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Indigenous leaders stand up to Big Oil and bigger banks
Reporting exposed how HSBC and Santander empowered a state oil company prone to spills and contamination
Lucy Nash
January 15, 2025
Hi everyone,
January’s hump day has arrived. New subscribers (hello and welcome!) may not know I’m from the place described in last week’s quote as that “soggy little island”, otherwise known as the United Kingdom. The weather has been as cold and wet as ever, so I’m giving myself a pat on the back for surviving this far.
Still, just because I and everyone else north of the equator are shivering through the cold of winter doesn’t mean those on the other side of the globe have it all sunshine and roses. This week’s story brings both together: wrongdoing in South America, and work to fix it closer to home for me, in Westminster, the heart of UK politics.
The largest wetlands in the Peruvian Amazon, the Pastaza River complex, is home to nearly 300 species of fish and rare birds. It’s a vital source of food for numerous Indigenous communities. Yet, bisecting this rich ecosystem is a huge 1,100km oil pipeline owned by the national oil company PetroPerú. Since 2013, there have been more than 53 oil spills from the pipeline.
Early last year, TBIJ’s environment team revealed that Santander bank coordinated a $1bn bond for PetroPerú in 2021, while HSBC facilitated a refinery deal that would increase oil production in the Amazon – despite both banks having public green policies. On the surface, this reeks of hypocrisy.
Rob Soutar, the environment editor, explained: “The point about the story was that you can have a policy that makes you look like you care about Indigenous territories, protected wetlands and the Amazon. But if in reality, you're supporting a refinery that's sucking up oil from the Amazon, it looks for all the world like green-washing. Like you're saying one thing, but in reality your activities are facilitating a range of risks to very sensitive systems”.
In November last year, after the story was published, the Forest Peoples Programme brought leaders from Indigenous communities to the UK parliament. There, they urged lawmakers to ban international banks from supporting Amazon oil.
One of these leaders was Pamuk Teófilo of the Wampís Nation. His people have lived on 5,000 square miles of forest and wetland in northern Peru for more than 7,000 years. “The presence of the oil tankers has contaminated the Morona River, and the water is not suitable for human consumption. There is also division between us, forming conflicts,” Pamuk told me. Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick, who chaired the meeting, later raised the issue in the House of Lords, requesting that ministers meet directly with affected people. Rob emphasised the urgency of this issue. “The Amazon is a critical last line of defence against climate breakdown,” he told me. “It’s already at the point of ceasing to absorb more carbon than it emits. Indigenous people are widely regarded as the best defenders of the forest. They need to be heard and empowered with this kind of information if they are going to stand up to banks’ greenwashing.” |  Pamuk Teófilo of the Wampís Nation in Peru |
Politicians knowing about what’s going on doesn’t change anything in and of itself, but it is a crucial step for the government to act to ensure that banks and other corporations aren’t allowed to get away with destroying the environment.
Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.
Tsanim Evaisto Wajai Asamat, a Wampís Indigenous leader from northern Peru, travelled to the UK to speak to politicians about the impact that major banks’ policies have had on his land. The Wampís Nation is the first Indigenous autonomous government to be declared in Peru, where it is known as the GTANW. |  Tsanim Evaisto Wajai Asamat |
“I am from the Wampís Indigenous people in northern Peru and currently serve as director of the Justice Directorate of the GTANW, a position I hold due to my law degree. My role involves developing a justice system specific to the Wampís, grounded in our customs. I provide advice and training workshops to my Wampís brothers and sisters about our collective rights as Indigenous people: territorial law, self-determination, self-government, autonomy, prior consultation and administration of customary justice.
The state company PetroPerú is financed by foreign entities and carries out fuel exploration and extraction in our territories. To date there have been multiple crude oil spills which have contaminated the territories of the Indigenous peoples and caused various territorial damages in the Wampís jurisdiction. This damage is currently not being remedied – neither the state nor the company PetroPerú wants to assume its responsibility. During a recent court case PetroPerú was ordered to comply with maintaining the entire North Peruvian oil pipeline in the shortest possible time, but – at least in the Wampís territory – absolutely nothing has been done.
It should be noted that we Wampís live off our land since our food, housing and health come directly from the land, therefore any contamination of the land puts our lives, health, food and offspring at risk. Contamination threatens not just our livelihood but our very survival.
Travelling to the United Kingdom to share our experiences was challenging. Initially, I doubted we’d be heard, but I was proven wrong, especially in Wales. The government’s commitment to environmental preservation, reflected in the “Generation Law”, aligns closely with GTANW’s policies.
I was moved by the involvement of children in environmental stewardship, such as a school committee ensuring food suppliers adhere to ethical standards. I’m deeply grateful to Huw Irranca-Davies and Julie James, as well as Eluned Morgan, of the Welsh Labour Party, who listened to our concerns. In England, we also met politicians who pledged to raise our message in high-level discussions.
We hope that politicians can join with our position, which is: conserve the environment for our future generations and achieve the Tarimat Pujut – a term in Wampís that translated into English means “the good living”.
I’ll leave you with a quick thought on a different topic: one small but significant development that caught my attention this week was the release of the official reasons Boris Johnson gave for nominating his young and inexperienced aide, Charlotte Owen, for a life peerage. After an 18-month freedom of information battle, the House of Lords Appointments Commission was finally forced to release this information. (If you’re wondering what it was, apparently she led on “sensitive and key projects” including a Cabinet reshuffle.)
Freedom of information requests, or FOIs, are a legal tool for anyone to ask public authorities for information. They are crucial for holding the government accountable.
If you want to find out more about FOIs, I recommend diving into the archive at What Do They Know. I warn you, though, it’s easy to end up down a dozen different rabbit holes!
This year marks 20 years since the law that created FOIs came into force. But journalists and campaigners are increasingly concerned about the government’s reluctance to comply with its legal obligations. Something to watch closely!
As always, I welcome your feedback and suggestions.
Have a lovely week,
Lucy Nash |  |