The Peruvian Amazon and Post-frontier Ethnography

Abstract

I was drawn to Latin America and the Amazon not only because of the presence of centuries of deepening frontier pressures, but equally so by the proliferation of indigenous rights and environmental measures in recent decades. The Peruvian Amazon covers more than 78 million ha or some 61% of Peru’s total surface, with a total population of around 3.6 million. Of these, some 332,975 live in 1,786 native communities — the term used to simultaneously describe indigenous communities and their land titles in the Amazon region. By 2010, 1,254 of these communities had received titles covering some 11 million ha (13.6% of the national territory) and five territorial reserves had been created for indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. The 2007 census lists 1,786 indigenous communities, which constitute 9% of the total Amazonian population. In total, the combined figure of protected areas and indigenous territories covers 36.3% of the Peruvian Amazon (IBC 2011).