Contribution short abstract

I examine the socio-political tensions that Indigenous communities in Fitzcarraldo District have experienced in recent years over the paving of the Salvación–Boca Manu road, in Manu Nacional Park's buffer zone.

Contribution long abstract

The growth of road infrastructure in areas of high environmental protection, such as buffer zones, is a difficult process to contain (Salazar Moireira, 2022), with profound implications for conservation. According to Harvey and Knox (2012; 2015), roads in the ‘Amazonian frontiers’ generate expectations of modernisation and development in communities that perceive themselves as isolated from urban centres. However, the structural precariousness of these frontier contexts limits the materialisation of the projected benefits, producing an ‘enchantment’ that makes road construction a central aspiration of the local imagination.

This paper aims to take a different perspective, beginning by examining the socio-political tension that some Arakmbut and Yine communities in the province of Fitzcarraldo have experienced in recent years with regard to the paving of the Salvación–Boca Manu road and their status as a ‘border society.’ We will prioritise the social and political dimension of the community members themselves, who have led these protests and collective efforts for paving, despite their awareness of the environmental risks and future economic precariousness that this could bring to Manu National Park. The episodes of protest—marches, river blockades, and kidnappings—have revealed persistent patterns in local politics and raise questions about some central issues, in particular the limits of conservation policies in integrating the economic and social demands of indigenous peoples, as well as their plans to offer valid alternatives to the advance of neoliberalism and the resulting environmental degradation.