The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has posted on social media:
“Yesterday [August 26], #PBI joined @bufetedh [the Human Rights Law Firm] in submitting formal letters to the President’s Private Secretariat, requesting attention and dialogue regarding the Laguna del Tigre and Sierra Lacandon cases. More than 50 communities also submitted the letters today to the Petén Departmental Government and held a demonstration to protest the lack of consultation regarding the extractive activities carried out by the oil company Perenco and the updating of the Master Plan without their involvement.”
Both Laguna del Tigre and Sierra Lacandon are national parks within the Maya Biosphere Reserve (established in 1990).
In October 2025, Le Monde reported: “The French-British company left the Central American country over the summer. Since 2001, it had been operating an oil field inside the Laguna del Tigre National Park. The group stands accused of failing to fulfill any of its environmental restoration commitments.”
In January 2026, Radio France International (RFI) also reported: “Defenders of the environment and local communities denounce the irresponsibility of the Franco-British company Perenco that extracted oil in the jungle of Petén, in the middle of a protected reserve. The oil activity, which ended in August 2025, left the Guatemalan state with environmental liabilities and millions of dollars.”
RFI further notes: “This is the story of the controversial Xan field, an oil facility in the heart of the Petén Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala’s main protected area in the north of the country. For four decades, the companies Basic Resources [a Paris-based company acquired by Perenco in 2001] and Perenco extracted thousands of barrels of oil from the subsoil until the Guatemalan government of Bernardo Arévalo terminated the operating license on August 12, 2025.”
That RFI article from earlier this year also reported: “An activist defending the rights of the communities of the Laguna del Tigre region also accuses the Perenco company of environmental irresponsibility. ‘There was no safe closure that would guarantee non-contamination in the area. The bad smell of sulfur in the area is notorious. And the acid water tanks that the company used to inject into the wells were left in ponds in poor condition. With the rains they overflow and go into the lagoons,’ warns the activist who asked to remain anonymous.”
The Perrodo family
The Guardian has reported: “The Perrodo family, which via Perenco owns more than 3,000 oil wells across the world, has built up an estimated fortune of more than £7bn, which they spend on a jet-set luxury lifestyle detailed in Instagram posts.” The company highlights that it was founded by Hubert Perrodo “the son of a French fisherman” and that “Hubert’s son, François, took over in 2006”.
Accompaniment
The struggle for justice and against impunity. Edgar Pérez and the Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) – founded by him in 2010 – provide pro-bono legal representation to victim organizations in judicial proceedings for human rights violations committed during the internal armed conflict and other human rights violations that past and present.
PBI began to accompany Edgar Pérez Archila in August 2010, due to several security incidents Edgar had faced in relation to the high profile judicial processes he was working on. At the end of 2013, we extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work in high-profile trials to fight against impunity and in defending criminalised human rights defenders.
Additional reading
–Inside the dirty secrets of the oil company Perenco (Disclose, November 2022)
–Guatemala: Oil Companies and the Subservience of the Government (Upside Down World, June 2011)
–The billionaire amateur racing driver who runs the Poole oil leak pipeline (The Guardian, March 2023).
