Court order in Kichwa case a judicial watershed for Peru

For the Kichwa community of Puerto Franco, in the San Martin region of Peru, 13 December 2024 will go down in history as a day to be celebrated, following a landmark court judgment ordering the titling of their ancestral territory, an area that is overlapped by the Cordillera Azul National Park and several timber concessions.

The community was dispossessed of much of its territory more than 20 years ago when the Peruvian government created the national park without prior consultation. The court ordered that the state conduct the ‘prior consultation’ in retrospect.  

Furthermore, the court ordered that the community's right to benefit from conservation activities carried out in their territory be fulfilled. Significantly, the judgment orders the state to distribute such benefits among all the indigenous communities whose territories are overlapped by the national park — even those that the state has not formally recognised. These communities now stand to benefit from the park’s REDD+ emissions reduction project.  

The judgment marks a milestone in the pursuit of constitutional and historical justice for indigenous peoples in Peru. For the first time, a court has recognised that the creation of protected areas on the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent violates their territorial rights; it has ordered restitution of their lands inside the park; and it has ordered the national park service to uphold the right of all indigenous peoples whose lands overlap with the park to participate in its management with decision-making authority.

The judgment also requires the state to recognise and protect the integrity of the Puerto Franco community’s ancestral territory, including their ownership of forests they have customarily used inside the park and on which their subsistence depends. In another first, a deed of collective ownership will be registered in favour of the community following a demarcation and titling process.

Prior to filing the case, constitutional jurisprudence in Peru fell short of recognising full-fledged indigenous ownership of forest lands, so the judgment marks a significant step forward in the recognition of customary indigenous ownership of ancestral lands in the Peruvian Amazon.

FPP has been supporting the territorial struggles of the Kichwa people since 2016, providing advocacy and legal and technical support. We are also providing funding to the lawyers in San Martin heading the litigation effort on behalf of the Puerto Franco community.