“Press Release: Indigenous Community Urges European Banks to Hold Commodities Giant to Account Over Forest Destruction in the Peruvian Amazon”, 21^st August 2019

…The indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya has called upon Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) and Handelsbanken Fonder AB to use their influence as shareholders to insist that Alicorp, Peru’s largest consumer goods company, removes Peruvian company Ocho Sur P from its palm oil supply chain. The Shipibo community has also requested that both banks adopt stringent procedures to prevent any further sourcing of commodities linked to human rights violations and deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.2017

Since 2012, the Ocho Sur P (previously Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC) plantation has expanded illegally at the expense of 7,000 hectares of mostly old-growth forest, dispossessing the Shipibo community of their ancestral lands, impacting food security and destroying their way of life. The company’s presence has driven fierce competition for control over lands between groups dedicated to land-trafficking, and exposed the community to intimidation, threats and attacks...

Santa Clara de Uchunya are currently pushing the Regional Government of Ucayali to fulfil its commitment to title part of their lands, even as they await a decision from the Constitutional Tribunal in Lima over their broader territorial claim, including restitution of those lands acquired for conversion to the plantation.