Kichwa Statement: SERNANP Once Again Denies Kichwa Territorial Rights in Cordillera Azul National Park

The Kichwa people of San Martin, through three of their local federations, the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of Chazuta Amazonas (FEPIKECHA), and the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of Bajo Huallaga San Martin (FEPIKBHSAM), as well as the regional organisation the Coordinator for the Development and Defense of Indigenous Peoples of the San Martin Region (CODEPISAM) and the national organisation the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), regret and categorically reject the position of the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) on the recognition of their territorial rights, especially of those communities that were dispossessed by the creation of the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) without free, prior and informed consent in 2001.

Read the statement in Spanish

On 18 September, a meeting was held of the sub-commission that had been created as part of the Technical Roundtable to address the conflicts generated by the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ). This meeting was to make operational progress on how the demarcation of three Kichwa communities of the Lower Huallaga (Canayo, Ricardo Palma and Callanayaku) would be carried out within the Park, in accordance with current regulations (RM136-2022-MIDAGRI), which were chosen jointly as a prototype to open the door to the demarcation of the other affected Kichwa communities.

Unfortunately, SERNANP ignored the joint agreements (see the minutes of the meetings of 14 August and 4 September) and decided not to address demarcation within the PNCAZ, offering simple agreements on minor activities, also denying all the national and international regulations that protect the rights of Indigenous peoples over their ancestral territories.

The dialogue in this technical space came to an end due to the intransigence of SERNANP, thus losing the opportunity to finally write, in the words of the Kichwa, a new social contract for conservation in the country.

In their statement, the Kichwa people declare that they:

• Condemn the lies and attitude of SERNANP in the Technical Roundtable of the PNCAZ, which unfortunately has not borne fruit due to its position of colonial conservation.
• Declare SERNANP and CIMA (the NGO that administers the Park) in the Kichwa territory as personae non gratae, not taking responsibility for any security situation of their personnel who continue to try to enter their communities to divide the Indigenous movement with disrespect, discrimination, lies and misery, deceitfully ignoring the structure of the Indigenous organisations in San Martin.
• On the basis of their right to self-determination, they will take all legal and physical measures to recover their territory within the PNCAZ, even proceeding to territorial self-demarcation within the Park and thus recover their streams, purmas, urmanas, purinas and mountains.
• Alert public and private institutions that the titling processes developed in the region with the PTRT3 have been the product of the historical struggle of the Indigenous movement and not of SERNANP, an institution that tries to make it seem that the processes of demarcation of Kichwa territories in the buffer zone of the PNCAZ are thanks to its good will.

They alert the entire national and international community, especially the human rights community, to this new historical violation in which SERNANP does not respect indigenous territorial rights in the slightest, and that the PNCAZ is a space where there is no full and effective participation, with a disguised governance that has ignored the very criteria for which it was awarded on the Green List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).