The Government of Peru and big businesses need to break with past methods of dealing with social conflict to improve the country’s human rights record, a team of United Nations human rights experts has concluded after a 10-day visit. "Peru has become used to a situation of constantly simmering social conflicts, with more than 100 active situations in any given month,” said Michael K. Addo, one of the experts from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights..."The majority of these conflicts relate to large-scale business operations in mining, hydrocarbon and energy."... In the past five years, social conflicts had caused 70 deaths... The conflicts stem from concerns about water contamination, pollution and other issues affecting people’s human rights, caused by large mining operations, repeated oil spills in the Amazon region, or deforestation for palm oil and cocoa plantations... Experts called for a new mechanism to protect human rights defenders, including environmentalists and indigenous leaders... [and] underlined the importance of meaningful, informed consultation at the earliest stages of large-scale business operations... [The experts also said they] "welcome the Government’s commitment to the business and human rights agenda, and the announcement of the first steps towards a National Action Plan on business and human rights."