Indigenous leaders travel to UK from Peru to draw attention to oil damage and banking

Indigenous leaders from the Wampis Nation in Peru are urging lawmakers at the House of Commons in London to ban international banks’ support for Amazon oil activities they say harm their ancestral rainforests. HSBC bank, JPMorgan Chase and Santander helped finance the Peruvian state-owned oil company Petroperu as it sought to upgrade a coastal refinery. In the last decade there have been dozens of leaks along a pipeline that serves the refinery. The banks say they adhere to environmental guidelines and take great care over which project to back. The Indigenous members were among several delegations also pressing for a proposed law that would make it a crime for British businesses to harm the environment.