Conservation Without Indigenous Peoples. The Case of Kichwa Territories in Cordillera Escalera and Cordillera Azul in San Martin, Peru

This report aims to show how the implementation of the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) and the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area (ACR-CE), created in 2001 and 2005, respectively, threaten the continuity of the Kichwa people’s territorial occupation in the San Martín region, as well as their traditional forms of control and usufruct.

Read the full report in English

Read the full report in Spanish

There are at least 72 Kichwa native communities in the San Martin region whose territories are affected by the management of these two Natural Protected Areas (NPAs). Five Kichwa communities have population centres within one of them (the ACR-CE), and at least 28 (18 for the ACR-CE and 10 for the PNCAZ) have population centres close to the NPAs’ boundaries and, in most cases, have areas of traditional occupation in these areas.

And for at least 39 communities, while their population centres are not located near NPA boundaries, they still maintain areas of traditional use in them, making long walks to these places.

These areas of traditional use, called “sectors” by Kichwa people, generally concentrate great biodiversity,

used for hunting, fishing and gathering resources, such as medicinal plants and bark, wood, clay and salt.

The traditional Kichwa occupation of these sectors is multilocal, with several of them distributed across the region, including in the aforementioned NPAs. Other fundamental aspects of Kichwa territoriality are the continuous and sustained movement of families to these places over time; the technical knowledge for the economic exploitation of resources; and a cosmopolitical diplomacy aimed at guaranteeing good relations between humans and nonhumans with the Amazonian environment.

The report explains how, since their creation, the PNCAZ and the ACR-CE have affected the legal security that the Kichwa sectors should have for the territorial rights of their population. The lack of adequate identification in basic diagnoses and management instruments (especially their master plans), as well as the position adopted by both administrations to deny the possibility of titling communal territories, have contributed to the invisibility of the Kichwa territories in practice. Furthermore, the management of both NPAs has limited the Kichwa’s mobility within their sectors, criminalised their activities, and marginalised their representatives in spaces for deliberation and decision-making, among other disincentives to Kichwa occupation.

Thus, this report demonstrates that, in practice, those responsible for these NPAs have been developing a model of conservation management that is exclusionary and imposed on the Kichwa people in San Martin.

Fully recognising their territorial rights and incorporating Kichwa forms of territorial control and management could lead to management models that are not only less exclusionary but more legitimate among the Indigenous population, because they would be based on a greater consensus and would respond to current international standards and regulations on the environment and Indigenous peoples. Likewise, this would allow society as a whole to better appreciate and recognise Indigenous strategies, generally the most effective form of conservation and, which, as pointed out in this report, are being developed outside the management of these NPAs.

Key Findings:

Without considering their effects on the Kichwa people of the native communities of San Martin, these NPAs have been established:

• With the assumption that there is no traditional Indigenous occupation in their areas and, from the first stages of their implementation (for example, desk-based delimitation, socio-demographic diagnoses, selective citizen consultations), with the aim to legitimise the justification given to both areas as pristine areas threatened by anthropic activities and to validate the conservation strategies proposed by their promoters.
• Under initiatives excluding the local Indigenous people, without their effective participation in deliberation and decision-making, without their consultation, and without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
• Without an adequate record of areas of traditional Kichwa occupation, both in the creation and management stages of both NPAs (mainly in the Master Plans). Those responsible have not given relevance to (in the case of Cordillera Azul) or have omitted (in the case of Cordillera Escalera) the identification of sectors of Indigenous use and occupation, which has resulted in the lack of strategic programmes in both NPAs for their recognition, care and sustenance over time.
• Deploying punitive strategies towards the traditional practices of the local Indigenous people, through complaints to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the destruction of their property when NPA staff consider that the rules established by both administrations are not being complied with.
• Maintaining deliberate actions, on the part of those responsible, to prevent the formalisation of the Indigenous population’s communal property. National legislation on forests and natural protected areas is continually used to justify and/or reinforce arguments against State recognition of Indigenous territories within these NPAs.

Key Recommendations:

The Peruvian State must take immediate measures to fulfil its responsibility to recognise and protect the Indigenous territories of the Kichwa people through the collective titling that they have been demanding for years.

In addition, the management of both NPAs should develop specific mechanisms that include principles of Kichwa territoriality at different levels:

1. Establish mechanisms for an adequate registry of Kichwa trails and places of traditional occupation based on research programmes that promote the identification of Indigenous sites, the analysis of anthropogenic forests and highlighting the role of Indigenous practices in the care of the forest.
2. Include among its objectives the safeguarding of traditional Indigenous practices, and the care of sectors that allow conservation achievements to be evaluated under criteria concerning the care of Indigenous sectors, which strengthens traditional practices and preserves traditional knowledge
3. Implement mechanisms to raise awareness amongst the local population not only of the current objectives linked to conservation, environmental care and management of NPAs, but also to respect and value traditional practices for the care of the forest.
4. Consider monitoring and control mechanisms that include the participation of local Indigenous peoples.
5. Establish adequate, horizontal, and culturally relevant governance and participation mechanisms that allow the Kichwa people to make decisions about the future of their traditional places of occupation. Likewise, facilitate and contribute, as far as possible, to the implementation of communal titling processes.

The report, is published by the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of the Lower Huallaga San Martin (FEPIKBHSAM), the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa Peoples of Chazuta, Amazonia (FEPIKECHA), and the Coordinator for the Development and Defense of Indigenous Peoples of the San Martin Region (CODEPISAM), and Forest Peoples Programme.