Isolated indigenous people living in the Peruvian Amazon are being exposed to disease and social disruption due to forced contact with workers from the $1.4 billion Camisea Gas Project, Pluspetrol of Argentina, and Hunt Oil of Texas. The 1.1 million acre Nahua-Kugapakori Reserve is the home of the Nahua, Nanti, Matsigenka, and Kirineri peoples, estimated at a population of 1,000 to 2,000 people. These peoples live in isolation from Peruvian society and have minimal contact with other indigenous populations. The groups are warning financiers like the Inter-American Development Bank that further activity in the area could spread deadly disease and create social disruption, ant that contact with oil company workers is a violation of their internationally recognized rights. Almost 50 percent of the Nahua died in the 1980s from illnesses introduced by workers from Shell who were exploring for oil and gas. For more information on the Friends of the Earth campaign to stop the pipeline, see http://www.foei.org/?searchterm=shell+peru
