Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug: Big Oil Commits to Only Operate with Community Consent in Peruvian Amazon

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> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
>
> Media Contacts:
> Simeon Tegel, in San Francisco: 415-487-9600; Andrew Miller/Maria
> Ramos, in Calgary: 202-674-5576
>
> Talisman Commits to Only Operate with
> Community Consent in Peruvian Amazon
>
>
> Talisman CEO Gives Written Commitment to Respect Indigenous Community
> Wishes
>
>
> Calgary, Alberta - Talisman today gave a clear written undertaking to
> indigenous leaders from the Peruvian Amazon that the oil company would
> not attempt to operate on their land without community consent.
>
> In a letter handed to the leaders, Talisman CEO and President John
> Manzoni, wrote: " Talisman will not work in Peru in areas in which it
> does not have an agreement with the community. We consider an
> agreement allowing Talisman to work would require a General Assembly
> with a positive vote of no less than two thirds of all the members of
> the community."
>
> The letter came after a delegation representing the indigenous Achuar
> people of the Peruvian Amazon attended Talisman's annual general
> meeting in Calgary, Alberta, today, and following a meeting with Mr.
> Manzoni yesterday. The Peruvians had come to tell Talisman management
> and shareholders that they oppose drilling on their tropical
> rainforest homelands.
>
> The commitment is in line with Peruvian legislation. However, the law
> is rarely enforced in Peru and Talisman's public commitment to respect
> it sets the company apart in the oil boom currently sweeping the
> Peruvian rainforest. A similar commitment from Los Angeles-based
> Occidental Petroleum eventually led to the company's withdrawal from
> Achuar territory, handing over its two concessions, "block 101" and
> "block 64" to Talisman. Together, the concessions cover a total of
> four million acres of pristine tropical rainforest in the Pastaza and
> Morona River basins, inhabited by the Achuar since time immemorial.
>
> The Achuar's attorney, Lily La Torre, Director of the Lima-based
> indigenous rights group Racimos de Ungurahui, welcomed Talisman's
> assurance. "We trust that Talisman will honor this public commitment,"
> she said. "The indigenous communities, who have been fighting for 12
> years to keep their land free of oil drilling, will hold Talisman to
> its promise and ensure that the company keeps its word."
>
>
> The Achuar delegation also requested a meeting with executives from
> Petrolifera, another Calgary oil company, which also owns a
> hydrocarbon concession on Achuar land. Petrolifera, which rejected the
> request for a meeting, now owns a concession known as "Block 106", in
> the neighboring Corrientes River basin, where the local Achuar
> representative federation FECONACO is both opposed to oil exploitation
> and insists it has not been meaningfully consulted by either the
> company or the Peruvian government during the process of granting
> concessions on ancestral lands.
>
> The Achuar have a long and deeply disturbing history of exploitation
> at the hands of the oil industry. They are currently suing Oxy, which
> dumped a total of nine billion barrels of toxic wastewater directly
> into the rainforest in and around the Corrientes River, while it
> drilled for 30 years. Earlier today in Los Angeles, more than 80
> people including actress Daryl Hannah, staged a demonstration at Oxy's
> corporate headquarters demanding that the company clean up its
> contamination in the Amazon.
>
> Manuel Tampet Najarip, leader of the Rubina native community and
> member of ORACH, the Achuar federation of the Pastaza river basin,
> said: "We came to Canada to tell the executives and shareholders of
> Talisman that we will not accept oil operations on our territory. In
> our vision of the world, our forests are healthy and free of
> contamination. We do not base our development on oil, but on other
> resources which we have in our forests, living in harmony with mother
> earth."
>
> Even with modern technology and best industry practices, oil and gas
> drilling is likely to take a heavy toll on the Amazon rainforest and
> its waterways, and therefore on the indigenous people who have lived
> in harmony with them for millennia and who continue to depend on
> healthy plants and fish and game populations for their survival.
>
> Talisman acquired full working interest in Block 101 in 2006 and
> increased its interests in Block 64 to 50 percent in 2007. The
> concessions also overlap the Pastaza alluvial fan, an enormous
> wetlands area, classified as a site of international importance under
> the RAMSAR Convention. Dozens of species of animals listed in the
> Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species are found in
> these wetlands, along with 17 species on the International Union of
> Concerned Scientists "Red List of Threatened Species". The cumulative
> impact of oil activities in the coming years would likely contribute
> to some species' extinction.
>
> In particular, the roads necessitated by oil exploitation will open
> up the rainforest to further unsustainable penetration by colonists,
> poachers and loggers. Academic studies have repeatedly shown that
> forest for dozens of miles on either side of a road becomes degraded
> or disappears altogether within a few decades of road construction.
> Meanwhile, traditional communities are likely to suffer health impacts
> and imposed socio-cultural change, including outbreaks of disease
> including STDs, alcoholism, crime and the loss of their culture and
> language.
>
> With deforestation accounting for roughly 20 percent of all global
> greenhouse gas emissions, public policies and the behavior of the
> private sector should both seek to avoid further deforestation rather
> than actually increase it.
>
>
> Delegation participants:
> Carlos Mukuin Tiris, founder of AIM, a federation of Achuar
> communities in the Pastaza river basin in the northern Peruvian
> Amazon;
> Manuel Tampet Najarip, leader of the Rubina native community and
> member of ORACH, the Achuar federation of the Pastaza river basin;
> Henderson Rengifo, leader of FECONACO, the Federation of Native
> Communities of the Corrientes river basin;
> Lily La Torre, attorney of the Achuar and Director of the Lima-based
> indigenous rights group Racimos de Ungurahui
>
> For background on the Achuar's struggle to protect their lands and
> communities, visit Amazon Watch at www.amazonwatch.org and the
> Achuar's own English-language website at http://www.achuarperu.org/
>
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