{"id":667,"date":"2019-04-23T17:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tierra.jerrejerre.com\/es\/?p=667"},"modified":"2021-04-21T05:56:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T05:56:09","slug":"peligro-en-la-frontera-indigenas-tikuna-defienden-el-bosque-de-las-garras-del-narcotrafico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tierraderesistentes.com\/en\/2019\/04\/23\/peligro-en-la-frontera-indigenas-tikuna-defienden-el-bosque-de-las-garras-del-narcotrafico\/","title":{"rendered":"Danger at the border: Tikuna indigenous people defend their forest from drug trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Tikuna indigenous people have decided to guard their forests in an area of \u200b\u200bPeru where illicit crops have declared war on conservation. Equipped with cell phones with GPS and maps, they face loggers and drug traffickers who have threaten them with death. The community wants the government to take action and help their neglected community.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigenous people from the Peruvian side of the Amazonian Trapeze, on the border with Colombia and Brazil, feel lost every time illicit crops are eradicated from their land. They know that starting over will take everything they have, and that it will feel like hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels as if they are tearing your house apart and then suddenly it collapses on top of you,\u201d says Artemio from the indigenous community of Nueva Galilea, located in the eastern border of the Peruvian region of Loreto. He asks to omit his surname for fear of violent reprisals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time the government got rid of illegal coca crops in that part of the country was in 2015. <\/strong>That year, Pablo Garc\u00eda, a Tikuna indigenous leader in his community, chose not to be driven by despair but instead come to terms with the incident and start to uproot the plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that now he has to face the loggers and drug traffickers who invade his territory from the other side of the river bank. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For Pablo, that experience represented only one thing: a new beginning. Perhaps he is the only one, or one of a few people, who has dared to be an optimist along one of the most neglected borders of Peru. He not only decided to opt for a legal economy but chose, along with three of his friends, to become a forest monitor. Since then, equipped with a cell phone with GPS and a satellite map, he follows deforestation alerts whenever they appear on his screen.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that now he has to face the loggers and drug traffickers who invade his territory from the other side of the river bank. He knows that not only his economic situation is at stake, but also his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PHOTO: MONITORES AMBIENTALES DE BUEN JARD\u00cdN.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pablo still remembers when two groups of drug traffickers turned the community Buen Jard\u00edn of Callar\u00fa into a battlefield. <\/strong>\u201cI was the apu <\/em>[the spiritual leader] of the community. It was during a meeting with a professor and other authorities when we heard boats coming towards us at about 8 a.m. They were shooting. One group got out of the boats and started running, armed, towards one of the communities\u2019 houses, the one right there, while the others fired.\u201d That happened in 2014, a year before the second coca eradication campaign in this Loreto community, in the province of Mariscal Ram\u00f3n Castilla, in the Yavar\u00ed district. Pablo still fears that violence will return to his community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was the apu <\/em>[the spiritual leader] of the community. It was during a meeting with a professor and other authorities when we heard boats coming towards us at about 8 a.m. They were shooting”<\/p>Pablo Garc\u00eda<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The threats are like a shadow that follow this group of environmental protectors.<\/strong> They are seen as a hindrance for those who live off drug trafficking and sometimes they are also the barrier that keeps illicit crops from advancing. It happens in Buen Jard\u00edn and in other Tikuna communities like Nueva Galilea and Cushillococha. Despite this, the coca leaf plantations have recovered after the last intervention by the government; replanting is a reality. The question has changed to: What is at stake when you want to take care of the forest?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said he would kill us\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To travel at the beginning of the year to the indigenous communities of the Lower Amazon, in the triple border with Leticia and Tabatinga (cities in Colombia and Brazil), you have to do it by \u2018peque peque,\u2019<\/em> small rustic boats that navigate the Amazon basin every day. This is the best moment of the year to visit the flooded forests of the Peruvian Amazon because the creation of new ox-bow lakes (cochas<\/em>) and the rise of the river\u2019s water level permits navigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get to Pablo Garc\u00eda\u2019s house we had to literally navigate through the streets of the community. The pillars of his house were under water and we were forced to jump mid-stairway to disembark. Pablo was already waiting for us, ready to go out to patrol. He had high rubber boots, worn-out jeans, a cell phone case hanging from his belt, a small black bag crossed from side to side to enable mobility, and contagious enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n