In solidarity with indigenous organizations, federations and nationalities at the Amazon regional level coordinated by COICA and its members AIDESEP, APA, CIDOB, COIAB, CONFENIAE, FOAG, OPIAC, OIS, and ORPIA; at the national level including APIB, CONAIE, ONIC, as well as other organizations, federations and communities1, who have expressed deep concern about the impending threat of COVID-19 in their ancestral territories and communities, we demand integrated, effective, and culturally adequate state responses to this crisis. This begins with an immediate moratorium on any activity that includes the entering of foreign persons into indigenous territories, the development of mining activities, logging, oil exploration and extraction, industrial agriculture, religious proselytization, or increased militarization, especially in transborder territories under pressure from armed actors and organized crime.
For over 500 years, indigenous peoples of the Amazon and across the Americas have faced invasions and loss of their ancestral territories, ethnic and socioeconomic discrimination, and the constant threat of physical and cultural extermination resulting in displacement, disease, and genocide. Now, indigenous peoples – particularly those living in voluntary isolation – are gravely threatened by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic…