The incidence of major flooding along the Ucalyali Valley in Peru has increased with the deforestation of the eastern slopes of the Andes. The Quicha people along the Napo River are suffering from the effects of the floods, especially the loss of fish. Hundreds of families of the Ashankinka people in Atalaya, Peru are kept as slaves on farms or forced to cut timber without pay. Young girls are kept captive in landowners houses and forced to service them at will. Both young and old are mutilated and beaten for trying to escape.
Tuberculosis is rampant.
In 1988, the Peruvian government pressured the landowners, but, after a few months of inaction by the Peruvian government, the landowners again clamped down on their Indian slaves. The results are similar at the new route between Chanchamayo and Satipo in Peru, the road to Lago Agrio-Coca in Ecuador, BR364 in Rondonia, Brazil and the road into the Bolivian Beni. It is estimated that of the five million hectares that have been destroyed along the Eastern slopes of the Andes, only between 20 and 30 percent are still under production. While the logging interests are a significant threat to the rainforests, most of the timber reserves are wasted. When vast areas are felled for cattle ranching or other monocropping, millions of cubic feet of wood are burned and wasted.