Peru mulls new reserves to protect Amazon tribes

By Dana Ford

LIMA, April 23 (Reuters) - Peru's government, which is encouraging energy companies to develop the resource-rich Amazon, is considering creating five new reserves to protect jungle tribes that are living in voluntary isolation.

Advocacy groups have been pressuring Peru to balance indigenous and environmental rights demands with those of foreign investors as the country tries to boost energy output.

The government signed 13 oil and gas concessions earlier this month and has said it will auction at least another dozen lots in July.

"The first step is to see whether there are tribes living within the proposed areas. If there are, we must recognize and protect them," said Mayta Capac, president of the government's indigenous affairs department, INDEPA.

Three of the five proposed reserves are nestled in northeast Peru. One reserve is at the Ecuadorean border and the fifth is in central Peru.

The government has angered human rights groups in the past by casting doubt on whether isolated tribes actually exist. But the official position now is that they do and that it's the government's responsibility to protect them.

Survival International, a London-based indigenous rights group, is hopeful the proposal for new reserves will become a reality and has said the stakes are high.

Roughly half of the world's 100 so-called uncontacted tribes are thought to live in either Brazil or Peru.