Name: Peru looks to revive oil output amid opposition and past pollution
Uploaded: 2025-11-13T21:01:47.302Z
Duration: 4 min 7 s
Description: Peru’s northern Amazon holds hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, according to government data. But Indigenous groups say oil extraction over the past half-century brought pollution, not progress, and are opposed to a fresh wave of development.

Peru’s northern Amazon holds hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, according to government data. But Indigenous groups say oil extraction over the past half-century brought pollution, not progress, and are opposed to a fresh wave of development.

Lima

Efforts are underway in Peru to revive oil production in the Amazon region, where past spills have left lasting environmental damage and fueled mistrust among indigenous communities. State oil company Petro Peru, along with private firms like Upland Oil and Gas, is seeking to restart extraction on dormant sites, promising jobs and community funds.

However, local leaders report ongoing pollution, health issues, and a lack of compensation or cleanup from previous spills. While oil companies claim improvements and blame some incidents on sabotage, community members insist on proper remediation before supporting further drilling.

Peru looks to revive oil output amid opposition and past pollution

In the Peruvian Amazon, black droplets bubble up in stagnant water next to a rusty pipeline. Hularina leader Wilmer Macuzzi said it's oil from past spills, and that it still seeps into the backwaters near his Santa Rosa village. They told us everything is already clean, and then down there, another spill. This is the second, another spill. At this, there will be two spills that have occurred in this area. These plastic barriers are supposed to stop a spill. Instead, they are drooping ineffectively. Now oil companies looking for a revival in the north of the country are asking if Amazon communities here can skip over a seemingly harmful past to reboot the multi-billion dollar oil industry. But indigenous people claim oil extraction brings pollution, not progress. This region once pumped more than half the country's oil, peaking at about 200,000 barrels a day back in the 80s. Though community opposition and the cost of cleanup drove oil production much lower after 2020. And key extraction blocks, plots of land where oil can be extracted, went dormant. But now state oil firm Petro Peru wants many of them active again. Macusi's community, where children play freely among nature, sits here. And close to it is a pipeline built in the 1970s, blamed for repeated spills. It connects a nearby oil field with the leaky, aging North Peruvian pipeline. Macusi says two years after the last rupture, crops still fail and fish have vanished. Others see the Amazon in a different light. Jorge Rivera spoke to Reuters with a picture behind him of his father, one of Peru's first Amazon oil drillers. Rivera is betting that his small company, Upland Oil and Gas, will succeed in its contract with Petro Peru to restart production on a long-paralyzed extraction block. That's without repeating the industry's polluted past and while helping indigenous peoples. With us, they would benefit directly because we had a strategy to create additional work for them and generate a continuous income during the extraction activities. But mistrust runs deep. Many studies over decades have found that animals and indigenous people living near Peru's oil fields have raised levels of lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic. In a small Santa Rosa clinic, health technician Yvette Maldonado said she sees the impact from oil spills firsthand. When there's been an oil spill, the water gets contaminated with oil and the community here consumes that river water. And mostly because of that contaminated water they consume, they get diarrhea. A lot of diarrhea. Petro Peru insists the pipeline is reliable and says oil spill damage is temporary and reversible. It blames many recent spills on deliberate attacks, which have become a source of illicit income in poor river towns. And Rivera's company Upland is continuing to drill while offering indigenous residents jobs, training rapid response spill teams and setting up a community-run fund from oil sales. But as of last month, community leaders say they have yet to see that money. And they want a proper clean-up from past spills before they entertain the idea of more drilling. For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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