...As has been amply documented by investigative journalists, Ocho Sur (and its predecessor, Plantaciones de Pucallpa) have been linked to environmental destruction and rights violations affecting Santa Clara de Uchunya, and other Indigenous communities in the Ucayali region...

The fragmentation and division in the Santa Clara de Uchunya community that coincides with Ocho Sur’s presence in their ancestral territory has also been documented. Evidence suggests that the company’s reported attempts to interfere in Indigenous governance structures in Santa Clara de Uchunya are not an isolated incident...

An audio recording released by Ecos TV revealed that lawyer Augusto Borja Zárate admitted in a WhatsApp conversation that “Ocho Sur has hired me as a lawyer and wants me to work with San Francisco.”

Although the lawyer and the company subsequently denied this, the situation generated such alarm that on 22 November 2024 dozens of San Francisco community members mobilised chanting “fuera Ocho Sur” (get out Ocho Sur) to express their rejection of the company and its alleged interference in their community governance.

This prolonged internal conflict appears to have been resolved with a judicial ruling...International human rights bodies, including the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders have expressed concerns in relation to Ocho Sur and its links with alleged human rights violations in Santa Clara de Uchunya...

FPP regards this as an attempt to criminalise those who have historically supported the community in their efforts to defend their territory. It also underscores how the assumption of office of a chief represented by company-funded lawyers has hampered efforts to hold both the invaders and the company accountable. At the very least, these acts of criminalisation appear to have targeted and sought to silence territorial defenders who denounce the invaders entering the communal territory from Ocho Sur’s plantation and have linked those invasions to the access road in the criminal complaints filed with the public prosecutor’s office...

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders has expressly raised concerns about these alleged smear campaigns in the media and apparent attempts to criminalise the legal practitioners named in those complaints. Significantly, these complaints have not been upheld and the Public Prosecutor’s Office closed the underlying criminal investigation against FPP, IDL and FECONAU for lack of evidence. Ocho Sur’s letter, sent a year after the investigation was closed, makes no mention of this outcome, an omission that is difficult to reconcile with its claim to transparency...

FPP stands by the accuracy and integrity of its documentation, and by the community members and territorial defenders of Santa Clara de Uchunya who continue to defend their ancestral territory at significant personal risk...