By Maryam Mashayekhi
During our time in the Amazon region of Madre de Dios in southeast Peru, we saw firsthand how the Native Community of Infierno engages in self-managed local development and capacity building through their involvement in Posada Amazonas, a cooperative arrangement between the Ese’eja indigenous community and an ecotourism company, Rainforest Expeditions. The community could enter this joint venture nearly three decades ago in part due to the Peruvian government’s legal recognition of indigenous territories and the autonomy it afforded the Ese’eja to make decisions on the modern use of their ancestral land.
The first legal attempt to formalize property rights and promote development throughout the Peruvian Amazon was the Law of Native Communities and Agrarian Regional Promotion in the Low Lands Forests and Valleys. The primary goal of this 1974 law was to increase investment in agricultural production and timber extraction by rural settlement projects in the region. However, it was also “the first legislation that recognized explicitly Amazonian indigenous groups as entitled to legal protection and recognition, as well as to collective land rights (1).” The law stipulated the demarcation of indigenous community lands via enrollment in a registry of native communities and then granted formal legal recognition of communal titles and inalienable territorial rights to groups like the Ese’eja Native Community of Infierno. Throughout the 1970s, subsequent legal decrees created regulatory schemes that formalized collective rights to land and forests in the Peruvian Amazon. Implementation of these new frameworks proved challenging, and ultimately required advocacy from emergent groups like the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP), who were established in 1979 and became a key stakeholder in mobilizing land rights for native communities. Between 1976 and 1979, native communities obtained title to nearly 1.5 million hectares in the Amazon (2). By 2017, more than 1,300 indigenous communities obtained title to more than 12 million hectares of land in the Peruvian Amazon—about 17 percent of the country’s forest area (3).
The Ese’eja Native Community of Infierno established their formal territory in 1976 in an area encompassing 9,558 hectares of land on either side of the Tambopata River. The land is communally owned by around 150 families of varying backgrounds including Ese’eja, mestizos from other parts of the Amazon, and Quecha-speaking migrants from the Andes (4). As explained by Rodolfo, one of our guides at Posada Amazonas and an Ese’eja community member, legal recognition in 1976 created a singular, collectively-owned land title. Through a collaborative process, community members determined land allocations across the community. First-generation farmers received 30 hectares of land, though today most farmers only use one or two hectares for small-scale local agricultural activities. As the land is communally owned, individual members do not have the right to sell their property and are constrained by community rules on land use. The community has also come to an agreement on how certain areas of land will be used–for instance, Posada Amazonas is located in a 3,000 hectare area devoted to conservation and ecotourism activities, which accounts for nearly 30% of community land.
As we saw at Posada Amazonas, the potential to improve local livelihoods can be realized when the autonomy of communities like the Ese’eja are upheld and safeguarded. The territorial tenure granted to Infierno made way for the joint venture that led to the establishment of the ecolodge. The ecolodge generates employment opportunities, contributes to community wellbeing, and conserves one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. But recognition of land claims and access to resources does not guarantee a success. Rodolfo noted that despite legal protections for formally recognized community territory, the national government’s initial acknowledgment of collective land rights in the 1970s did not come with additional support to further empower communities. Historically, Infierno and other rural communities in the Amazon have received little support from regional or national governments, have “poor access to credit and service extensions,” and have “little infrastructure for education, health, and transportation (5).” Additionally, communities like Infierno that inhabit resource-rich land face mounting pressure from extractive industries. The national government’s support for lucrative ventures like gold mining and logging far outweighs the support it offers to indigenous communities. In the years to come, the interests of these industries will likely push up against the interests of communities like Infierno.
References
(1) Monterroso I., Cronkleton, P., Pinedo, D. & Larson AM., 2017. Reclaiming collective rights: Land and forest tenure reforms in Peru (1960-2016). Working Paper 224. CIFOR. https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/WPapers/WP224Monterroso.pdf
(2) Ibid.
(3) Fraser, B., 2017. Long road ahead to indigenous land and forest rights in Peru. Forests News CIFOR. https://forestsnews.cifor.org/50276/long-road-ahead-to-indigenous-land-and-forest-rights-in-peru?fnl=en
(4) Stronza, A.L., 2010. Commons management and ecotourism: Ethnographic evidence from the Amazon. The Commons Journal, 4(1), p.56-77.DOI: https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.137
(5) Ibid.
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