The titling of the lands of indigenous and peasant communities has been at a practical standstill for two years, with many of the corresponding files lost or incomplete. But the promotion of foreign investment is moving full steam ahead in the same regions.

“Without land titles, people are forced to move from one place to another, and have even been the target of death threats. Some have been able to gain ownership of their farms, but in other cases, the companies have moved in,” said Valbina Miguel Toribia, a member of the Yanesha indigenous community in the central Amazonian region of Pasco. “This means they have no choice but to fight for their own piece of land,” she told Tierramérica.*

Miguel Toribia tackled numerous conflicts of this kind when she was the leader of the Federation of Yanesha Native Communities, and today she is a witness to similar struggles in neighboring communities.

This situation is repeated throughout Peru, because the titling of the lands of communities who occupy more than 27 percent of the country’s total area has slowed down significantly in recent years.

Between 2006 and 2010, while Alan García was in office, a mere 19 land titles were granted, in addition to 23 territorial expansions, according to the Agency for the Formalisation of Informal Land Ownership (COFOPRI).

Progress has been slow for communities in the Andes and on the coast, but the situation is much more chaotic in the Amazon region, where gas, oil and infrastructure investments and projects are concentrated.

Peru, an Andean and Amazonian country with a Pacific Ocean coast, is a world mining power and has oil and gas reserves as well. It is also a multi-ethnic nation of 30 million inhabitants, 31 percent of whom are indigenous.

Since 2010, when the government transferred COFOPRI’s land titling function to regional administrations, the process has practically ground to a halt.

While 24 of the country’s 26 regional governments can now officially exercise this function, they have not been provided with the corresponding files or complete information by COFOPRI, which means there is little they can do, sources from the Secretariat of Decentralisation told Tierramérica.

For the complete article, please see Inter Press Service.