Lima - Major subsidies, more connectivity, more infrastructure. Also payments for environmental services, of course, fight against illegal logging and reforestation. But the first thing that seems to come to the candidate´s minds in Peru, or their representatives, is a view of a centralized Amazon in the cities, something logically necessary, but when placed on the debate table, it is not enough to a sustainable management.
“It is needed to give VIP treatment to Amazon”, says Elmer Cubas, Chief of the Govern National Plan of Solidaridad Nacional (SN), party whose candidate, Luis Castanheda Lossio, is among second and third in polls of vote intention (with almost 20%). To him, it means subsidies to teachers and policemen, for the trouble of displacement that exists in the Amazon territory, something that is dramatic. He adds that “you have to give services to the major cities of Amazon”, also an essential subject. Only after he mentions the Ecological and Economic Zoning (ZEE) and the ‘payment for environmental services’, something that He calls “the future” of this region. His position showed to be consistent with the government plan, where there is not a special section to the environmental theme, which is almost disappearing in the middle of the agricultural system’.
In this document, there are two explicit references about biodiversity. One refers to “Put Peru as World Nation” in its applications, even not telling how to do so. And the other is about a Biodiversity Protection Law which is also not detailed. This theme, adding, also floats in the mouth of the other parties in campaign, although in second place.
Kart Burneo, for instance, Chief of the Govern Plan of Possible Peru (PP), the party that appears ahead in polls (more than 25% in majority) and that has as candidate the ex-president Alejando Toledo (2001-2006), talks firstly about ‘connectivity’. According to him, this is what prevents the “continuous growth of Amazon”. He also is in favor of a reorientation of public investment in some Peruvian Amazon regions.
For what? PP is a little more explicit in their plans. In their Govern program, they advertise the purpose of “putting value on biodiversity, incorporating the valuation of natural capital to the national accounts”. Also refers, without detailing, the proposed “payment for environmental services in Amazon and Andean areas” and a “program of forest conservation, with Amazon community support.” He also speaks of a “Botanic Expedition to Amazon”, of reforestation of a million of hectares of Andean and Amazon forests until 2016, of ‘land ownership and sustainable management of the 15 million flooded forest of Peruvian Amazon.’. Equally, it is announced the creation of a new entity: SERFOR (Forest Services, Integral Authority of Forest Management).
Burneo says that the proposal of PP is not of growth but of “development”, with a better distribution of the tickets and a “preservation of ecological balance”. The “social license” to Amazon investments also appears on the plans to this group that intends to occupy the Executive power for the second time. Carlos Loret de Mola, ex-president of the National Counsil of Environmental (CONAM), the former entity of the Environmental Ministry (MINAM), is among its experts.
The candidate Keiko Fujimori, from Fuerza 2011, is daugther of the autocratic ex-president Alberto Fujimori, and is among the first on poll. She offers “sustainable management of the ecosystems”, “payments for environmental services” and “compensation of ecosystem services”. They do not explain how to proceed to these plans. Rafael Rey, from his team of Govern Plan, pointed out that “the plans to Amazon are the same that for the rest of the country”, also an insufficient reach.
Something similar happens to Alianza por el Gran Cambio (Alliance for the Great Transformation), the party led by Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki, ex-president of Council of Ministers and ex- Minister of Energy and Mining, who comes in fifth place, but with tendency to rise. Among his “25 commitments to a Peru without poverty and with opportunities for all” only one refers to the environment. It is the one which proposes “to combat abuses against the environment through the creation of Environment Police, funded with Canon”.
As
shown by Dr. Marc Dourojeanni here in OEcoAmazonia, the ideas of this candidate are really centralized on the creation of infrastructure –roads, for example- continuing with the great investments in oil exploration. The indigenous component, vital to a policy in this region, is absent, and indeed, was not even mentioned by Pablo Secada, his Chief of Plan of Government on the debate occurred this Thursday, March 17th, in Lima.
Finally, the Plan of Government of Ollanta Humala, candidate of Gana Peru, who is fourth place in the polls (14% with tendency to rise), mentions the Amazon matters in many points, even in a more complex way. One speaks, for example, of combating the illegal logging, limiting the extension of properties in the forest ‘according the soil´s quality’ and it is remarkably insistent concerning the Convention 169 of OIT, which establishes the need of consulting the indigenous people.
“We propose to reform the State”, said Roger Rumrill, responsible for the Amazon theme in this politic party. The purpose, according to him, is to bring it to multiple cultural reality of Peru, and also promote the sovereignty, which, in his version, has been hurt the last years by the presence of big capitals and extractive activities. In fact, this party seems to put more emphasis on conservation of biodiversity, counting on traditional knowledge and a state policy.
Yet, on concrete measures that would be taken, there are still certain ambiguities. Perhaps it is inserted in the context of Amazon debate, and seems more intense on the others political parties. Actually, the theme has not a great deal in the campaign that too centralized on infrastructure. And it doesn´t seem to have emerged the candidate that gathers in just one proposal the possibility to explore rationally the natural resources with the sustainable development of people and Amazon ecosystems.
