Two loggers shot dead with arrows in clash with Indigenous group in Peruvian Amazon [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Two loggers shot dead with arrows in clash with Indigenous group in Peruvian Amazon

Two more people missing and one injured after attack by ‘uncontacted’ Mashco Piro in rainforest

Dan Collyns in Lima
Wed 4 Sep 2024 12.26 BST
Last modified on Wed 4 Sep 2024 12.45 BST

At least two loggers have been shot dead with arrows, one has been injured and two more are missing after a confrontation with members of the “uncontacted” Mashco Piro people in the Peruvian Amazon, according to Indigenous activists who have criticised the government for failing to formally recognise and protect all of the isolated people’s territory.

The deadly attack, which occurred last Thursday but was made known only this week, took place a day before the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) suspended for eight months the sustainability certification of a logging company that campaigners have accused of encroaching on the fiercely territorial Indigenous group’s ancestral land.

Peruvian Amazon Indigenous groups and the NGO Survival International have demanded the FSC – an international NGO that certifies whether timber extraction is sustainable and ethical – permanently cancel its certification of the Canales Tahuamanu timber concession, which borders the reserve where the isolated Indigenous group live.

Eusebio Ríos, the vice-president of the regional Indigenous federation Fenamad, which makes up 39 Indigenous groups in Peru’s Madre de Dios and Cusco regions, said on Tuesday: “There are people wounded, dead, missing – we don’t know what’s happening or what has happened.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/sep/04/two-loggers-shot-dead-with-arrows-in-clash-with-indigenous-group-in-peruvian-amazon