PERU: The Tangled Paths of New Forest Law
Indigenous protests prompted the introduction of a new legislative bill on forests and wildlife in Peru, the second most forested country in South America. Experts consulted by Tierramérica pointed to what the initiative gets right, but also to what's wrong with it
By Milagros Salazar* | Tierramérica in Inter-Press Service | Apr 1, 2010
The open wounds of the Amazon. Credit:Rolly Valdivia/IPS
The bill proposes a land registry to identify the zones with forest resources, which would help prevent disputes related to different economic activities, according to the experts.
"This is an advance because decisions about what to do with the forests can't be made if we don't know where they are," José Luis Capella, of the non-governmental Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, told Tierramérica. This gap in knowledge reveals a major problem, given that nearly 60 percent of Peruvian territory is suitable for forest.
However, Sandro Chávez, president of the Ecological Forum, warns that the initiative lacks a mechanism to ensure legal security for ancestral lands. "That must be a prior guarantee so that third parties do not impose their plans," he said.
The text, according to Chávez, does not clear up the communities' doubts about the expansion of agriculture that is occurring to provide inputs for biofuels, or the mining and fossil fuel projects in the Peruvian Amazon region.
The number of petroleum lots approved in the area jumped from 30 in the year 2000 to 151 in 2006, covering 89 percent of the country's Amazon region with exploration projects, according to official data.
Chávez told Tierramérica that the incorporation of communal land ownership into the proposed law came from an agreement between officials and indigenous groups. That dialogue was initiated by the Alan García government following the deaths of more than 33 people, including Indians and police officers, in protests in the northern province of Bagua last June.
The government set up taskforces, including one dedicated to overturning legislative decree 1.090, which modified the old forestry law and left 60 percent of primary forest unprotected.
The former national forest director Gustavo Suárez de Freitas, who participated as a representative of the Agriculture Ministry in the dialogue, committed to incorporating the issue in the bill and is now a consultant to the technical secretariat that is drafting the initiative.
Suárez de Freitas told Tierramérica that in Article 61 of the bill it is made clear that the "government will not submit a forest law about the lands of the communities, it is about forests."
In Peru, forests are only granted in concession for use, not property. The forests are considered part of the national wealth. Suárez de Freitas believes that creating a legal mechanism implies "a change."
The Ecological Forum responded that the indigenous peoples call for prior approval of a law on use rights that provides them with greater security over their lands, and regulation of territory and community ownership.
There are currently more than 1,200 native communities, but there are many more that have not been recognised.
In contrast, Capella noted that the initiative improves institutions by creating the Forest Service, a technical body under the Ministry of Agriculture, and encourages the participation of civil society and the private sector by upholding the creation of the National Forest Commission.
However, he admitted that it is one thing to have the law on paper, and yet another "to guarantee mechanisms that work." One example is the transfer of forest management powers to the regional governments, which are often not provided with the resources to complete that work.
Chávez, meanwhile, warned that the bill opens up some cracks in controlling the illegal exploitation of the forests and changes in land use.
He questions the exclusion of a proposal for stiffer requirements for those transporting forest products. As it stands, almost any documentation is acceptable.
He also criticises the lack of a ban on forest products that are endangered or a system for tracking timber taken from the forest, which would help prove irregularities ranging from the logging to the export of the lumber.
The initiative states that the lands suitable for forest or under protection cannot be approved for agricultural purposes, but just a few lines further on, it refers to a provision of land classification for its "capacity of greater use." Indigenous groups want that overturned because it would allow changing land use for extractive industries or infrastructure, said Chávez, underscoring the contradiction.
The experts and NGOs will be able to send their comments on the bill up to Apr. 9. Afterwards, the Executive branch will approve a final version to be presented to Congress for a vote.
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