Peru: Clean up oil pollution in indigenous communities before allowing more drilling, UN experts urge
GENEVA (28 June 2021) – Peru should clean up environmental damage in the country’s largest-yielding oil field and remedy harm done to indigenous communities living nearby, UN experts* said today.
They made the call as Peru proceeds towards awarding 30-year rights for oil exploration and exploitation in Block 192 in the remote Amazonian Loreto region of northern Peru, already suffering from almost 50 years of oil spills and pollution.
“We call on Peru to implement its own government decisions and to enforce regulatory body rulings that environmental damage should be cleaned up in consultation with the four indigenous communities who live on the land,” said the experts.
The continued exploration of fossil fuels aggravates the global climate change emergency, toxifies indigenous peoples’ lands, waters and resources and fundamentally undermines environmental protections.