POLICY PERU 2014

We are traveling in Madre de Dios in the Amazon and in and around the capital city of Lima, recording reflections, meetings, and images. Participants are studying sustainable development policy challenges in Peru with a focus on the tensions between economic development, environmental well-being, democracy, and the protection of human rights, particularly those of indigenous peoples... In the Amazonian Tambopata region, we are staying at Posada Amazonas, a research-oriented eco-lodge co-owned and operated by the Ese'eja indigenous community of Infierno in partnership with Rainforest Expeditions. We are studying this cooperative arrangement of ecotourism as an example of employment-generating, environmentally-sound, and self-managed local development, a model challenged by large-scale resource exploitation moving further into the Amazon and the recent completion of the Interoceanic Highway, which cuts through the Amazon. We study the problem of illegal gold mining in the region as a..