Extractivism and Unjust Food Insecurity for Peru’s Loreto Indigenous Communities

Abstract

Background. Many scholars have examined Indigenous food security and sovereignty yet the topic still represents a small share of environmental justice scholarship. Therefore, we completed a case study of the environmental justice challenges concerning food security faced by the Indigenous communities of Peru’s Loreto region. Methods. During 2019, we conducted fieldwork in 64 Indigenous communities of Kukama Kukamiria and Urarina in the Amazon rainforests of Loreto, Peru. Based on a semi-stratified sample and snowball sampling method, we combined participant observation with 139 interviews focused on feeding habits, production and availability, access, utilization, food stability, and perception of food insecurity with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) method. Results. Analyzing these themes led to worrisome assessments of the food insecurity and institutional limits of Indigenous communities. Because of their geographic location, these communities experience a degraded and unhealthy environment with water and food contaminated by hydrocarbon extraction activity. Furthermore, Peru’s policy of food and nutrition security has public management deficiencies especially in the Loreto region. Thus, many of the efforts adopted remain ineffective. Conclusion. Indigenous communities that live following ancestral culture often lack resources to change their diets. Thus, they frequently suffer the most following the contamination of an environment with which they experience an interdependent relation.