The Inter-ethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) on Nov. 22 issued an open letter to President Ollanta Humala, the national congress, and local and regional authorities, demanding that funds for the continued demarcation of indigenous lands in the Amazon Basin be included in the 2013 budget bill now being debated. The letter called for 100 million soles ($38 million) be earmarked for "recognition, titling and territorial expansion of Amazonian communities." The statement asserted that there are 988 identified communities in the rainforest currently awaiting demarcation and titling.

An Argentine judge on Nov. 8 embargoed the assets of Chevron corporation in the country, in a win for plaintiffs trying to collect on a $19 billion judgment against the company in Ecuador for environmental damage in the Amazon rainforest. Judge Adrian Elcuj Miranda upheld a petition filed by an Ecuadoran court under terms of a regional pact, the Inter-American Treaty of Extraterritorial Enforcement of Sentencies.  The embargo covers 100% of local subsidiary Chevron Argentina's stock—valued at roughly $2 billion—as well as its 14% stake in the company Oleoductos del Valle, 40% of the company's oil sales to refineries, and 40% of the funds it has deposited in Argentine banks. Chevron is the fourth-largest oil producer in Argentina, with output of 35,000 barrels per day in 2011.

The UK's Daily Mail this week, citing a letter from indigenous leaders obtained via Brazil's Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), reported that en entire tribe of the Guarani people—consisting of 50 men, 50 women and 70 children—have threatened to commit collective suicide if they are evicted from their traditional lands. The Guarani-Kaiowa tribe are currently camped on lands claimed by a rancher in Brazil's southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, and local Judge Henrique Bonachela upheld a petition by the rancher to have the Guarani evicted—dimsissing their claim that they have lived on the land for centuries and it includes ancient burial grounds. Bonachela reportedly imposed a fine equivalent to $240 for every day that the tribe remains on the land, on the banks of the Rio Joguico. The Spanish news agency EFE later cited both CIMI and the Brazilian indigenous affairs agency FUNAI as denying that the Guarani-Kaiowa had threatened mass suicide. A statement on the CIMI website says there are "different interpretations" of the letter issued by the Guarani-Kaiowa community, called  Kue Pyelito, in which they denounced the eviction as tantamount to their "collective death." (EFE, CIMI, Oct. 25; Daily Mail, Oct. 24; Combate ao Racismo Ambiental, Oct. 10)

Peru's President Ollanta Humala on Oct 25 announced the creation of a new multi-million dollar fund for development projects in the Upper Huallaga Valley and the Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE)—the last two remaining areas of the country where the Shining Path insurgency remains active. The initiative is aimed at undermining the insurgency and providing economic alternatives to coca cultivation. (La Republica, Oct. 25) The government's Organism for the Formalization of Informal Property (COFOPRI) also announced that land titles would be granted to 784 campesino families in San Martín region's provinces of Huallaga and Lamas, both in the Huallaga Valley. Since August 2011, a total of 3,513 land parcels have been titled to peasant families in San Martín, in a bid to pacify the restive region. (Andina, Oct. 25)

The Inter-ethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) on Oct. 17 issued a "Plan for the Full Life of the Amazon," calling for indigenous-directed development projects, with the necessary funds to be provided by companies that exploit resources in the Amazonian regions. But the document, which was presented to the executive and legislative branches of the Peruvian government, draws a hard line against numerous existing and planned exploitation projects. It states that forests are threatened by 26 hydro-electric projects, particularly naming the Inambari project in Madre de Dios region and the Tambo 40 project in the Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE); that hydrocarbon blocs cover 70% of the Peruvian Amazon, with mineral blocs of an additional 10 million hectares; and that an "inundation" of new roads into indigenous territory constitutes a "grave threat to the autonomous peoples," especially naming the controversial Purús-Iñapari highway in Madre de Dios. The statement called upon Peru's government to comply with International Labor Organization Convention 169 and halt projects that have not been approved in prior consultation with impacted indigenous peoples. (AIDESEP, Oct. 17)

On Oct. 9, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Chevron corporation's bid to block global enforcement of a $19 billion judgment by a court in Ecuador, a victory for 30,000 rainforest dwellers who brought litigation over the pollution of their lands. Chevron had asked the high court to uphold an injunction imposed in March 2010 by US Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York that would have barred worldwide enforcement of Ecuador's judgment. That injunction was overturned in January by the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the oil company could challenge the Ecuadoran judgement "only defensively, in response to attempted enforcement," which the rainforest dwellers had not attempted and might never attempt in New York. The Supreme Court's rejection of the case lets the Second Circuit decision stand.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos on Oct. 12—recognized in Latin America as Día de La Raza—issued an official apology to indigenous communities in the Amazon for deaths and destruction caused by the rubber boom beginning a century ago. From 1912 to 1929 the Peruvian firm Casa Arana, led by rubber baron Julio César Arana with British backing, exploited rubber near La Chorrera in what is now Colombia's Amazonas department. Up 100,000 people were killed and communities devastated in the operations, with indigenous rainforest dwellers forced into slave labor and slain or displaced if they resisted. The situation was brought to the world's attention following an investigation by British diplomat Roger Casement, who had previously documented similar atrocities in the Belgian Congo.

Peru's National Police Anti-Drug Directorate (DIRANDRO) claimed a blow against the resurgent Sendero Luminoso guerillas after intercepting a plane loaded with 350 kilograms (770 pounds) of cocaine in plastic-wrapped bricks when it landed at a clandestine airstrip in a jungle area of Oxapampa province, Pasco region, Sept. 18. The crew of the Bolivian-registered Cessna put up armed resistance before fleeing into the jungle. A manhunt to apprehend them is now underway. DIRANDRO said the cocaine  originated in the Apurímac-Ene-Mantaro River Valley (VRAEM), a jungle zone just south of Oxapampa where the "narcosenderista" brothers Víctor, Jorge and Martín Quispe Palomino—known by the respective code-names  "José," "'Raúl" and "Gabriel"—are said to control coca production. The cocaine was believed to have been brought to Oxapampa by back-pack along jungle trails, and was to be flown to Bolivia for re-export to Brazil in an operation overseen by wanted Bolivian kingpin William Rosales. (RIA-Novosti, La Republica, InfoSur Hoy, Peruvian Times, Reuters, Sept. 18)