Wampis Nation rejects Peruvian State’s intention to expropriate its territory for fortress conservation

The Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation (GTANW) has denounced attempts by the National Service of Natural Protected Areas of Peru (SERNANP) to re-categorise part of their territory, the mountain range of Kampankias, without consent or respect for their right to self-determination.

The Wampis Nation has been building its path towards autonomy and self-determination under the GTANW since 2015, in a territory spanning 1,327,770 hectares of lowland rainforest in the northern Peruvian Amazon. This includes the Kampankias mountain range as an integral socio-historical and territorial space within their territory. Since 1999, part of the Kampankias mountains have been classified by the Peruvian State (already against the wishes of the Wampis Nation) as a “reserved area”. This proposed categorisation process by SERNANP threatens to subject this territory to an even stricter regime of state control under the regulations of the Protected Natural Areas (NPA) legal framework.

The GTANW’s statutes are clear (Article 38 and 39) when mentioning that no natural protected area can be created within the Wampis’ territory without their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (as established in international treaties and jurisprudence, and national legislation for Indigenous Peoples), and that for no reason will the Wampis Nation renounce control or administration of a space vital to their cultural and spiritual heritage. In recent years, the Wampis have already developed their own territorial land-use zoning, planning and by-laws, where the Kampankias mountain range remains strictly for their own conservation purposes and as inviolable as it has been for centuries, where even the creation of local communities is not allowed.

 

“Kampankiasa Murari is the spiritual centre of our territory, its spine and the territorial hinge that unites the Kanus and Kankaim basins where we live. It is a place of life where the spirits of our ancestors and nature dwell (nunkui, tsunki, tuna, panki, uun yawa, pinchu, sunka, chirip, payar, muukan, ikajnumach, ujukam, nantu, ujumak, pakip kiña, ukukui , amich, ampush, kurarep, yakakua, uu, wampan, wanip, week, amuntai, etsa, kuji, kaya, wankanim) and where the streams that give life to our communities are born. It is in these mountains that the vital processes that allow for the reproduction of our fauna and flora are developed. The mountains of Kampankis express the strong core of the spiritual bond the Wampis Nation has with its ancestral territory, as well as its territorial unity, and it has been conserved and stewarded with care for generations and generations of our ancestors residing in the two watersheds of the Kanús and Kankaim. The state of conservation of these mountains, after centuries of use by our ancestors, has been internationally recognised and praised. The Wampis Nation assumes it as its own cultural and spiritual heritage and declares that for no reason will it relinquish its control and administration in the way it has been doing, nor will it allow any non-consensual impacts or interference.”

Article 39. Sacred Areas of the Territory of the Wampis People: the Mountains of Kampankis, Statute of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation

 

As the Wampis said in their statement: “The Kampankias mountain range is part of our ancestral territory, no doubt about it. Thus, it is not possible for SERNANP to attempt to carry out an administrative process that results in the expropriation of our territory. In response to the formal consultations made by the GTANW in January 2021, SERNANP denied in writing having carried out any stage of the categorisation process for the Santiago Comainas Reserve Zone. We now know that they were acting surreptitiously and did not tell us the truth. Transparency is a constitutional principle that no agency can escape, not even those whose mandate is to conserve biodiversity”.

The GTANW recognises in their statement the importance of efforts to strengthen the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, but not at the expense of Indigenous Peoples’ rights:

“Environmental conservation is an important public imperative, but it cannot be pursued at the cost of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has pointed out. Also, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, pointed out, in her annual report to the UN Assembly in 2016 that human rights obligations, including obligations to protect collective rights, also apply to conservation actions. The former Rapporteur has also recommended that countries such as Peru must “adopt all the normative, legal and administrative measures necessary to fully recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples over their lands, territories and resources, which are enshrined in international law of human rights” (A / 71/229).”

An extensive and growing body of scientific research demonstrates that secure community land and resource rights are crucial for the sustainable management and effective protection of forests, both in the Amazon and globally. This has translated into increasing recognition and support for local conservation initiatives in some international conservation policy spaces.

However, as the Wampis have denounced, the Peruvian State continues to promote outmoded, ineffective, and ultimately harmful and exclusionary ways of doing conservation on the ground. SERNANP's intentions to re-categorise part of the Wampis’ territory must halt if Peru is to embrace rights-based approaches to conservation and transition towards securing Indigenous land tenure systems, inclusive decision-making and self-determined development, and long-term conservation and sustainable use of nature.