Peruvian environmental and human rights advocates this month sensed hard work ahead as the vote-count following the country’s June 7 presidential runoff showed right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leading leftist Roberto Sánchez. Fujimori—daughter of the late Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s authoritarian president from 1990 to 2000—was 49,641 votes, or 0.27%, ahead of Sánchez as of June 29, with 100% of ballots tallied. However, authorities had yet to issue an official declaration of the outcome. During the campaign, neither Fujimori nor her Fuerza Popular party made significant mention of environmental-governance challenges such as deforestation, mercury contamination from illegal mining and incursions into Indigenous territories by illegal loggers, drug runners, miners and more. Though Sánchez and his Juntos por el Perú party focused on wealth and land redistribution, they advocated for forest protection and Indigenous land rights. The word “Indigenous” only appears four times in Fuerza Popular’s 144-page... [Log in to read more]