism and futurism have been presented around the world, including Center for Book Arts (New York, NY); DUMBO Arts Festival (Brooklyn, NY) Eastern Bloc Center for New Media and Interdisciplinary Art (Montreal), ITCH Magazine, School of Literature, Language and Media, Wits University (Johannesburg, South Africa); 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival (Berlin); Daet New Media Festival (Philippines); 3///3 (Athens, Greece), Fotanian Open Studio (Hong Kong) and Magmart International Video Festival (Naples). Reynard is a contributing author of Biomes and Ecosystems: An Encyclopedia (Salem Press, 2013). His writing has also appeared in Salon, Truthout, Justmeans, EcoWatch, GreenBiz, Resilience.org and Social Earth.