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Loading...Oil Pipeline Threatens Isolated Tribes In Peruvian Rainforest
Major oil companies have begun work on an oil pipeline near Loreto, Peru that could destroy 129 miles of rainforest and decimate two previously uncontacted tribes of people.
Several indigenous organizations, including AIDESEP and ORPIO have spoken out against the companies, and a lawsuit has been filed against them in Peru’s Constitutional Court.
Perenco, an Anglo-French company with a huge interest in Peru’s northern Amazon, has recently admitted to transporting 50,000 tons of material and consumables into the region as part of its plans to exploit an estimated 300 million barrels of oil.
Perenco described the materials transported into the region as the ‘equivalent of seven Eiffel Towers.’
Survival International recently wrote a letter warning the United Nations that allowing these illegal operations to continue will have disastrous effects on the rainforest and native peoples that have lived within it for centuries.
According to anthropological research, the region of northern Peru chosen by the oil companies is home to at least two ‘uncontacted’ tribes who are extremely vulnerable to any form of contact because of their lack of immunity to outsiders’ diseases.
In a flagrant violation of international law, Peru’s government is still permitting Perenco to forge ahead with its plans to cut open a swath of rainforest that is over one hundred miles long and 1,640 feet wide.
Other companies, including Conoco-Phillips and Repsol-YPF have also applied for drilling permits in the area, which some scientists have called the most biodiverse in the world.
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Read more: environment & wildlife, human rights, Indigenous People, oil, peru, rainforest, sustaintmc, united nations
Image Credit: Survival International
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Recent Comments from Causes
What an idiot!
Cruel idiots should be severely punished as 1 month in jail and $500 is not enough...
what god dammed assholes are this? May the justice work...
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83 comments
+ add your ownSo very sad...
We've really got to start making some changins, first we're depleating homes for animals and marine life now it's people too. How far is too far?
South America (except for a few renegade politican holdouts in places like Peru and Chile) has become a far more environmentally aware and advanced place than backward North America since all its countries had their united populist revolution and threw out World Bank/IMF economic enslavers and the US backed dictators. Prior to that North America had South America oppressed under a greedy economic club and US corporations were busy pillaging and raping South American environments. If not for South America's populist revolution it would have ended up destroyed like other areas of the world that have been wrecked by USA, Canadian and Asian greed.
everywhere these energy companies have gone to exploit petroleum, they have laid waste to the land and committed genocide. The track record is far, far worse than Americans have been let to know. They dump toxic waste directly into the water streams that the tribes and even cities depend on, All the local people begin to die and they hire private armies to protect themselves from the grief and wrath, who also kill the people of the region
stop it! please I am Native American (grew up on a reservation) and the destruction to native peoples is horrible enough once they are contacted it would be the beginning of the end for these people, I look back at my tribes history and the lost we sustained and how it left us barely surviving today the oil is not worth it! stop please
Oil has ruined the world.
It needs to be stopped. These tribes deserve to have a peaceful life without the oil companies destroying it.
Drill somewhere else or invest money in green energy.
Why can't they do that?
really sad
we should learn from tribes,not destroy them
thanks...once again more proof we need to have people who care about others and the future running the world and not just the "me now" generation of greedsters.
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