INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DEMANDS NEED TO BE URGENTLY ADDRESSED BY THE STATE

The National Meeting of Indigenous Forestry Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Committees, held in Lima on May 18 and 19, with the aim of achieving better coordination between indigenous organizations and state institutions to strengthen indigenous forestry oversight committees, was attended by indigenous representatives and technical teams from our nine regional organizations.

During the first day, the document "Actions and Recommendations for the attention of community forestry monitoring, control and surveillance committees" was prepared, which served to identify key aspects for their strengthening: Institutional, Operational and Financial Sustainability,  

The second day, the Panel with the State was held to learn about their commitments and comments to advance the proposals of indigenous peoples regarding: control and surveillance, forest monitoring, indigenous forestry agenda, with the participation of representatives of SERFOR, OSINFOR, MINCUL, MINAM and others.

The event ended with the signing of the minutes in which they consider the urgent demands from the indigenous organizations such as: the development of an emergency plan that guarantees the integral security of the monitors, the generation of mechanisms for economic compensation to the monitors; guaranteeing them legal defense and health insurance, the need to develop a protocol for rapid coordination with the State at a multi-sector and multi-level level, ensuring budget and technical assistance to build the indigenous forest information system, as well as advocating for the creation of professional careers in community forest management in institutes of technological education.

It is hoped that the agreements will be implemented and that the competent authorities will attend to their demands. It is important to take joint actions for the protection of communal territories and the lives of indigenous defenders.

For more than 10 years we have been accompanying AIDESEP, promoting and supporting the management of forests and communal territories. In recent years, cooperation efforts have taken place within the framework of the Amazonia 2.0 project, implemented in Peru by ECO REDD, under the regional coordination of IUCN and with funding from the European Union, which is now in its fifth year of implementation.