As we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we are launching a series of blogs featuring voices from the field, profiling indigenous participants in the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) workshops we held in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador between October 2017 and February 2018 in conjunction with COICA, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin. For more information about our FPIC work, click here.
All participants consented to their comments and photos being published. The views expressed reflect individual opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Equitable Origin.
Àlbaro Cruz, Vice-President of OZIP (Putumayo Indigenous Organization), Putumayo, Colombia
«I am indigenous to the Kichwa people, from Colombia to Putumayo, and I am currently vice-president of the Putumayo Indigenous Organization (OZIP) that covers 11 of the 15 villages in the Putumayo region.
To get here [to the workshop] I traveled from Mocoa to the border with Ecuador on the San Miguel River, and then I continued until here, to Lago Agrio. The trip was 6 hours by ground transportation.
It is very important for us all this subject of prior consultation, since our territories belong to us and are vulnerable, now they are being subject to oil extraction and at this moment the Putumayo region is practically concessioned to the multinationals, our government is not guaranteeing the fulfillment of our rights. This is why it is important that we, as Indigenous Peoples, know and can use these tools and this fundamental right for us, such as consultation, and in this way be able to defend our territories and guarantee the survival of our peoples, both physically and culturally.
In Putumayo we are currently 15 indigenous groups. Of the 15, 11 are affiliated with OZIP, but for issues like this we are working in unity across the 15 villages. In fact, at this moment we are working on the construction of a protocol for FPIC.»
