Avoided Deforestation (REDD) and Indigenous ... - Amazon Fund

Since there is not a specific law regarding the ownership of carbon credits, their
ownership can be considered as linked to the group of activities and the forest resources that
generate them. Therefore, in principle, indigenous people can promote REDD activities in their
territories and can consider themselves as the direct beneficiaries of the credits produced. Once
concrete legislation regarding this matter has been enacted, it will be necessary to evaluate
the constitutionality of these rights for the indigenous people and nations of Ecuador; this will
constitute the legal context in which the new legislation regarding carbon credits and ecosystem
services in general should be considered.
Peru
Peru is the country in the Amazon Basin with the most precarious recognition and
application of indigenous rights, after the Guyanas and Suriname. Unfortunately, the situation
of indigenous people in Peru is currently very critical with respect to territorial and natural
resource use and enjoyment rights. Forest resources and lands declared by law as having
“forestry potential”, they are not actually titled to indigenous people, but are granted through
use concessions. Additionally, for the demarcation of native community lands, 101 the Peruvian
State does not apply the criteria of use and traditional occupation of the territory as referred to
both in ILO Convention 169102 and in the UNDRIP, even though both international instruments
are part of the national legislation. 103
Because of the abundance of existing provisions under different constitutional orders,
the Peruvian regulations regarding indigenous, environmental and forest rights are difficult to
understand; because there are not only large numbers of them, but they are also ambiguous
and contradictory. Diverse legal forms of tenure exist in Peru which are exercised by indigenous
people in those lands which have been and are their traditional territories (in property, in usufruct,
in natural park areas, in fiscal lands), and there are also significant disparities of legal guarantees
101 Article 89 of the Constitution recognizes agricultural communities’ and native communities’ legal status,
autonomy in their organization, in communal work and in the use and free disposition of their lands.
102 Peru ratified ILO Convention 169 in 1994 in the same Constituent Congress which approved the current PC,
which is why some Peruvian indoctrinators believe that Convention 169 is subordinate to constitutional rule. The
same constitutional jurisprudence is beginning to consider Convention 169 as a rule of constitutional rank in
record 03343-2007 as a result of a lawsuit filed by the San Martin regional government against Repsol, Petrobras
and others on February 19, 2009. Para. 31.
103 th 10 Article. Law Decree 22175 of May 9, 1978.
56 Av o i d e d d e f o re s t A t i o n (redd) A n d i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s: experiences, chAllenges A n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s in t h e A m A zo n c o n t e x t