By Paula Bayarte
Lima (EFE).- The Peruvian Mari Luz Canaquiri and her colleagues won a historic ruling that holds the Marañón River as a subject of a right, which the activist said paves the way to protecting the Amazon.
Canaquiri’s struggle earned her the Goldman Prize, considered the environmental Nobel Prize, which honors those who have made significant actions and efforts to protect and enhance the environment and nature.
In 2024, for the first time in Peruvian history, the courts granted a river the right to flow freely and without pollution, a milestone achieved after a long legal battle led by Canaquiri and the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Women’s (Hard-Working Women) Association, of which she is president.
“The recognition of the Marañón River as a subject of a right opens a door for us to defend the Amazon,” she told EFE a few days after receiving the prestigious recognition in the United States.
Canaquiri said she had been denouncing for years the pollution caused by constant oil spills, mining, illegal logging and coca plantations, which affect the daily activities of the neighbors that depend on the river that flows through their community.
“The work has been going on for years, it is not recent, I did not expect any of this because we have always worked in silence (…) I have been doing all this work since I was a child, with my parents, and as I grew up I became aware of the injustice we suffer in Peru,” she said about her work.
She understood from an early age that it was not fair that others polluted the community’s water and that she had to speak up to change the Marañón River situation, which rises in the Andes and merges into the Amazon.
To convey this sense of struggle to the of her community, the Kukama Indigenous people of the department of Loreto appealed to their ancestral mindset, centered on the river.
“Then I said to myself, we can defend ourselves with our cosmovision because this is the reality that we live in, our rivers are very sacred, they are fundamental because they give us water to drink. It is where the fish and inanimate beings are,” she said, referring to the popular belief that the spirits of the dead reside in riverbeds.
After persuading their neighbors, the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana women’s association denounced the state-owned oil company Petroperu for the numerous spills that they say have damaged their health and the environment.
In 2024, with the of international environmental organizations and lawyers, they won the case, and both the company and the government are required to make a number of commitments, such as creating a protection plan for the river basin and taking measures to prevent spills.
“With so many years of work, I was sure we could do it. We were looking for ways for the government to listen to us, to care , and then we saw ways to enforce the laws. I had the mentality that this is the way to do it,” she added.
“The whole Amazon is being plundered”
Canaquiri is frustrated that Indigenous communities have to watch as companies and illegal gangs extract natural resources from their territory.
“The whole Amazon is being plundered, and throughout the Amazon, we live in a state of oblivion of our rights. There are people who live in extreme poverty and have no utilities,” she said, denouncing the lack of government services in this part of the country.
For the state authorities, the Indigenous communities are “obstacles” they want to eliminate, and they accuse them of not wanting development when they oppose oil exploration projects.
They want a good life, education, health, and opportunities, but not at the expense of damaging their waters and forests.
Canaquiri is very grateful for the international award but firmly concludes that the struggle will not stop as they must ensure that the government and the oil company comply with the court ruling, a decision that could be the key to change in the defense of the Amazon. EFE
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