"Total Energies remains silent on human and territorial rights violations against Kichwa organisations in San Martin over Cordillera Azul carbon credits", 13 June 2023

...The Indigenous organisations the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of the Lower Huallaga San Martin (FEPIKBHSAM), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of Chazuta, Amazonia (FEPIKECHA), bases of the Coordinator for the Development and Defense of Indigenous Peoples of the San Martin Region (CODEPISAM), sent a letter to the company Total Nature Based Solutions (TNBS), part of the Total Energies corporate group, in October 2022. After uncovering in June 2022 Total Energies' role in the largest carbon deal in Peru's history at the time, the Kichwa organisations informed the French company of human and territorial rights violations in the Cordillera Azul National Park.

In the letter, sent eight months ago on 13 October 2022, these organisations explain how the PNCAZ is a natural protected area whose creation violated the territorial rights of at least 29 Indigenous Kichwa communities...

This purchase of carbon credits is part of Total Energies' so-called climate strategy. However, not only does it not imply a real reduction in the company's emissions - which continues to invest in the extraction of more fossil fuels - but, as the Kichwa warn, it also contributes to the violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples, making it more difficult for them to defend their territories and livelihoods.

The Kichwa organisations express their great concern that the creation of the PNCAZ was carried out without proper prior consultation to obtain their free, prior and informed consent...Likewise, the territorial rights of the Kichwa communities continue to be violated by denying them access to and use of their ancestral territories...

Faced with the lack of a response from Total, and given the intransigence of CIMA and SERNANP in not recognising their territorial rights by continuing to boycott technical roundtables supposedly to seek solutions, the organisations have decided to make these letters public...