Miguel Guimaraes
Miguel Guimaraes is a human rights defender from the Flor de Ucayali community and vice president of the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP). He was president of the Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Tributaries (FECONAU), one of the oldest indigenous federations of the Peruvian Amazon, which represents indigenous organisations from more than 30 native communities. The federation advocates for the recognition of indigenous communities’ rights and preservation of their ancestral territories. FECONAU has been at the forefront of the struggle for indigenous rights in the Peruvian Amazon, particularly in the cases of Santa Clara de Uchunya. Since 2013, the community has been fighting the usurpation of their ancestral land by palm oil companies and land traffickers, demanding the Peruvian state access to justice.
While many human rights defenders (HRDs) can operate freely in Peru, those working on the environment, in particular on the environmental and human rights impact of the extractive industry, face harsh repression, including intimidation, smear campaigns, death threats, surveillance, and judicial harassment.
