Peru: Another environmental defender murdered

Quinto Inuma - Screenshot

"One more environmental defender who the Peruvian state failed to protect has been murdered in the Amazon," according to REPAM, a Catholic Church network that promotes the rights and dignity of people living in the Amazonian region. Quinto Inuma, a leader of the Kichwa community, was shot dead on 29 November in a remote part of the northern region of San Martin.

"We continue fighting to defend millions of lives, of ecosystems that are about to disappear," Inuma said in 2021 after denouncing death threats he received for defending ancestral territory. The threats became reality when he was ambushed by armed men as he travelled home by canoe after addressing a meeting of women environmental campaigners.

REPAM said government measures to protect defenders of human and environmental rights are "insufficient". The Mission in Peru of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on authorities to investigate promptly. At least 30 environmental activists and community leaders have been killed in the Peruvian Amazon since 2020.

The death of Quinto Inuma highlights the impunity that prevails in cases of environmental crimes and violations of indigenous peoples' rights, and the urgent need to protect indigenous communities in the region and the realisation of their self-governance and land rights. Peruvian indigenous leaders at COP28 are demanding the activation of protocols to protect environmental defenders whose lives are at risk.

"Environmental defenders have been under constant threat in Peru over many years," says Columban priest Fr Kevin McDonagh who is now based in Britain after 35 years on mission in Peru; "they are harassed both by illegal loggers and drug traffickers and, unfortunately, given little or no protection by police and State authorities." He adds that, "due to corruption at every level of the State it is rare that anyone is brought to justice; indigenous peoples and their leaders are regarded as second-class citizens."