CEPKA statement: "We will not stop until we get back our dispossessed territories!”

The following statement was issued by the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of Amazonia (CEPKA) during its Extraordinary General Assembly to elect a new board, held in the city of Lamas, on 14 June 2025. The statement was also signed by the President of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP). In it, the grassroots communities of the largest federation of the Kichwa people of San Martin expressed their solidarity with the communities of Puerto Franco and Anak Pillwana, in the face of the criminalisation and smears they have been facing for fighting to recover their ancestral territories. They also strongly criticised the exclusionary conservation model promoted and practised by SERNANP and CIMA, which depends on alliances with oil and extractive companies.

Statement

In response to the recent criminalisation, smears and stigmatisation against the Native Communities of Puerto Franco and Anak Pillwana, and the Kichwa people and the Indigenous movement in the region of San Martin, who are fighting to recover their ancestral territories in the face of exclusionary conservation projects such as the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) and the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area (ACR-CE) imposed on our territories without our consent, the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of Amazonia (CEPKA) and its native base communities declare the following:

1. We reject the statement of the PNCAZ Management Committee (CGPNCAZ) published on social networks on 10 June, for stigmatising our historical struggle to recover our ancestral territories. The false narratives and information it contains are the same ones that the park administrators and SERNANP used in the hearings of the Puerto Franco case, which failed before the court of first instance, which found in our favour. We regret that these actors resort to these tactics to put pressure on the judges of the Mixed Court of Juanjuí.
2. We also regret that the regional press, such as the media outlet Radio Tropical, is waging a smear campaign and questioning the Indigenous legitimacy of our base community, the Anak Pillwana native community, even questioning its recognition as a community by the agrarian authorities.
3. We reaffirm that our property rights as Indigenous peoples existed prior to formal recognition as a native community or people by the State; it is their obligation to protect and title our territories even if they have not been formally recognised. No National Park or Regional Conservation Area came before us.
4. The Peruvian State had and has the obligation to consult us to obtain our free, prior and informed consent since 1995. The fact that a CEPKA community has not been recognised, or is not inscribed in the public registers, does not mean that the State is exempt from fulfilling its duty.
5. In relation to the PNCAZ, the fact that some Kichwa have participated in meetings and other activities organised by the PNCAZ does not imply that we have consented to their presence in our territory. Least of all that our territorial claims have been dismissed. They are wrong. And the narrative used by SERNANP, CIMA and the CGPNCAZ is perverse.
6. Their racist discourse that questions our Indigenous identity and customary rights seriously harms our communities and represents a form of discrimination that is inadmissible under Peruvian and international law.
7. These acts of stigmatisation are not isolated cases. There are criminalisation actions undertaken by the Public Prosecutor's Office of San Martin against the Apu of Puerto Franco and his legal defence team, which is linked to a complaint by the Park's Chief of Staff. With their denunciations they want to silence our territorial claim. We therefore reject these cruel tactics that legitimise violence against us.
8. We demand that the PNCAZ, its Management Committee and others who support the exclusionary conservation model that is being imposed on our territories stop disseminating misleading, racist and false statements that endanger our communities, leaders and defenders, as well as our allies who accompany us in our historic struggle.
9. We condemn the hypocrisy of SERNANP and CIMA, who claim to be very conservationist, but authorise and sell PNCAZ carbon credits to large oil companies such as Shell and Total Energies, companies that dispossess Indigenous peoples in other continents and whose extractive activities contribute further to climate change. In this way they finance their activities with money from polluting extractive industries.
10. Or that SERNANP recently signed a cooperation agreement with Pluspetrol, the cause of the most terrible oil spill in the country's history, to strengthen its management of protected natural areas. While we Indigenous peoples question the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in the forests, the institutions supposedly dedicated to conservation negotiate with extractive companies. This is the "Sacha Estado", giving biodiversity data to Pluspetrol for biopiracy business in bioprospecting, in exchange for fattening the payroll of SERNANP.
11. Finally, we express our solidarity with other Kichwa communities and federations, such as our brothers and sisters in Bajo Huallaga, who are also suffering from these attacks.

We won't stop until we recover our dispossessed territories!

With organised and titled native communities, there will always be forest for all!

No to the usurpation of Indigenous territory, titling now!

Kawsachun kichwa llaktakuna!