FOREST SANCTUARY

Peruvian Indigenous speaker comes to Copenhagen for the COP15 conference.

Javier Dril Bustamante is an Ashaninka leader from the community of Cutivireni in the central rainforest region of the Peruvian Amazon. He works today as Regidor (Assistant) to an indigenous Mayor and he is also President of the first Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association.

Now 26 years old, as a child he survived the ravages of the civil war between the Peruvian army and the Shining Path, a struggle in which the Ashaninka tribe suffered greatly. These days, loggers, oil companies and massive hydro-dam projects are all threatening the tropical rainforest owned and looked after by Javier’s community since long before Europeans arrived in South America.

The Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association of Cutivireni (called Tsimi meaning ‘forest sanctuary’) was established in 2009 by Javier as a mechanism for continued protection and conservation of their 22,000 hectare forest. The Association is highly democratic, involving representatives from all the community’s 8 main villages.

Artists Project Earth have teamed-up with Cool Earth and Ecotribal, to bring Javier’s words of wisdom to Europe during the Autumn of 2009 and in particular, the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.