Peru's Energy and Mines Minister Eleodoro Mayorga said March 25 that the government is working on a package of reforms to speed up permitting for investments, including exempting some oil exploration projects from environmental impact studies. Mayorga, a former World Bank petroleum economist who became President Ollanta Humala's third energy minister in a cabinet reshuffle last month, said: "An environmental impact study makes sense when there's a serious impact and we're working in a delicate region. But there's no need to do an environmental impact study for everything. That's the problem. At this time there is the need to review this through a new regulation." He added: "Very few countries demand environmental impact studies for seismic activities." (Reuters, El Comercio, March 26)

Peru's Minster of Energy and Mines Eleodoro Mayorga announced March 26 that he had formalized an accord with protesting artisanal miners, who have for the past week been blocking the Pan-American Highway at Nazca to protest the end of the "formalization" process for titling their claims. Mayorga said the deal would extend the process through the middle of April. But the leaders of the protesting miners—from the regions of Arequipa, Cajamarca, Ayacucho, La Libertad and Apurímac—denied that any such deal had been struck. Nazca authorities say the roadblocks have caused massive losses in the region's tourism industry. More than 20,000 informal miners are also protesting in the regions of Piura, Ica, Arequipa, Puno, and Lima (EFE, March 26; Peru This Week, March 25)

Leaders of the peasant protest encampment at the planned Conga mine project in Cajamarca, Peru, report a new attack by the National Police detachment assigned to protect the site. Protest leader Marco Arana said that as a procession of protesters marched to the threatened Laguna Cocodrilo on March 18, police agents and security personnel of the Yanacocha mining company closely followed it, taunting the marchers with insults and provoking a fracas. Police reportedly used tear-gas and fired shotguns, and detained several protesters. Protest leaders issued an appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for action in the case. (La Republica, March 19; CNDH, March 18)

A worker was wounded Feb. 17, when presumed Sendero Luminoso guerillas fired on a camp of the Camisea pipeline consortium at the remote jungle settlement of Cigakiato, Echarate district, La Convención province, Cuzco region. (AP, InfoRegión, Feb. 17) In seemingly coordinated attacks three days later, presumed Senderistas opened fire on two military outposts in the Apurímac-Ene-Mantaro River Valley (VRAEM). The first attack at Counter-terrorist Base Unión Mantaro, Canaire district, Huanta province, Ayacucho region, apparently claimed no casualties or damage. In the second, at nearby Consorcio Vila Quinua, material damage to the outspot was reported. (La Voz de Huamangam, Feb. 20)

Peru's National Police on Feb. 4 announced the discovery of over 100,000 cannabis plants at the high Andean community of Minasel, 4,000 meters above sea level, on the border of Áncash and Huánuco regions. The plants were burned in the fields, police said, while the growers escaped into the mountains. (RPP, Feb. 4) On Jan. 15, elite troops of the Special Anti-drug Operation Division eradicated 65,000 plants of moño rojo (red bud) at the remote mountain village of San Martín de Porres, Chinchao district, Huánuco. (Peru21, Jan. 15)

Chile's President Sebstián Piñera filed an official complaint Feb. 12 laying claim to 3.7 hectares (nine acres) of desert on the border with Peru—re-opening the border conflict between the two nations after a January ruling at The Hague had resolved a long-standing dispute on the maritime boundary. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Chile could maintain its sovereignty of fishing waters near the coast but granted Peru control of deeper waters to the southwest. After the ruling, Peru's government released a map designating the contested land triangle as its own—which was immediately rejected by Santiago, citing a 1929 treaty. Piñera's formal assertion of sovereignty over the contested strip follows friction with Peru's President Ollanta Humala at Pacific Alliance summit in Colombia earlier in the week. Following the meeting, Piñera publicly broached withdrawing from the Pact of Bogotá, the regional treaty granting the ICJ jurisdiction in international disputes.

An engineer for the Águila Dorada mining company was on Feb. 11 detained by members of an Awajún indigenous community near the company's concession area in Peru's northern Cajamarca region. The engineer, Jaime Núñez Fernández, is being held on the orders of local apus (traditional leaders) of the Awajún community of Supayacu, San José district, San Ignacio province, on the edge of the Amazon basin. The community says it rejects mineral exploration within its traditional territories, and is demanding a meeting with representatives of the Council of Ministers, Peru's cabinet. San Ignacio municipal authorities are attempting to mediate. (RPP, Feb. 12; Correo, Feb. 11)

EarthRights International (ERI) on Jan. 24 filed an action in federal court in Denver on behalf of a protestor left paralyzed by police violence at the site of Colorado-based Newmont Mining's Conga mine project in Peru. ERI is seeking documents and information from Newmont to assist in pending legal proceedings in Peru related to the police repression of protestors against the Conga project. Elmer Eduardo Campos Álvarez, a 32-year-old resident of the Cajamarca department, where the Conga project is planned, lost a kidney and his spleen and was paralyzed from the waist down on Nov. 29, 2011, when National Police officers shot him in the back while he was peacefully protesting. Campos was among at least 24 protestors injured by police that day. The Yanacocha mining company, Newmont's local subsidiary, contracted with the National Police of Peru to provide security services at the planned mine site. Officers involved in the repression of November 2011 have told local prosecutors that they were providing security to the company. The proposed Conga mine has generated strong community opposition; the project would mean the destruction of lakes held sacred by local people, who also depend on them as a water source.