CEDIA

Author(s): Juulke Brosky
Publication date: Tuesday 19 October 2004

Land rights and sustainable management of natural resources in the watersheds of the Peruvian Amazon.

Country: Peru
Sector: human rights, sustainable development, gender equality
Founded: 1982
Website: www.cedia.org.pe

Background:
CEDIA is a non-profit organisation that promotes the interest of the indigenous population in Peruvian society. It concentrates its activities around the improvement of the living conditions in indigenous communities in the watersheds of the Peruvian Amazon. CEDIA defends the rights of the indigenous population, paying special attention to cultural identity, securing land titles and promoting sustainable development.

The Peruvian government has created the opportunity for indigenous groups to obtain common ownership of their land. CEDIA supports the native population in the often complicated and un-transparent process to achieve common ownership. Through this support efforts are taken to close the gap between communities and (local) government. CEDIA is one of the few organisations that works directly with indigenous communities, and it is unique in its combined focus on land titles and sustainable development.

Contribution to Civil Society Building:
CEDIA is an example of an organisation that devotes most of its activities to the strengthening of civil society. It aims at building a society where the cultural identity of the indigenous population of the Peruvian Amazon is respected and where indigenous communities can manage their natural resources in a sustainable way. Participation is a keyword within the activities and CEDIA fulfils a role as facilitator. Over the past 20 years, a good relationship with the local population has grown and CEDIA developed thorough knowledge of the cultural identity of the indigenous population.

CEDIA supports communities to secure their land rights. To this end CEDIA tries to close the gap between communities and government. With the assistance of CEDIA, land titles have been obtained for 279 indigenous communities, which is 25% of the indigenous population in Peru. Additionally CEDIA assisted the communities with the assignation of 2 communal reserves of 440.000 hectares and with the application for 3 reserves of another 800.000 hectares.

CEDIA focuses on strengthening the organisational structures of the communities through capacity building with special attention to management of communities and of natural resources. Trainings are offered on community administration, civil status registration etc. CEDIA makes sure to involve traditional leaders in the capacity building exercises. A relatively new focal point is gender equality, which is achieved through effective incorporation of women in community management.

Besides direct activities in the communities, CEDIA fulfils a role as mediator between communities, local or national government and private companies. CEDIA has represented local communities in several environmental conflicts with private companies and has brought quite a few cases of pollution by private companies to the attention of the national government.

Contribution to Millennium Development Goals:
CEDIA activities focus in particular on ensuring environmental sustainability ( MDG 7). All its activities are in one way or an other related to emphasising, stimulating or creating a sustainable livelihood together with the native population of the Peruvian watersheds. Other activities also involve efficient management of eco-tourism. The contribution to MDG 7 is in this respect easily recognised. Additionally efforts are made to increase gender equality and to educate and empower women, which contributes to MDG 3.

Indirectly CEDIA’s activities can be seen as an effort to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1). Sustainable management of natural resources protects the villages against sliding into poverty because through careful management, natural resources will still be available for next generations and dependency on other resources through lack of natural resources is avoided.

From the Field:
“The Peruvian policy towards human rights has considerably changed since the fall of Fujimori*. More openness of the government has led to the start of a dialogue between many groups in society and the government. In the light of this change the government has taken the initiative to set up a commission of indigenous populations in Peru in which mostly prominent politicians (including the wife of the president Toledo) discuss with NGOs and organisations of indigenous people, themes like land & users rights, human rights, gender etc. CEDIA has had sometimes strained relations with the government, but lately has relatively good relations with INRENA (Institute for Natural Resource Management) and PETT (National Land Registry Office) that are two relevant government institutions for CEDIAs work. In the field of land titling, sanitation, and registration, the government policy is now providing secure land titles to all communities in the Peruvian Amazon. The process to achieve this is rather lengthy and can hardly be achieved by INRENA and PETT alone. CEDIA has been very efficient in assisting the indigenous communities with this process of securing land rights and promoting sustainable development in communities. Therefore it contributes significantly to the governments land policies but more importantly defends the rights of indigenous populations to access of land and use of its natural resources.”
*President of Peru from1990 to 2000

Quote from organisation assessment by Hivos

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