Indigenous human rights VIolations

I was hoping that COP20 in Peru, the heartland of many indigenous tribes. would be the conference where we were finally going to address the issue of indigenous people's rights.

Tragically indigenous rights are being violated all over the world. They are under siege from unscrupulous governments, mining, drilling, dams, logging and development. Rather than being empowered to use their ecological wisdom and understanding to protect and restore the rain forests, indigenous people face persecution in many corners of the world: murder, abuse and human rights violations: including here in Peru.

In September this year, in the Ucayali province to the west of Lima, Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quincima Meléndez, Jorge Ríos Pérez and Francisco Pinedo of the Ashéninka tribe were murdered. Valera was the chief of the Ashéninka. They were killed for defending the rainforest that their communities depend on. Perez's daughter told Newsweek, "It feels like a knife in my heart. Nothing will cure it. It will last forever. My father fought, and we will go on until we get change or we die."

As natural resources become scarcer, and the pressure upon them increases with increasing population, disputes over land rights, particularly where oil exploration, hydroelectric, mining agribusiness and logging are concerned, are intensifying. Indigenous communities are particularly hard hit and their fundamental rights to life and land are violated in many countries throughout the world.

I was shocked and grieved to learn on Sunday 7th December that the body of Jose Isidro Tendetza, former vice-president of the Shuar Federation of Zamora, Ecuador, had been found. He had been missing since November 28th, since he set off to a meeting of campaigners against the Mirador copper mine, which is threatening to decimate the Shuar's ancestral land.

That same Sunday I met with Ecuadorian Minister of the Environment Lorena Tapia to urge her government to do everything in their power to investigate this terrible crime.

Global Witness's Deadly Environment report, published in December 2013, named Peru as the fourth worst country in the world for such killings, with almost 60 murders since 2002.

The Philippines is in third place with 67 murders, followed by Honduras in second place with 109. Brazil holds the dubious honour of first place, with 448 murders.