Peru on Feb. 8 raided an illegal logging site in Manú National Park, Madre de Dios region—just days after the UK-based Survival International released the first detailed photos of the "uncontacted" Mashco-Piro tribe that inhabits the reserve. In an operation led by SERNANP, Peru's agency for protected areas, park guards and police uncovered more than 3,000 feet of illegally harvested timber. SERNANP's two-day operation led to the arrest of a group of men and confiscation of their tools. The men face prison terms of three to six years. Sightings of the Mashco-Piro have risen in recent months, with many blaming illegal loggers for pushing the tribe out of their forest home.

On the night of Feb. 9, Bolivia's Plurinational Assembly passed a new law mandating a consultation process for indigenous communities in the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS)—billed as a "compromise" between proponents and opponents of the proposed road through the reserve. The new law threatens to undermine the existing law that cancelled the highway in October and now protects the TIPNIS as an "untouchable" ecological zone. The consultation law was developed by ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) legislative leaders in conjunction with CONISUR, an indigenous organization that favors the road project. It was approved by the MAS-controlled legislature in less than a week, and promptly signed into law by President Evo Morales—sparking an immediate outcry from indigenous leaders opposed to the road.

Hundreds of independent small-scale gold miners marched on the Venezuelan city of Bolívar Feb. 5, to protest the militarization of Manaima district, where security forces have been sent in to crack down on unlicensed operations following a violent clash in the area last month. Some 400 soldiers were dispatched to the community of La Paragua after six people were killed in what authorities called fighting between rival gangs for control of a gold mine called Nueva Bulla Jan. 9. Thousands of unlicensed miners in the remote jungle area have been unable to work due to the heavy military presence. Venezuela's newly appointed defense minister, Gen. Henry Rangel Silva, said the miners are "victims of exploitation by mafias." But miner spokesman José Lucart countered: "All of Manaima is militarized and we want to be left to work. We are ready to work together with the organs that oversee the exploitation of gold, to arrive at a sustainable mining. We are seeking a meeting with the Ministry of Mines, as well as the Ministry of Defense...to coordinate an exit satisfactory to both parties."

The Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) announced a national mobilization that will converge on Quito from points around the country next month to oppose what leaders called President Rafael Correa's policies in favor of the resource industries. The "Great Pluriethnic March for Water, Life and Dignity of the People of Ecuador" is set to depart March 8 from the southeastern town of Zamora, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. (See map.) ECUARUNARI president Delfín Tenesaca said the organization "rejects the entrance into the territories of [indigenous] nationalities of mineral companies, without consulting anybody and disrespecting the constitution." He called for participation from other provinces of the country affected by mineral and oil interests. The effort has the support of Salvador Quishpe, prefect of Zamora-Chinchipe province,* who stated, "We call upon all social organizations in the country to unite in this great march of reclamation... It cannot be that 'Correismo' tries to silence the Ecuadoran people." (Servindi, Feb. 1)

Some 2,000 peasants and cocaleros from the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR) arrived in La Paz Jan. 31, after a 40-day march from Isinuta in the Chapare region of Cochabamba department, to demand that President Evo Morales move ahead with plans to build a highway through their lands on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Morales put the project on hold last year after a larger cross-country march in opposition to it met with police repression. Several thousand supporters of Morales' Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) swelled the ranks of the CONISUR marchers as they passed through El Alto, the sprawling working-class city on the altiplano above La Paz. El Alto's MAS mayor, Édgar Patana, welcomed them as "illustrious guests" of the city before their final descent into La Paz. (NACLA News, Feb. 3; AFP, Cambio, La Paz, Jan. 31)

After two days of reviewing the draft proposal for regulations implementing Peru's new Law of Prior Consultation for Indigenous and Original Peoples, indigenous leaders from the Southern Macroregion announced that they rejected it as illegitimate Jan. 25. Meeting in the city of Cuzco, some 700 indigenous leaders from the regions of Tacna, Moquegua, Arequipa, Puno, Apurímac, Madre de Dios and Cuzco were joined by lawmakers Sergio Tejada and Verónica Mendoza and representatives of the indigenous affairs agency INDEPA. Participants concluded the proposed regulations did not meet standards for prior consultation established by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO-169). A week later, a similar conclusion was announced at a meeting for the Northern Macroregion, held in the Amazonas region town of Bagua and bringing together indigenous leaders from Amazonas, Cajamarca and San Martín.

Survival International has released new close-up pictures of an "uncontacted" indigenous band in Peru, exactly a year after aerial photos of an "uncontacted" indigenous band in Brazil astonished the world. The new photographs taken in Peru's southeastern Madre de Dios region show a family believed to be from an "uncontacted" (or voluntarily isolated) band of the Mashco-Piro ethnicity. Uncontacted Mashco-Piro bands are known to inhabit Manú National Park, and sightings of them have increased in recent months. Many blame illegal logging in and around the park and low flying helicopters from nearby oil and gas projects, for forcibly displacing the bands from their forest homes. The Mashco-Piro are one of just some 100 "uncontacted" peoples in the world. The new photos are the most detailed images yet revealed of "uncontacted" indigenous peoples.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on Jan. 26 overturned an injunction won by Chevon Corporation to block enforcement of what the US oil company claims is a fraudulent, multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador for polluting the Amazon rainforest. In reversing the decision made by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Second Circuit held that Chevron may not challenge the approximately $18 billion Ecuadoran judgment before enforcement of that judgment has actually been sought by the Ecuadoran plaintiffs. In its interpretation of the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act, the court concluded that judgment-debtors like Chevron can challenge a foreign judgment's validity under the Act only defensively and in response to an attempted enforcement. The court found that an effort of enforcement by the Ecuadoran plaintiffs had not yet been undertaken anywhere, and might never be undertaken in New York. While both Chevron and the Ecuadorian plaintiffs have yet to comment on the decision, Chevron has long contended (press release, PDF) that it has never conducted oil operations in Ecuador and that the allegations of environmental and social harm in the Amazon are therefore false.