Two Shipibo indigenous communites in the Peruvian Amazon have broken off negotiations with Maple Gas Corporation del Peru SRL., over the health and environmental impacts of six oil spills on their territory over the past three years. The move comes just one month after 32 Shipibo were forced to clean up a spill with their bare hands. The July 10 pipeline rupture in Maple Energy's Oil Block 31-E, 75 miles north of the city of Pucallpa, spilled crude oil into the Río Mashiria, a tributary of the Ucayali. The Shipibo communities of Nuevo Sucre and Canaán de Cachiyacu officially terminated the negotiations on Aug. 11, charging that Maple Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ireland-based Maple Energy (MPLE) was not acting in good faith.

Peru's new minister of energy and mines, Carlos Herrera Descalzi, said Aug. 31 that the Camisea consortium has been given two years to find new natural gas reserves to meet its export contracts, and that all gas from Lot 88, already under development in the rainforest of Cuzco region, would after that time be used to meet domestic demand. Herrera said the government was taking the move in response to "the just demand of the country." But he added: "All the contracts have been signed under the belief that there is more gas in Peru, that we were going to find more. What we are saying is that there is a two-year term to find more gas, a reasonable time frame for them to find more gas or to find another guarantee that isn't Block 88." President Ollanta Humala Tasso added after a meeting with leaders of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP): "We have work to do on the issue of energy. We have failed to resolve the problem, and we want to do so in good faith, and without the necessity to resort to other methods." The previous administration of Alan García had started talks on changing the contract with the Camisea consortium, but those efforts stalled. (La Republica, Andina, Andina, Aug. 31)

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos announced plans to strengthen enforcement efforts to protect oil companies operating in the southern Amazonian department of Caquetá Aug. 29. The move comes following a wave of guerilla attacks on oil operations in the area—apparently in retaliation for their failure to pay protection money. Santos called on the civilian population to report extortion by illegal armed groups in order to combat the practice in a more "energetic" way. (Colombia Reports, Aug. 29) In the most recent attack, on Aug. 18, a tanker truck of the firm Transamazonía, subcontracted by the UK-based Emerald Energy, was hit with gunfire by presumed FARC guerillas near an Vicente del Caguán. Companies operating in the zone had been making payments to the FARC for years, but suspended the practice after Santos warned that any company engaging in it would be banned form the country. (RCN Radio, Aug. 18; Radio Caracol, Colombia Reports, Aug. 5)

On Aug. 23, Peru's Congress unanimously approved a new law that guarantees indigenous peoples' right to free, prior and informed consent to any projects affecting them and their lands. President Ollanta Humala says he supports consultation, and has 15 days to sign the bill into law. The "Prior Consultation Law" complies with commitments set out in ILO Convention 169, the only international standard designed to protect tribal people’s rights.

Indigenous people in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia are preparing to set out Aug. 15 on the long overland march to La Paz to protest plans for a trans-oceanic highway to be built with the backing of the Brazilian government. The march will depart from Trinidad, the capital of the northeastern department of Beni. The decision to launch the protest march follows a breakdown of talks between the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) and the central government. The protest march seeks to protect some 15,000 people belonging to the Yuracaré, Trinitario and Chimán indigenous groups living in the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), to be traversed by the road. The Brazilian firm OAS is about to begin construction on the stretch of the highway linking San Ignacio de Moxos, Beni, to Villa Tunari, in Cochabamba. The highway is to eventually continue to Arequipa, Peru. The indigenous peoples of the TIPNIS are prepared to use "bows and arrows" to halt the project, said CIDOB leader Pedro Moye.

The head of Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, is to make an emergency visit to a remote Amazon outpost amid fears that members of an isolated tribe may have been "massacred" by drug traffickers. The move comes after a guard post protecting the "uncontacted" people was overrun by heavily-armed men, believed to be drug-traffickers from neighboring Peru. The post was ransacked and equipment destroyed. Fears mounted for the welfare of the indigenous bands after FUNAI workers found a rucksack apparently abandoned by one of the traffickers with a broken arrow inside. A rapid aerial survey has shown no trace of the uncontacted group, which made global headlines after being filmed from the air earlier this year. The post is located on the edge of the Xinane Isolated Indigenous Territory along the Río Envira in Acre state, some 32 kilometers from the border with Peru's department of Madre de Dios.

Days before a new administration in Lima is to take power, Peru's indigenous affairs agency INDEPA proposed new regulations that would allow oil and gas exploitation within Amazon rainforest reserves that have been established to protect indigenous groups that are considered "uncontacted," or in "voluntary isolation." Opening these reserves to industrial exploitation was a longtime goal of the outgoing administration of President Alan García. The proposed "Supervisory Regulation on Exploratory and Extractive Activities within State Territorial and Indigenous Reserves," was presented by INDEPA to the Ministry of Culture, the agency's parent body, on July 8, and immediately sparked an outcry from indigenous rights advocates. Peru's Amazonian indigenous federation, AIDESEP, charged that the proposed regulation violates Law 28736, which established the reserves, the Law for the Protection of Indigenous and Original Peoples in Situations of Isolation or Initial Contact. AIDESEP noted that the move coincides with plans to expand the massive Camisea gas fields in the rainforest of Cusco region, where exploration Block 88 overlaps the Nahua-Kugapakori Reserve, which is believed to protect several uncontacted bands. On July 15, INDEPA announced that the new regulation would be suspended pending "consultation" with indigenous and social organizations.

Some 180 hectares (450 acres) of rainforest in the Amazon were defoliated using a potent mix of herbicides dropped by airplane, reports IBAMA, Brazil's environmental law enforcement agency. The affected area, which is south of the city of Canutama and near the Mapinguari Jacareúba/Katawixi indigenous reservation in Rondônia state, was first detected by Brazil's deforestation monitoring system. A subsequent helicopter overflight last month by IBAMA revealed thousands of trees largely stripped of their vegetation. Authorities later found nearly four tons of chemicals—2,4 - D AMINE 72, U46BR, Garlon 480, and mineral oil—along trans-Amazon highway 174. The herbicides would have been enough to defoliate roughly 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) of forest, presumably to be cleared for cattle ranching or agriculture.