Consultations on the draft Forestry and Wildlife law were held with the communities of Puerto Maldonado, Pucallpa and Iquitos. Indigenous groups in these communities are against the draft law. This is a serious drawback for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, as the new Forestry and Wildlife law is essential in meeting the conditions of the FTA.
According to the Agriculture Committee of Congress, the indigenous groups refuses the article No. 62 of the draft Forestry and Wildlife law, which regulates the awarding of concessions in indigenous lands. The article is also unclear where it states that the concession area shall not exceed 40,000 hectares and a company could not have more than one concession. In fact, in the latest version of the law ,the ban on the accumulation of the licenses has disappeared. This change paves the way to the formation of large sets of concessions, totalizing up to one millions ha of forest. Mega-concessions which, in law-less remote areas, could become private kingdoms, de facto sanctioning the never disappeared practice of slave work.
Peru's natural forest cover is second largest in South America With a total natural forest area of 68.7 million hectares, Peru has the second largest natural forest area in South America after Brazil and ninth largest in the world, according to the Agricultural Ministry (Minag). Most of the forest area in Peru is in the Amazon, accounting for 94%, followed by coastal forests (4.6%), and highland forests (1.3%).