Ashaninka Avoided Deforestation
Over 50,000 hectares protected
12 November 2009
Avoided Deforestation in Peru's Central Amazon Organisations responsible for project: Cool Earth, Ecotribal (UK & Peru) and Tsimi
(Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association, Cutivireni Community, Rio Ene)
BACKGROUND Tsimi – the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association – an indigenous organization led by Javier Dril Bustamante, was established in March 2008 to protect the Cutivireni forest. It now also encomapsses two adjacent communities: 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.
This project began late February 2008, when an initial agreement was made between the Ashaninka community of Cutivireni and Ecotribal to work together with the UK charity Cool Earth, to stop deforestation in their collectively owned rainforest area which extends in total to around 30,000 hectares. Ashaninka leaders from Cutivireni approached Ecotribal for advice when the community was offered a two year logging contract. It has become common practice in the Peruvian rainforest since the start of this century for community leaders to sign agreements with loggers for uncontrolled timber extraction from community forests. Usually a few of the community's leaders get temporary financial benefit from the deal, but the money rarely trickles down and the forest is left severely degraded, the animals frightened away by forestry machinery and loggers' shotguns. Furthermore, the logging roads form new routes of access for illegal colonists on indigenous lands. Aware of these issues, the Cutivireni leaders and Ecotribal approached Cool Earth for assistance. An agreement was reached and within a week the idea of negotiating with loggers was rejected by the community in favour of working on rainforest conservation.
  
LATEST UPDATE - NOVEMBER 2009 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.
ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE (February 2008 to November 2009) - indigenous forest-owning communities agree to avoided deforestation (with formal agreement since March 2008)
- secured immediate protection of more than 50,000 hectares of rainforest (logging stopped and loggers kept out)
- initial three year income established compensating the community for avoiding deforestation and providing an environmental service by sustainable management of their rainforest environment
- elaboration of community level and participatory situation analysis to determine immediate needs and skill requirements
- community organisation legally established (Tsimi – Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association) to be responsible for financial and strategic management and to provide a democratic framework for decision making and the development of appropriate skills
- Tsimi structured to maximise partly nomadic village participation in information flows and decision making while at the same time sitting comfortably within accepted national legal frameworks
- delivery of initial capacity building at community and village levels
- extension of avoided deforestation project to incorporate two adjacent Ashaninka communities – Parijaro and Camantavishi – adding a further 24,000 hectares to the area of rainforest protected by Tsimi and providing a buffer to the core of Cutivireni territory
 Ashaninka man, Alto Coveja village, Cutivireni Community OUTPUT PROGRAMMED FOR 2010 - establishment of TSIMI Rainforest Education and Interpretation Centre at Cutivireni with small solar powered office, meeting space, some lodgings (both for TSIMI leaders when gathering for meetings and for appropriate outside visitors), demonstration forest garden (showing selected important species), model tree nursery and possibly a small fish farm
- ongoing capacity building and best practice development with TSIMI and at village level
- training of Ashaninka GPS field teams
- development of sustainable forest management plan with associated maps, ecological and social zonification with forward looking management and business plans for Tsimi and the communities
- REDD development beginning with the completion of a Project Document (PD) and Strategic Plan for Tsimi's avoided deforestation project; with a view to gaining certification through the VCS and CCBA processes
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