A new and timely LAB book by anthropologist and environmental rights researcher Jan Schulz, will examine the importance of The Rights of Nature in the battle to defend Indigenous territories in Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. It explains the origins of this concept, its profound challenge to the ‘resources to be exploited by humans’ approach to nature, and documents the ways it is being used today with growing success by Indigenous and other rural communities.
When a shaman calls the spirits of the river and asks how they are doing, they say: We are suffering from pollution. We have sore eyes, fever, flu, all kinds of illnesses. We feel sick. We cannot live because there is so much pollution.
Celia Fasabi Pizango, from the Indigenous Kukama women association Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana, Peru
After decades of oil spills and environmental damage, which affected the livelihood of Indigenous communities living near and from the Marañón River in the Amazon of Peru, a group of Kukama women decided to fight. The contamination of the river not only affected their food supply and health, but also harmed the spirits living in the river, the Karuara.
The fight was led by the Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana. Realizing that human rights and environmental rights seemed to only exist on paper, the Kukama women sought new ways of legal resistance. They chose to pursue a relatively unconventional approach: A court should declare the Marañón itself as a subject of rights, they demanded.
Granting legal standing to ecosystems and natural entities is called the Rights of Nature. Rights of Nature move away from the anthropocentric perspective – unlike conventional human and environmental rights – and advocate for a more respectful approach to ecosystems. Humans are no longer above the environment and nature is no longer just a collection of resources to be exploited. Nature possesses intrinsic value – regardless of its benefits or function for humans.
Against all odds, the Kukama women won. On 15 March 2024, the provincial court of Nauta in Loreto, Peru, announced a groundbreaking ruling: It declared the Marañón river and its tributaries as ‘joint owners of rights’, among them the right to flow freely without pollution, the right to a healthy ecosystem, the right to feed and be fed by its tributaries, the right to biodiversity, the right to be restored, and the right to regenerate.
A huge success. But now the women face the challenge of getting their legal victory implemented.
Imagine your land is being invaded. What would you do?
This issue has been a concern for Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Amazon for centuries – from the colonization of their lands, which brought slavery and murder, right up to the present day. Even now, they and their land are still being encroached upon by miners, loggers, oil companies, cattle ranchers, narco-traffickers, and agricultural investors. These are pushing deeper and deeper into the rainforest, violating territorial and human rights, and damaging the environment. Scientists warn that the Amazon’s forests and biodiversity are increasingly under threat, despite their importance for global climate change.
In many countries across Latin America and the world, rulings have been handed down regarding the Rights of Nature: rivers in Colombia, mountains in New Zealand and a lagoon in Spain now enjoy special protected status.
But has this changed anything? Have contamination and degradation stopped? Were ecosystems restored? And has it changed the livelihoods of affected communities for the better? Can the concept of the Rights of Nature make a difference?
A new LAB book, Disputed Territories – The Rights of Nature and the Indigenous Worlds of Western Amazonia by Jan Schulz, seeks to answer the question of how Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Amazon can defend themselves against intruders.
It highlights the reality that, for most Indigenous peoples in the Amazon, nature is not merely a resource. They see themselves as part of nature. Consequently, they treat it with greater respect and, therefore, in a more sustainable way.
We can learn from this: how to use land and manage forests more sustainably, how to protect the environment, and how not to harm people, nature and the climate. The traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous people and local communities can help us to implement measures to tackle the global environmental and climate crisis, whilst at the same time strengthening human rights and Indigenous territorial rights.
Disputed Territories spans the period from the colonial era to the present day. It documents human rights violations and massive environmental damage. At the same time, it tells the story of how communities have resisted invaders, the challenges they face today and how activists are trying to improve their situation through the legal approach of the Rights of Nature. Disputed Territories chronicles the struggle for the Amazon in southern Colombia; the resistance of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in southeastern Ecuador against oil extraction; the fight of a Shuar community in the Cordillera del Cóndor against copper mining; and the story of the Kukama people along the Marañón River in northern Peru.
Disputed Territories – The Rights of Nature and the Indigenous Worlds of Western Amazonia by Jan Schulz, will be published by Latin America Bureau and Practical Action Publishing on 17 November 2026.
