The global emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a particularly devastating impact on the Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, who not only lack urgent medical care and food, but now – as the Government of Peru reactivates logging, mining and other economic activities in indigenous areas – also face risk of increased contagion and mounting sickness and death. As increasing numbers of indigenous men, women and children become sick and die, the Government sends very limited help; meanwhile the resumed activity of loggers and other workers around indigenous communities aggravates an already precarious security situation in which indigenous populations become victims of even more threats, attacks and murders. Simply put, this must stop before the end result is ethnocide and consummate destruction of the forest, its native population and a way of life.
Please join Peruvian and international civil society groups by adding your organization’s name to the attached letter to call upon the President of Peru to cease resumption of invasive economic activities in the Peruvian Amazon forests and to provide immediate and substantial support for the indigenous people:
Letter for signature