In the Amazonian villages of the Huanuco region, where the days are short due to the lack of electricity, a phone call at the stroke of midnight is unusual. E* answered sleepily. He could not manage to say a word, but when he hung up he understood that he was being watched. His anonymous caller knew that a group of people would arrive the next morning at his farm to see his banana crops, and ordered him to cancel the meeting because 'his neighbor' didn't want strangers hanging around the area. His neighbor is a clandestine airstrip built by drug traffickers to send drugs to Bolivia and Brazil – an open crack in the forest where Peru's last Kakataibo Indigenous peoples live.

In 2021, the Peruvian government issued a decree creating the Kakataibo North and South Indigenous Reserve to protect the volunteer isolated peoples living in the regions of Huanuco, Ucayali and Loreto. The law declares that this ancestral territory is untouchable. Yet, the decree has not halted the advance of criminal networks within the region, much less in the neighboring native communities and surrounding villages, such as E*.

Our Indigenous communities face many threats, including drug trafficking, mining, logging and settlers who are destroying the forests for cattle ranching. Community members can no longer live in peace. Now, “it is a guarantee that they will encounter coca crops or pampas that have been opened by invaders,” says an indigenous leader whose identity we will protect for security.

The passivity of the government at every level has forced Indigenous families living around the territory to use increasingly dangerous self-defense mechanisms to protect their forests and isolated villages. This reality is costing community leaders their lives, especially in the Katataibo Sur area. Since 2020, five community members have been murdered after receiving death threats from drug traffickers and illegal loggers. The most recent victim was the leader Mariano Isacama Feliciano. Tragically, his body was discovered last July with obvious signs of torture.

This multimedia report exposes the perpetrators of land dispossession in the Kakataibo Sur rainforest. The cross-referenced data, obtained through requests for access to information and the investigation of public portals and civil society platforms, shows the damage caused by invaders and organized crime in this region of the Amazon. Likewise, it exposes the role of the Peruvian government, which continues to grant extractive permits and private titles in the ancestral territory of Indigenous people.

Last year, the testimonies of 86 witnesses, affected individuals, and land occupants corroborated the ongoing illegal activities in the forest. Some participants requested that their names not be published due to concerns for their safety and well-being.

Santa Martha and the fight for the land

Santa Martha was the third community of Kakataibo people to obtain a communal title and the only community within this ethnic group to do so within the Huanuco region. In 1986, the Indigenous leaders managed to register 14,699 hectares of their ancestral territory. In 1992, they requested an extension of 18,596 hectares. However, at nearly the same time the territory became a disputed area as Indigenous and foreigners began to parcel up and sell the plots without proving possession.

The purchase and sale contracts we accessed are half-sheet typewritten documents that do not specify the boundaries of the land sold. They state that the hectares will be paid in cash or in kind. One hectare, for example, was worth 54 kilos of meat.

Since the latter half of the 1990s, the new occupants began to acquire proof of possession in the peace courts of the districts of Codo del Pozuzo and Puerto Inca. This process coincided with the formalization of small settlements promoted by the Regional Administration Transitory Council (CTAR) – an agency attached to the then Ministry of the Presidency – with the aim of providing basic and educational services to the new residents.

This procedure did not ensure their ownership of the plots, but years later the Regional Government of Huánuco provided them with a solution: between 2011 and 2017 that entity carried out three massive titling campaigns in the district of Codo del Pozuzo. The objective was for the neighbors to access loans to invest in alternative crops to coca leaf, but the initiative resulted in the transfer of the land claimed by the Kakataibo people to private parties.

A member of the Santa Martha says that they tried to prevent this process, but were victims of aggressions by invaders and farmers who already occupied the land.

Cillóniz's title and the lost kakataibo process

Cillóniz and his neighbors became owners of these lands in the framework of the massive titling campaign promoted by the regional government of Huánuco. The entity approved Directorial Resolution No. 0360-2014 to adjudicate supposedly free land and registered them in the Public Records. Then, the regional government divided them in favor of 13 people: loggers, cattle ranchers, and the aforementioned businessman. In order to complete this process, they had to prove that they occupied these lands. Yet, there is no information in Puerto Inca's files.

The coordinates show that one of the sightings of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) occurred within the area that ended up being granted independence in favor of the aforementioned businessman and his neighbors.

When the resolution was issued in 2014, the government still did not officially recognize the existence of PIACI of the Kakataibo ethnic group. However, a year earlier, the Vice-Ministry of Interculturality had already authorized a team to conduct a Preliminary Reconnaissance Study (EPR) to collate 18 testimonies on the existence of people in isolation along the Puerto Azul, Puerto Nuevo, Santa Martha, and Unipacuyacu route. Their subsequent confirmation was the basis for the approval of Supreme Decree No. 004-2017-MC that creates the Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve.

The resolution that approved the delivery of these lands was approved on December 18, 2014 in the administration of the then governor of Huanuco and current congressman for Podemos Peru, Luis Picon Quedo. Importantly, Quedo was recently sentenced to four years suspended prison for corruption when he was leading the region. The subdivision of the properties in Public Records was carried out between April and August 2015, during the term of Governor Rubén Alva Ochoa. None of them were willing to testify for this report.

We requested an interview with Cillóniz Champín by e-mail and by telephone with his secretary at Aceros Arequipa. She indicated that the businessman is out of the country, but that his legal representative was already aware of our request and that if there was no response it was "because they are not interested." At the time of publication, they have yet to correspond further with us.

The dispossession of the territory requested by the Santa Martha Indigenous people was carried out with the support of the Huánuco authorities when the community members' request was still being processed. In the regional archives we found a document from 1997 where the legal department of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture recommended that the claim be declared inadmissible, but it was not carried out. The specialist from the NGO Instituto del Bien Común (IBC), Ermeto Tuesta, recalls that the Indigenous leaders were notified of these intentions a decade later, in 2007.

Another report from the Informal Property Formalization Agency (Cofopri) from 2009 indicates that until that year there was no formal resolution to file, despite the fact that they already had 332 plots in the process of formalization in these forests. Furthermore, the 2014 regional file, which approves the parcelization in favor of Cillóniz and his neighbors, includes Cofopri maps that still show the Santa Martha expansion area.

When was the Indigenous community's request shelved or dismissed? We coordinated a face-to-face interview with the current governor of Huanuco, Antonio Pulgar Lucas, to investigate. After listening to our questions, he asked us to suspend the meeting, claiming that he did not have enough information on the titling processes and the presence of invaders in the Kakataibo areas. At the time of publication, he has not agreed yet to reschedule our meeting.

Narco took over forestry concessions

Four of the six villages surrounding the Kakataibo Sur Indigenous Reserve were titled by the government decades ago: Santa Martha in 1986, Sinchi Roca I in 1974 and 1986, Sinchi Roca II in 1994, and Puerto Nuevo in 1985 and 1994. No new registrations were approved until 2006, when the native community of Puerto Azul obtained a title that only recognizes 10% of the 32,000 hectares that historically corresponded to them. The remaining territory has been pending since 1991 and crosses into the Ucayali and Huánuco regions, on the border with the Indigenous Reserve.

The disputed area crosses the provinces of Padre Abad (Ucayali) and Puerto Inca (Huánuco), and two logging concessions granted by the National Institute of Natural Resources (Inrena) in 2002 are identified within it. Both permits were annulled between 2015 and 2018, after the Forestry and Fauna Resources Oversight Agency (Osinfor) determined that the beneficiary companies carried out illegal practices.

The concessionaires were Project World Green Perú, owned by businessman Thomas Benavente Jaramillo; and Empresa Forestal El Aguajal, owned by brothers Marcelo and José Luis Maguiña Paredes. The latter served as mayor of the province of Padre Abad three times and obtained the forestry concession months before being elected. The area granted to Forestal El Aguajal alone has an extension of 17,774 hectares; four times larger than the territory titled in favor of the Puerto Azul community.

This company was included on Osinfor's red list for facilitating the transport and illegal extraction of trees such as tornillo, lupuna and shihuahuaco; while Project World Green Peru was investigated forfailing to comply with its forest management plan and appealed the decision to the Constitutional Court. In their defense, both companies claimed to bevictims of invaders who logged without permits to commercialize timber, plant pastures or plant illegalcoca leaf. Specifically, Proyect World reported that the encroachers opened a clandestine trail of up to 43 kilometers to connect their concession with the town of Aguaytía, capital of the district of Padre Abad.

Another expired forestry permit was granted in 2003 next to the Kakataibo Sur Reserve. This was approved for an area of 4,682 hectares in favor of Lander Panduro Rengifo, a timber businessman who appears on Osinfor's red list for bad practices.

These forestry concessions returned to state administration, but the first two have been taken over by organized crime.

In the Amazonian villages of the Huanuco region, where the days are short due to the lack of electricity, a phone ringing close to midnight is almost always a bad omen. Edgar —we’ll call him that for his safety— answered sleepily. He barely managed to hear the voice on the other end before the call dropped, but the message was clear: he was being watched. The caller knew that the next day, some people would visit his farm and ordered him to cancel the meeting because “his neighbor” didn’t want visitors. That neighbor is a clandestine airstrip built by drug traffickers to send drugs to Bolivia and Brazil. An open crack in the forest where Peru's last Kakataibo Indigenous peoples live.

In addition to coca growers, this sector of the Amazon is coveted by illegal loggers looking for large mahogany, tornillo, and lupuna trees for commercialization. However, it is not possible to estimate the amount of timber exported from Huánuco because the transport guides required by the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (Serfor) are filled out by regional officials by hand. Unlike Ucayali, Huánuco does not have specialized forestry management or native communities, despite being home to Indigenous peoples and forests.

In Huánuco, there are no digital records that allow us to view the paperwork online. Everything is filled out by hand in notebooks. When we need to confirm the timber leaving this region for Ucayali, we are forced to call directly to the workers of the Forestry Technical Administration of Puerto Inca and check every piece of information," explains Franz Tang Jara, forestry manager of the neighboring region of Ucayali.

Oil and gold on Indigenous lands

Extractive companies are also involved in the loss of ancestral lands that the Kakataibo have been claiming for more than two decades. Georeferenced data from Perupetro, the company that represents the Peruvian government in its hydrocarbon business, shows that two oil concessions that were granted over this territory before they were officially delimited by the government.

The oil company responded by assuring that Block 107 does not overlap with the Kakataibo Sur Indigenous Reserve. Likewise, it claims that in the case of the Codo del Pozuzo Regional Conservation Area, it sent a letter to agree to its creation in 2021, despite the fact that it crosses part of the right they acquired in 2005. However, it specified that "there is no geological interest in this area" because their exploration wells are located in the districts of Puerto Bermudez and Constitución, in the neighboring Pasco region.

Regarding Block 131, the company indicated that PetroTal Corp. signed an agreement with Cepsa to be awarded the contract, which is subject to compliance with conditions. For example, continuing exploration work in the Los Angeles camp, which is located outside the territory of the Sinchi Roca Indigenous community.

Although the forestry and oil permits predate 2021 – the year in which the State made the Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve official – satellite images and analyzed documents confirm that the government approved four mining concessions within this territory when its intangible character had already been declared.

The granting of private concessions in isolated villages violates the recommendations of the Rapporteurship on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In 2013, this institution issued a report asking governments to refrain from granting licenses or permits for extractive activities in these areas and, if they have already been granted, suggests identifying the necessary modifications "to ensure full respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples (...) and to carry them out as soon as possible.”

The files of the four active concessions include documents from the Ministry of Culture and Serfor that warn of the overlap with Kakataibo lands. For example, the Directorate of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation (DACI) of the Culture sector points out that 88.4% of Pampa Hermosa Amazon crosses the Indigenous Reserve, fragile ecosystems, and a permanent production forest.

"This overlapping of the polygon of the mining petition directly threatens the means that ensure the survival of the Indigenous people in isolation (PIA Kakataibo), as they are highly integrated and interdependent on the ecosystems in which they live, develop their lives and their culture. In addition, entering this zone would mean a violation of the rights of the PIA Kakataibo,” warned the Culture sector in one of the letters sent to the Regional Government of Huánuco.

Yet, this was not an impediment for its approval in July 2024. The file assures that there will be no impact on Indigenous peoples because the authorization granted to Pampa Hermosa Amazon does not involve the exploitation of resources.

It is a partial concession. They are authorized to use it, but in the same resolution it says that pre-existing rights must be respected. They will not be able to enter the Indigenous Reserve. If they do, it would be considered illegal mining. “They can only enter the free zone," said Vilma Vilcas Melchor, the regional director who approved the process.

The area where the mining concessions were granted is called Codo del Pozuzo, a district where illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly along the rivers. This is confirmed by local authorities and a study by the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS-Peru). It is not possible to know how many illegal and informal loggers have positioned themselves in this sector, but the desire for gold is increasing. In the Aguaytía, Sungaroyacu and Codo del Pozuzo river basins, which is outside of the Kakataibo communities and the intangible area, we were able to identify 40 titled mining concessions and another 19 in the pipeline.

Unipacuyacu: the legalization of dispossession

The photograph of Arbildo Meléndez Grandez passes through the hands of the men and women who gathered at the Unipacuyacu community center to greet us. They had not seen his image since four years ago, when he was killed with a shotgun blast in 2020. Some of them smile, while others touch their heads or exchange glances as they remember the Kakataibo leader. "Arbildo spoke better than all of us. He went to meetings with authorities, denounced the invasion, the logging of the forest and the drug traffickers, that's why he died," says one of the community members.

Arbildo Meléndez was the first environmental defender murdered in Peru during the pandemic. His murderer, Redy Rabel Ibarra Córdoba, was sentenced to 4 years and 7 months in prison for manslaughter. Córdoba claimed that he was hunting and mistook the leader for an animal, but for the Indigenous people this claim is not credible. They claim that Meléndez was killed in retaliation for defending their ancestral lands. "A few months earlier, Arbildo had met with the UN special rapporteur for human rights to request support in the titling of the community," says Ricardo Pereyra Octavio, one of the community leaders.

The Indigenous community of Unipacuyacu is the only community of the Kakataibo people that has not been titled in the the district of Codo del Pozuzo of the Huánuco region. The process has been delayed by the regional government for almost three decades, despite the fact that in 1995 the Ministry of Agriculture recognized them as an Indigenous people.

Its ancestral territory and natural food pantry comprises almost 22,946 hectares - an extension similar to the entire city of La Plata, Argentina. Yet, within these years of government, groups linked to land trafficking, drug trafficking, and illegal logging forced residents to an area that represents less than 0.01% of the territory.

“We can't enter the forest, we can't hunt, we don't have farms, only a small space for our houses. We live in overcrowded conditions. There are roads that we cannot pass because there are armed people there, they have taken away our own land," says another member community.

The community members began to flee Unipacuyacu because of threats from people linked to drug trafficking and illegal logging. Now, four years after the murder of Meléndez, the Kakataibo peoples have returned to the town to insist on the defense of their forests and the titling of their communal lands.

“We demand the title because with it we will be able to evict the invaders from our lands. It will be difficult to remove them, but we will have legal security to defend ourselves from the invasion," says a former leader of Unipacuyacu.

Since 2019, Midagri has been in charge of the operational phase of Unipacuyacu's titling through the Project for the Cadastre, Titling and Registration of Rural Land in Peru (PTRT3). SITG S.A. was commissioned to prepare the socio-environmental, archeological, and territorial diagnosis of the community – an essential requirement for approving the process. For this purpose, the apu Arbildo Meléndez was a key supporter. His photo appears on the cover of the study along with the engineers responsible.

SITG S.A.'s report was submitted in March 2020 to Midagri and the Huánuco Regional Agriculture Directorate, but the latter failed to issue an opinion. As of January 2023, the operational and administrative phase of the titling is under the responsibility of the regional government, and the boundary demarcation in the field needs to be updated. However, this work has been obstructed by new groups of invaders that arrived during the pandemic. Authorities and community members report attacks with firearms against anyone who tries to enter the area.

When asked about this, the technical team of PTRT3 Huánuco responded in writing that they do not plan to re-enter the forest.

"No planning and programming of field work has been carried out to begin the demarcation of the Unipacuyacu territory, because there are no guarantees necessary to protect the life and integrity of the GTS personnel [Supervised Work Groups], community representatives or community members in general," they stated.

In April 2024, the leaders of the Indigenous community filed an injunction against the Regional Directorate of Agriculture for not guaranteeing protection of their fundamental rights to property and possession of ancestral territories. To date, the Judicial Branch has not issued a response.

Last August, the Vice Ministry of Human Rights and Access to Justice established the regional table for the protection of defenders. This platform facilitated meetings between the Agriculture and Interior sectors, the Police, the regional government, and Amazonian leaders to finalize the legal and physical land titling of Unipacuyacu. The Police developed an intelligence plan to safely place the missing boundary markers, deploying four brigades consisting of trucks, a police squad, and technical personnel. Their objective was to act immediately, but the coordination efforts stalled.

Leaders of the Regional Organization of Aidesep Ucayali (Orau) explained that the Huánuco Directorate of Agriculture and PTRT-3 stated they would need several months to assemble their respective teams. They believe this reveals the regional government's lack of interest in supporting the Kakataibo community, especially after PTRT-3 coordinator Judith Trujillo mentioned in the meetings that part of Unipacuyacu’s dossier had gone missing. We reached out to the Ministry of Culture for comment, but they did not respond to this report. The Ministry of Culture did not respond to this report.

Unlike what happened in Santa Martha, in Unipacuyacu the authorities have not titled land in favor of private individuals. However, they did endorse the expansion of population centers in its interior. In 2008, the then provincial mayor of Puerto Inca, Leonidas Melanio Nuñez Vera, signed the resolutions that created hamlets and the town of Nueva Libertad on an area that overlaps with the native community.

“If I gave recognition to Nueva Libertad as a population center, it was because of the need that existed in the place. This does not mean that they own the land, it was only so that the State could attend to their needs, such as implementing a small school. To approve the recognition, a Council meeting was called and the land was inspected to see who lived there. We found more than 60 families. The legal advisor recommended recognizing them because there were many needs," says former Mayor Núñez Vera.

He stated that, at that time, they had not been notified of any title or process that the Unipacuyacu community members had initiated. This request, however, is being handled by the regional government, not the provincial office. Not only was the region not consulted before approving the process, but it is also illegitimate because Law 27795 states that the categorization of population centers is an exclusive function of the regional governments.

“I never received a document against the Regional Government of Huanuco for the recognition of Nueva Libertad," added the former provincial mayor.

To date, neither the town center nor the Indigenous community has been able to obtain title.

The President of the Nueva Libertad peasant roundup is Miguel Angel Quispe Garcia, who claims to represent 120 farmers who are dedicated to cattle ranching and the cultivation of bananas, pineapple, and papaya. He claims that the invaders are the Kakataibo and that many of the community members claiming the territory do not even belong to this ethnic group.

“The Unipacuyacu community is settled on the left bank of the Zúngaro River, we are on the right side. They [the Kakataibo] have no land management, no forest conservation, there is no evidence of their work (...) I have been denounced for kidnapping, murder and threats, but these are slanderous accusations. I have not committed any of these crimes. I have lived on these lands since the 1980s, I am married to a Kakataibo," added Quispe García.

The leader of this population center claims that in 2019, its inhabitants managed to get the Agrarian Agency of Puerto Inca to give them individual possession certificates for these same lands. As proof, he showed a letterhead with the logo of this office and the number 045-20219-GR-DRA-HCO/AA-PI, in the name of Esteban Vingolea Rivera and Angela Satalay Perez. This document supposedly certifies that both are owners of a 105-hectare parcel of land in the Nueva Libertad sector, but it does not bear a seal or the name of the signatory, only a line at the bottom of the page.

We shared the document with the current director of the Agrarian Agency, Sixto Arce, who pointed out that he cannot verify its legality because they do not have the records of registrations granted that year.

Today, Nueva Libertad is a town with satellite internet, water reservoirs, and solar panels. It has a multi-grade school, built of cement and bricks in 2021 with resources from the parents themselves to serve the only 17 students in the village.

“Here you can get a hectare of land for 5,000 soles, but it is forest. If you want a piece of land in the pampa, it is worth 15 thousand soles, but we can reach an agreement," says one of his neighbors.

Most families report that their income comes from agriculture, cattle ranching, or renting farmland, although they acknowledge that some have coca plantations and know of a few that transport drugs. Satellite data and Devida maps show that illegal coca plantations are expanding in the territory occupied by Nueva Libertad. However, their leader says that this is false.

“They say we have airports and coca leaf, but it is not true. We have asked the authorities to come and supervise so that they can verify that we have nothing. In 2004, Devida entered Nueva Libertad because before there was coca, all this was bush. They helped us set up our little school. The bad thing about Devida is that they find a quarter of a hectare of coca and they maximize it," adds Quispe García.

Although Devida's data is public, the current mayor of the province of Puerto Inca, Carlos Cruzado Navarro, has a similar opinion about the advance of illicit crops in the Indigenous communities and in the entire district of Codo del Pozuzo. He says that "it seems like a fairy tale".

“I don't know if there is coca leaf in Codo del Pozuzo. What does exist is illegal mining throughout various parts of the province, which is damaging the environment and the water that we use for our farming and cattle ranching businesses. Coca was 20 to 10 years ago, but now it seems like a fairy tale because the whole area is now cattle ranching. The villagers have cattle and cocoa crops – that's what most of them do. I have been a cattle rancher for 20 years," he said.

In Nueva Libertad, neighbors report that there are swaths of forest that have been taken over by coca growers and organized crime that deter them from entering due to fear of being shot at. Yet, this violence does not seem to be the biggest problem for the men and women we interviewed in the village, but rather not being able to recover their land.

“We are not leaving. We will fight to the last because this land is now ours," says one of the invaders.