This book comprises a total of 14 articles addressing the issue of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon and its impacts, not only on the Amazonian environment and wildlife but particularly on the communities inhabiting the area. These impacts are being facilitated by informal dynamics for which the state is largely responsible and has failed to act promptly enough to put a stop to these dynamics and redirect their drivers towards a sustainable use of the environment and its resources.

The most harmful of these dynamics is the expansion of illegal coca growing and alluvial mining. The environmental impacts are, nonetheless, also the result of official policies aimed solely at promoting economic growth that benefits the investment companies to the detriment of the population and the environment. The state has promoted such policies through a strategy of tax reduction (meaning less public investment in social services such as education and health) and a lowering of environmental standards and social rights, such as job security. Their policies have also included the construction of roads that enable companies and extractors alike to gain easy access to new areas rich in natural resources, which are then rapidly plundered. As recent judicial inquiries have shown, these infrastructure projects are based on a logic of corruption rather than national interest.

As for the indigenous peoples, they are suffering serious aggression aimed above all at minimising, or even trying to abolish, the rights protecting them, such as the guarantee of free, prior and informed consultation as provided by ILO C169, the aim of which is to reach an agreement on initiatives affecting them.