In this interview with LAB contributor Maozya Murray, Túpac Amaru activist Marisol discusses Kichwa resistance to the Cordillera Azul National Park and what it really means to be an ‘environmental defender’.
Marisol Garcia Apagueño is an Indigenous leader from the Túpac Amaru community of the Kichwa people of Peru’s San Martin region. She has gained international recognition for her resistance to the Cordillera Azul National Park and its infamous carbon credit program.
The national park spans a vast expanse of tropical rainforest in the eastern Peruvian Andes, an area that has long been home to Kichwa tribes who rely on hunting, fishing, and gathering.
In 2001, it was designated a protected area, in a process which stripped the Indigenous people living there of unrestricted access to their ancestral lands without prior consultation, according to the Kichwa communities and humanitarian organizations, including the UN. Such a move violates Indigenous rights under ILO Convention 169, which Peru ratified in 1995 guaranteeing Indigenous and Tribal Peoples the right to free, prior, and informed consent.
This Kichwa community’s loss of territory has been further exacerbated by the establishment of a carbon credit project inside the park which has generated millions of dollars through the sale of more than 28 million carbon credits to fossil fuel producers such as Shell and Total Energies – of which the communities received little to no benefit.
As the current president of the Federation of Indigenous Kichwa People of Chazuta Amazonas (FEPIKECHA in its Spanish acronym), which represents 11 Kichwa-speaking communities, Marisol has been at the forefront of efforts to reclaim the stolen land. ‘We are a mixed federation, men and women, fighting back to defend our common home: the territory, to fight for our fundamental rights and to help mitigate climate change’, Marisol tells Latin America Bureau.
‘They try to paint us as being against protected areas. That is not the case. We are not opposing conservation – we are challenging how this park was created, the interests it serves, and the way it disregards our rights’, she continues.
Independent experts have also scrutinized the park for failing to prevent deforestation while violating Indigenous territorial and human rights. A 2022 AP investigation found that park land ‘almost certainly’ includes Kichwa ancestral territory, with evidence of Indigenous presence dating back for centuries. Sustained campaigning and investigative efforts led to a landmark 2023 court ruling that declared Indigenous rights were ‘violated several times’ when the park was created without prior consultation. However, in what has been described by lawyers as unprecedented, the ruling was overturned just 10 days later.
For Kichwa communities, losing access to their land has pushed many into poverty. ‘We have no other option’, Marisol explains. ‘This is our home – where else would we go? The only thing we can do is to raise our voices, resist.’
In this interview with LAB, Marisol discusses Kichwa resistance to the Cordillera Azul National Park, and what it really means to be an ‘environmental defender’.
LAB: Could you start by explaining your work and what drives you to fight for environmental justice?
Marisol: Our work involves many things, but at its core, it is about recovering and revaluing our culture and our identity. You see, we [Indigenous people] have been deeply affected by colonization, and that system has not been eradicated – it has merely changed its disguise and name. For example, the creation of national protected areas in our territories without consulting us – the rightful owners – is a manifestation of this system in its new form.
We do not depend on a supermarket, a pharmacy or a car that runs on fossil fuels – we depend on our territory. When we are dispossessed, our survival is threatened. We cannot pass on our ancestral knowledge and use of these spaces to future generations.
I am deeply concerned because, for example, Total Energies – a giant oil company with a lot of money and political power – is violating human and environmental rights here in Peru. This is just one example of the powerful enemies we are up against.
Could you tell us more about the Cordillera Azul National Park and its impact on Kichwa lives and livelihoods?
We are aware that we are facing a huge issue with the establishment of protected areas.
The creation of the Cordillera Azul National Park has left us with only very small areas of land, labeled ‘buffer zones’, where we can continue to practice our ancestral traditions – gathering food and medicinal plants and connecting with the spiritual beings that exist in our home.
We believe that the creation of the national park is a lie because, despite companies supposedly paying to protect biodiversity [through carbon credits linked to the parkland], they are not mitigating its loss at all.
And I don’t say that lightly – it is dangerous to confront the system. We are at such a disadvantage in taking on this adversary, which is endorsed and backed by the government.
We assumed that, considering they are receiving so much money, the least they could do is to reinvest it in safeguarding this protected natural area. But instead, deforestation, drug trafficking, land trafficking, threats and murders of Indigenous people have increased.
It seems this is a systemic issue. Could you explain how these issues are experienced?
There is a lot of criminalization, a lot of violence, and many attacks – not only personal but structural as well. For example, they [CIMA, the Spanish acronym for the independent nonprofit that runs the park for the Peruvian government] try to weaken opposition by dividing our Indigenous organization, FEPIKECHA, from within. CIMA entered some communities and offered them money in exchange for their land. Some communities accepted and took the bribe, but the trick is in the details. They made them sign an agreement consenting to the park. The document states that they have agreed to be neighbours of the park. If you are a neighbour, it means you no longer have the right to claim you live within the park. They are using these documents to make us look like liars.
My brothers and sisters have told me that they take advantage of the fact that much of the community is illiterate. The Apus [a Kichwa term used to refer to protectors or leaders of the community] are elected because they have knowledge of medicine and the territory, but they are not formally educated. The companies use this to make them sign something they don’t understand. What is not clear in the agreements is that the money they receive basically means they have signed away and renounced their rights within the park.
Another tactic they use is labeling us as anti-development. They claim the Kichwa people are opposed to progress because we are not grateful for development projects—such as jobs and schools—that they claim to have built. But we never asked for these improvements, and they haven’t even happened anyway. They went to one of the communities and said they couldn’t build schools because it is a protected area. As for jobs, some communities have reported being offered positions as volunteer park guards—but these are unpaid roles.
To government officials and the companies involved in the carbon project, we are seen as a threat to the national park. They dispossess us, they pollute, yet somehow they are the good guys. They claim to be protecting the park. To the world, they say, ‘Look, I pay for my carbon footprint, I am a good guy!’
Some suggest FEPIKECHA is opposed to the creation of conservation areas. Is this true?
I want to make something clear. In national and international circles the Kichwa people in particular are portrayed as the bad guys, as if we are opposed to natural protected areas, as if we are obstructing or hindering them. That is not the case. But their version of the story has much more credibility. That’s when we realised the kind of world that we are living in – a world where false environmentalists, backed by economic power, turn their backs on those of us who are truly doing the work.
Why don’t they pay us to reforest? Why don’t we get paid for defending, protecting and risking our lives to care for the Amazon?. We share videos on our social networks, trying to make the work we have done for generations visible. But we struggle a lot.
We feel we have been left with the collective burden. People think: Indigenous people should look after the earth while we all carry on as normal. It is not our problem. But we are always trying to tell them – this planet, Earth, doesn’t only belong to Indigenous people. It belongs to everyone. So we should all find a way to protect it and save what little life this planet has left. Because it is not just the future of Indigenous peoples at risk – it is the future of all humanity. This shared home, Pachamama, belongs to all of us, and it is everyone’s responsibility to care for it.
What is your main focus right now regarding resistance to the national park?
Our purpose now is to fight to get the small buffer areas titled and to continue the struggle to recover our ancestral territory.
I am sure that there are many people who want to support your work but don’t know where to start. How can the international community support the Kichwa struggle?
Well, one of the tactics that has been working for us is making demands internationally. We’ve tried seeking support from national ministries in Lima, but they are not open to dialogue, so we’ve had to take our case to international courts. This led to the UN rapporteur issuing a statement saying, ‘Hey, you [the Peruvian government and CIMA] are doing your job badly. You have to find a way to work with them. You have to comply with the court.’ So we are looking to continue having political influence in international spaces.
This year, for example, we are seeking strategic allies so that we can send a delegation from FEPIKECHA to COP 29 in Brazil. But financing the tickets is difficult. We don’t even have enough money to properly feed our children, so support from allies to help us reach those spaces is very important. And when we do get there, we make the most of it.
This year, we made a wonderful alliance with a Franco-Peruvian sister. Together, we are creating a documentary about water beings, how the issue of water scarcity affects our deities, and how it impacts our spirituality and way of life. The protest I recently took part in against one of Total Energies partners in France will also appear in the documentary. There was a lot of repression by the French police that day—I thought I was going to be kept in jail. It was a very intense experience, but I also felt strengthened by the great support we received. It helped us gain more visibility for our demands. The media in Paris went crazy, especially because the police held us without access to a bathroom or food.
So, these international connections give us visibility, which is very important. We don’t have a dedicated communicator. I work as the communicator for the federation in this region, but it’s not enough. Normally, most of our work remains invisible.
How would you describe your role or your identity in relation to your activism work?
Well, we don’t particularly consider ourselves environmental defenders. We consider ourselves defenders of life because we defend everything—the air, the water, the forests, the deities, and Indigenous people themselves. It’s all interconnected. So we define ourselves as defenders of life, defenders of human and environmental rights.
We also have to defend the most vulnerable among us, those who are often ignored. For example, Indigenous people with disabilities suffer disproportionately. When the forest fires started here those who couldn’t run were the most vulnerable.
My work often puts me in very difficult situations, much of which is never published. Most of the work we do is invisible. When the fires started, I had a decision to make—stay in the territories helping to put out the fires, mobilizing, demanding a budget, moving people, food, and medicine. Or go to New York for Climate Week.
I decided to go—to look for strategic allies who could support us with food and medicine for those on the ground fighting the fires. But then I started receiving attacks on social media. People called me a false environmentalist, a hypocrite, a fake Indigenous person who just liked to travel. I have also been questioned many times when I go to international spaces: ‘What are you doing here if you defend the forest? Why are you on a plane? Why are you in a car?’ And I say—’how am I supposed to make my voice heard?’ If I didn’t feel obliged, I wouldn’t be there. Because Indigenous people don’t need to hear my message—we already know. Our ancestors have passed down a respect for life from generation to generation. It is those outside, in the big cities, who cannot understand the essence of life, the respect for life. And that is our struggle.
But of course, this work has affected me deeply. Environmental work isn’t easy. When the forest fires came, there was so much to figure out. I had to find allies, funding, buy food, and coordinate logistics to deliver supplies to very remote communities. Meanwhile, I was being attacked by people speaking from their privilege and comfort.
The irony is that we don’t get paid for this work. Sometimes NGOs and allies support us in attending political advocacy events by covering plane tickets or accommodation. But they don’t pay us for our work or recognize the expenses we incur—being away from home, leaving our children, losing income from our farms. Sometimes I can’t tend to my chacra [an Andean term for a small farm or garden], and then my crops are lost or stolen. They don’t know the territory. They don’t know our reality. They don’t know how dangerous this work is. Even visibility itself brings danger. But that’s the risk we have to take, right?
Many of my brothers have told me, ‘I can’t speak, I can’t be a public person because I have a family, I have children’. The people close to me said: ‘You can’t keep speaking out, you can’t keep fighting because you have a family. If they kill you, who will raise your children?’ At one point, it really got to me. I had sleepless nights because we were up against a corrupt police force, corrupt governors, a corrupt mayor—a whole mafia. We received death threats. We couldn’t sleep. I thought a lot about how to balance protecting my family and protecting my territory.
It reached a point where I asked myself – ‘These are my children, this is my life, and I continue to live. What is my purpose?’ If my purpose means I lose my life…in the end, we are all going to die.
Then I started to remember the words of my great-grandmother. She would say: ‘We are the spokespersons of the trees, of the waters, our older brothers. We can cry out when we are in pain, when we burn, we can ask for help, or heal ourselves. But the animals, the trees—when they are cut down, killed, or polluted, they cannot speak. So we must be their voices. In return, they give us fish, they give us water to drink, they give us food, they give us shade, they give us oxygen. Our duty is to defend them with our voices.’
In the end, my struggle is for the future—for my children and for the children of my brothers and sisters. If I truly want to prioritize my children, I cannot stay silent while these harmful activities continue to grow. If I remain silent, there will be no future. Then it will truly be a lost battle.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Finally, what is your vision for the future of the Kichwa peoples?
We want what has been stolen from us to be returned. We want to recover our territory so that we can, in some way, exercise our autonomy—in governance, in food sovereignty—so that we can speak freely about our right to food security. Right now, we can’t even walk freely in our own home, in our own territory, without fearing that we will be sued for entering it. If you live in the territory, you are part of the territory, and we will continue defending our rights to it.
We want to live according to our cosmovision, according to our culture, and according to our identity. We want the harassment to stop, we want to be respected for who we are—because we are also human beings with rights.
The only thing they [fossil fuel corporations such as Total Energies] are guaranteeing is our extinction. Our future generations deserve to live. We were here first, and that gives us the legitimacy to own these spaces, these territories. That is all we seek: to have our fundamental rights respected and to have our common home, which is our territory, returned to us.
