Young Ashaninka Leader comes to UK and Copenhagen

Saving the Ashaninka Forests

25 November 2009

Young Ashaninka Leader Travels to UK and Copenhagen

Javier Dril Bustamante, President of the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association is in the UK during November and early December 2009 before attending the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen.

Tsimi – the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association – an indigenous organization led by Javier Dril Bustamante, was established in March 2008 to protect the forests of three adjacent communities: Cutivireni (which includes Pamaquiari); Parijaro (a waterfall community); and Camantavishi. Promoting avoided deforestation, Tsimi is implementing sustainable rainforest management and community development. But, loggers are now just 5kms away from the boundary of Cutivireni, one of the largest Ashaninka communities on the Rio Ene, and one of the few to turn the loggers away.

In the last few months a logging company has encircled the three Tsimi communities and the Ashaninka population there is really worried that their boundaries will be breached by the bulldozers and chainsaws. Reports in the last two weeks suggest that the loggers have already entered the Communal Reserve from Kiteni, where, in early November 2009 it was common to see more than one massive raft a day of huge quina quina and tornillo logs, propelled by 4 large motorised canoes making its way to the roadhead down river.  To the North of Cutivireni, at Katshingari (an annex of Kiteni), tractors are dragging big trunks down a muddy road right to the river's edge.

A team of Ashaninka, funded by Tsimi and Cool Earth, is presently using GPS coordinates to mark the trees along the Cutivireni border with paint. The boundary is otherwise invisible and unknown. This process should be finished by early December.

Immediately South of the 3 Tsimi communities, the adjacent community of Quempiri has, like Kiteni, signed a contract with the same logging company. Over 32 loggers are now camped in Quempiri, again with full bull-dozer and tractor equipment as well as the social risks associated with over 30 frontiersmen lodging in an Ashaninka village.

Decisions made at the UN Climate Change Summit next month will be a major determining factor. With this in mind, Javier is on his way to Copenhagen where he will argue in favour of using the proposed REDD mechanism to protect mature forests that are owned and protected by indigenous inhabitants.

BRIEF BIOG FOR JAVIER
Presdient of Tsimi and local District Councillor for Rio Ene

BORN in Tinkreni, 1982 to parents: Anna Maria and Cesar. Javier's grandmother – Noemi – is one of the few remaining shamanic healers.  Between the ages of 7 and 10 years, Javier lived in the Otishi hills, above the rio Ene, hiding from the Shining Path terrorists who had violently pushed his community off their traditional land.

Having regained their territory, between the ages of 11 and 17, he studied in a secondary school at Cutivireni where, instead of their usual settlement pattern of small dispersed villages scattered throughout the forest, the Ashaninka lived in a village of 2000 people for reasons of security.  During this period, they began to repopulate the forest and tody only a few hundred individuals remain in the gateway village of Cutivireni (where there is a river port and a small airstrip).

With finial Assistance from Ecotribal (UK), Javier left Cutivireni to study agro-forestry at a local technical college in the frontier town of Satipo.  He is married to Yolanda and they have four children.
After graduating in 2006, he was elected as Regidor (Councillor) for the indigenous Municipal District of the Rio Tambo ( one of the largest districts in the whole of Peru). He is also President of the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association, established two years go to protect the community's rainforest which is under severe threat from legal and illegal loggers. This is the first project in Peru where an indigenous community has led an avoided deforestation initiative.


As well as loggers, oil companies and massive hydro dam projects are threatening Javier's community. The Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association of Cutivireni (called Tsimi, which means "forest sanctuary in their language) is a mechanism for continued protection and conservation of around 60,000 hectare of forest. The Association is highly democratic, involving representatives from all the communities 8 main villages. Externally, it is supported by Cool Earth and Ecotribal, both UK based.

JAVIER'S VISIT WAS SUPPORTED FINANCIALLY BY