Extractivism and Unjust Food Insecurity for Peru’s Loreto Indigenous Communities

Abstract

Background. Many scholars have examined Indigenous food security and sovereignty yet the topic still represents a small share of environmental justice scholarship. Therefore, we completed a case study of the environmental justice challenges concerning food security faced by the Indigenous communities of Peru’s Loreto region. Methods. During 2019, we conducted fieldwork in 64 Indigenous communities of Kukama Kukamiria and Urarina in the Amazon rainforests of Loreto, Peru. Based on a semi-stratified sample and snowball sampling method, we combined participant observation with 139 interviews focused on feeding habits, production and availability, access, utilization, food stability, and perception of food insecurity with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) method. Results. Analyzing these themes led to worrisome assessments of the food insecurity and institutional limits of Indigenous communities. Because of their geographic location, these communities experience a degraded and unhealthy environment with water and food contaminated by hydrocarbon extraction activity. Furthermore, Peru’s policy of food and nutrition security has public management deficiencies especially in the Loreto region. Thus, many of the efforts adopted remain ineffective. Conclusion. Indigenous communities that live following ancestral culture often lack resources to change their diets. Thus, they frequently suffer the most following the contamination of an environment with which they experience an interdependent relation.

Diversidad de palmeras en la Amazonía baja de las regiones Loreto, Madre de Dios y Ucayali, Perú

“…La región Loreto está ubicada en el extremo nororiental del Perú ( Figura 1 ) y está dividida en 8 provincias y 53 distritos, con una superficie aproximado de 368.852 km 2 representando el 28,7% del territorio nacional; considerado la región más grande de Perú (Rondoni, 2022). El clima es cálido y húmedo, con una estación lluviosa entre noviembre y abril, y una estación seca entre mayo y octubre con un en promedio de 1800 mm de precipitación por año, con precipitaciones que varían ampliamente entre las estaciones lluviosa y seca (Torres-Slimming et al, 2020).…”

Implications of Extractivism and Environmental Pollution in Mapuche Territories of the Araucania Region

“…In this regard, a study carried out in the Loreto region of Peru showed that 82.7% of the population studied affirmed that extractivist activity had affected the water and food they consume. Additionally, 82.3% stated that they had become ill, which manifests itself as vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach pain, headache, infections, fever, skin problems, parasitosis and bronchitis, due to the consumption of water and contaminated fish [9]. In this sense, human beings and other forms of life are experiencing health problems and facing a shortage of natural resources and food, which translate into poverty, hunger and death [10,11].…”