Ofic. 501 Pucallpa, Perú Telf. 51 (61) 571713
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PALMAS DEL PERÚ Abril 17, 2016 Ms. Sasikia Ozinga Co-Chair of the Board Forest Peoples Programme 1c Fosseway Business Centre, Stratford Road Moreton-in-Marsh, GL56 9NQ England We are responding to your letter dated March 4th, 2016 and confirming our serious commitment to sustainable entrepreneurship in Peru, respecting their laws and operating with social inclusion and environmental care, especially with respect to the original cultures close to the areas where we are carrying out our activities. 1. In order to maintain a relationship of reciprocal treatment with your organization, it is necessary for us to receive a satisfactory clarification on the part of FPP for that which was irresponsably expressed in the fourth paragraph of your online press release issued on November 18th, 2015 regarding alleged death threats to Mr. Washington Bolivar insinuating that this was supposedly carried out by the company and its principal director Mr Dennis Melka. Freedom of expression is in no way an acceptable pretext for desseminating slanderous allegations through the media, which without objective evidence unjustly attempt to skew information and the perceptions of people and institutions with the presumed intention of damaging their respective reputations. We wish to remind you that the rights of one person end where the rights of another begin. In the letter we sent on November 23rd, 2015 we had specifically requested from you objective evidence proving the above claims made by the FPP. Up to this point in time we still have not received any response 2. We reiterate that our agricultural activities are NOT being carried out on property owned by the Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya , demonstrated not only in the field of pure national and international law and binding agreements , but also with full respect for customary laws of Indigenous peoples , through the following considerations : • The Regional Government of Ucayali , according to its competence, by Regional Executive Resolution No. 591 of December 31, 2015 , initiated the administrative process to issue titles of territory expansion to the native community of Santa Clara de Uchunya , an action in which the Community was included and participated. With this act of pure law and social participation , it is objectively demonstrated that the company NEVER HAVE OPERATED ON THE PROPERTY OF SANTA CLARA de UCHUNYA , as these lands granted to the Community at this time are those that ALLEGEDLY are being occupied by us. Under the binding customary law , relating to the positioning of the land of the Community of Santa Clara de Uchunya , which is located on the bank of Rio Aguaytia in the District of New Requena , Department of Ucayali ; neither can be appealed to as being an ancestral property since the Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples 1989 ( no. 169 ) of the ILO, says : " The recognition of the right to land is based on the traditional occupation , comprising land where indigenous peoples lived over time ... " also mentioned in their objective criteria " ... they should be descended from the populations which inhabited the country , or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization or the establishment of present state boundaries ... " . Santa Clara Uchunya , populated by the ethnic group Shipibo - Conibo , has occupied its current land since 1975 , the year which it was recognized and titled by the SINAMO (authorized state institution) and according to the study by the anthropologist Manuel Cuentas Robles in his 2009 paper entitled "Historical and documentary evidence on the true story of Pucallpa ", a location map of the ethnic groups in this part of the Peruvian Amazon is shown on page 48 placing the Shipibos - Conibos on the banks of the Ucayali River and not in the area of the Aguaytia River, which was the territory of the Cacataibo ( Cashibos, Carapachos) who sporadically roamed the current area of Santa Clara of Uchunya. Since then they have retired to the area of the present town of Aguaytia, Padre Abad District (page 52) where they currently remain. Av. San Martín 200 – Ofic. 501 Pucallpa, Perú Telf. 51 (61) 571713 [Escriba texto] [Escriba texto] [Escriba texto] It has therefore been shown that the forty families of Shipibos - Conibos currently living in Santa Clara de Uchunya did not ancestrally occupy these lands , as their ancestors occupied the banks of the Ucayali River, so there is no reason to try to create conflicts with this justification . 3. All alleged conflicts with villagers and REAL leaders of Santa Clara de Uchunya are clarified today; there is no conflict between us , being best evidenced by the fact that 7th of this month we signed a Cooperation Agreement between the Municipal District of Nueva Requena , the native community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, the villages of Caribe and San Pablo de Juantia and ourselves, as a sign of peaceful coexistence and mutual cooperation in the area of our activities. 4. With regard to Mr. Washington Bolivar Diaz , the expressions that you cite in your letter in point number one are not ours, they are the words of Mr. Grimaldo Octavio Villacorta , member of the same ethnic group that Mr. Bolivar belongs to and President of the Federation of Cacataibo Native Communities (FENACOCA ) < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frx8lWjIlDI > the organization from which Mr. Bolivar was expelled according to Mr. Villacorta’s words. Also, Mr. Bolivar is not leader of the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya , since this is a Shipibo - Coniba ethnic group ( Mr. Bolivar is Cacataibo ) and its president is Mr. Juan Nunta Valera. 5 With respect to point number 5 of your letter we must clarify the following: Regarding the satellite images that you mentioned, we can say that the analysis of these images is questionable. The analysis says that the field of Plantaciones de Pucallpa is 6845.23 ha and only 1561.06 ha had been deforested, however Plantaciones de Pucallpa has only 5640 hectares planted with oil palm and had bought a total of 5889.62 hectares, ie the 6824.39 hectares mentioned in the analysis include adjacent parcels owned by neighboring small farmers and it is precisely within these adjacent plots where they have observed the alleged deforestation. The analysis of satellite images only categorizes and quantifies the total area of deforested hectares and hectares of primary forests , which shows that this analysis has been prepared without following the minimum technical criteria (is totally illogical that there would be 1561.06 hectares that have been deforested and directly adjacent to such deforestation is a primary forest ). The analysis of satellite images does not consider the areas thinned by legal and illegal lumber interests, purmas ( secondary forests degraded by migratory cultivation and illegal coca crops ) , subsistence crops such as banana, cassava , papaya etc. that the association who sold us the land was cultivating and which is consistent with the information that you mentioned in your letter. We want to emphasize that Peruvian law is very strict regarding land titling ; the 200 parcels that we bought which were titled in 1998 and 2008 could only have been titled because they were deemed apt for economic usage; crops, grazing pastures , etc. you have also made this point clear in your letter. We have made the clarifications requested by you , we ask you to cease using the Community of Santa Clara de Uchunya, with whom we currently have the best of intercommunity relations, as an argument to discredit to our managers and company . We reiterate once again that our activities are carried out with respect to binding national and international standards , the rights of people, and the environment. Sincerely; J. Ulises Saldaña B. Institutional Relations Manager [email protected] / +51-961619888 Av. San Martín 200 – Oficina. 501 Pucallpa, Perú Telf. 51 (61) 571713 .