Tribal leader Luis Pizango and his supporters blocked a main road leading to Peru's interior for two months to show their anger. (Chris Kraul / For The Times).
Peruvian tribal leader Luis Pizango says private investment in his part of the Amazon has brought only misery to him and his people. Deforestation by loggers ruined tribal hunting grounds. An oil spill in the nearby Corrientes River diminished fishing. A 10,000-acre African palm plantation to produce biofuels displaced dozens of families. And a government plan to build a port facility on the Huallaga River to ease trade with Brazil stands to limit his people's access to the waterway. The Shawi indigenous people in northeastern Peru have many reasons for bitterness, Pizango, who is apu, or chief, of the group, said last week at a roadblock set up a few miles west of Yurimaguas to protest government policies.
"It's been a long trajectory of abuse," Pizango said. "We got tired of it."
He and others had blocked the main road leading to Peru's interior with tree stumps and rocks and set up makeshift tents with plastic sheeting along the highway shoulders. The surrounding terrain of Loreto province was a rolling green moonscape that long ago had been clear-cut by loggers.
Peruvian tribal leader Luis Pizango says private investment in his part of the Amazon has brought only misery to him and his people. Deforestation by loggers ruined tribal hunting grounds. An oil spill in the nearby Corrientes River diminished fishing. A 10,000-acre African palm plantation to produce biofuels displaced dozens of families. And a government plan to build a port facility on the Huallaga River to ease trade with Brazil stands to limit his people's access to the waterway. The Shawi indigenous people in northeastern Peru have many reasons for bitterness, Pizango, who is apu, or chief, of the group, said last week at a roadblock set up a few miles west of Yurimaguas to protest government policies.
"It's been a long trajectory of abuse," Pizango said. "We got tired of it."
He and others had blocked the main road leading to Peru's interior with tree stumps and rocks and set up makeshift tents with plastic sheeting along the highway shoulders. The surrounding terrain of Loreto province was a rolling green moonscape that long ago had been clear-cut by loggers.
