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A new Catastrophe for the Indigenous populations of Peru : the Mennonites ! The butterfly effect or how a small detail of History became an environmental problem In the 1520s, during the Protestant reform, a few hundreds of Catholics in the Swiss canton of Bern rejected the principle of baptism at birth, advocating a baptism in conscience when reaching adulthood. Thus were born the early Anabaptists that upset Catholics and Protestants for the children will go to hell if they die before their majority. This simple little detail will transform them, just like the Amish, in outcast. Rejected from Switzerland, they are pushed to Russia in the 16th century, then to Canada in the 19th century. One hundred fifty years after their first crossing of the Atlantic, the Mennonites are now more than a million and a half on the single American continent! With an average of 8 children per family, their population doubles every 15 years... They need new land every half century! Vanderland threatens the shipibo territory of Nuevo Ceilan near Pucallpa! Speaking platdeutsch, a medieval German forgotten by the rest of the world, recluse from the world, discarding schools, electricity and many other aspects of modernity, the Mennonites could in some ways be closer to Native Indians populations, if they had not kept intact their colonial mindset, namely, debarking on a foreign land and immediately subdue and transform it at will. Nearly a hundred families from Bolivia arrived to Peru in June 2017. A specific agreement between Bolivia and Peru? Some say that Evo Morales did not want them anymoreÂ… For these apatrids, denying the laws of nation States, how is it possible that a sovereign State like Peru could so easily let them in and colonize the land. They chose a well secluded area, an intact piece of forest. Masisea, a small town said amazonian but how long will it last! Following their arrival, nearly 500 hectares have been sold to them and went up in smoke, as a first part of their setting up plan. The government even built a 10 km access road in the primary forest! There's a rumor going around saying hundreds more families will settle down in the coming years. And worse is coming, the land the Mennonites bought are next to the ancestral territories of the Natives Shipibos of the community of Nuevo Ceilan! The Shipibos own it since 1975, with a title extended and confirmed in 1993 for 1900 hectares of primary forest that they never wanted to exploit, denying to nearby settlers to enter their territory. As we can see on this satellite photo of 2015, the village and a few gardens are concentrated in the North of the territory and the majority of the land in the Southeast remained untouched for more than 50 years. But it is around the point H5 that the Mennonites settled (photos below). Zero Deforestation campaigns alongside the Shipibos. It is unacceptable that property rights belonging to the Shipibo community are not respected by the State and surrounding towns. The inspectors of the Regional Direction of Agriculture of the Ucayali (DRAU) must enforce the Imiria Reserve too, and check that no land is occupied illegally and even more the primary forest destroyed outrageously. Let's help them to protect their forest ! Zero Deforestation is funding an 8 km ecological path and an observation cabin as a watchpost To go further:
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