"Santa Clara de Uchunya: A Divided Community", 04 June 2026

...It was not until just over a decade ago that this tranquillity was interrupted by the arrival of palm oil companies that have managed to divide the community, with groups in favour and against their presence.

Servindi spoke with Indigenous leaders and communicators* close to the community and analysed various facts to understand how this division, which one sector strives to deny despite the evidence, came about...

The first company to arrive in 2012 was Plantaciones de Pucallpa SAC. It settled on the other side of the Aguaytía river, in a forested area that the community claims as part of its ancestral territory...

Deforestation caused by Plantaciones de Pucallpa was recorded within the ancestral territory..

The company was denounced and, in September 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MINAGRI) ordered the preventive suspension of its activities. Despite this, the company continued to operate and, in April 2016, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) also ordered it to halt its operations on a preliminary basis until it issues a final decision on the case.

In response, the company put its assets up for public auction and, in October 2016...

That year, Ocho Sur was created after acquiring the assets of Plantaciones de Pucallpa and Plantaciones de Ucayali...

With the arrival of Ocho Sur, the complaints of land invasion and deforestation in Santa Clara de Uchunya did not stop. On the other hand, complaints of harassment against people who reported these events began to appear.

The case of Santa Clara de Uchunya reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) which, in 2020, ordered the Peruvian state to protect the community against threats and land invasions...

Ocho Sur's offers - which came through a Nueva Requena councillor and member of the community - generated friction in the community which, at the beginning of 2022, had to elect its new president.

With the elections of the community's Board of Directors just around the corner, in December 2021 Ocho Sur was once again present in Santa Clara de Uchunya, this time to bring hampers and panettones for Christmas...

All this support earned Ocho Sur the backing of several community members who began to look favourably on the company...

In order to mitigate the presence of only people in favour of Ocho Sur on the Board of Directors headed by Barbarán and registered in the Public Registers, the community members who continue to demand the territory of which they had been dispossessed, had no other option but to insert their voices on the board, winning three of the seven seats on the board...

Those who remain against, reject the presence of Ocho Sur, demand accountability for the deforestation and invasion of their lands, and fight for territorial expansion with the support of Indigenous organisations and non-profit associations...

Those in favour, on the other hand, are grateful for Ocho Sur's support, maintain that the community has no more territory to recover, and reject that Indigenous organisations and NGOs are using the community's name "for their own interests".

In addition, they recently facilitated the signing of an agreement between the community and Ocho Sur in which part of the communal territory is made available to the company under the form of a conservation agreement for 1,200 hectares of forest for 25 years. This type of agreement would supposedly help the company to obtain the approval of its Environmental Adaptation and Management Programme (PAMA) from the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (MIDAGRI), an instrument that the company claims to be processing in order to operate in accordance with environmental standards...

Although the page bears the name of the community, it does not represent the opinion of all the members of Santa Clara de Uchunya, as can be understood at this point knowing that there is a group with an opposing position on Ocho Sur.

However, this page is the one that Ocho Sur usually quotes to deny that members of the community are questioning the company and to affirm that they maintain a good relationship with the community...

...[T]he page has been used to publicise activities in the community and the management of its leaders, but also to reject Indigenous organisations and NGOs that question Ocho Sur. For all these reasons, there are community members who believe that this page is managed by the company...

The difference, as can be seen, is that the position of the group in favour of Ocho Sur is getting more and more coverage in the regional or national media...

...[T]he media only report the version that favours the company, ignoring the demands of this other group...