AIDER NGO
Partnership with Indigenous Peoples
The Amazon Basin is a region of rainforest, rivers, wetlands, dry, and upland forests, which provide unique assets and services to its nations and is valued globally. It hosts one-third of the world’s species of plants and animals, many of which do not occur anywhere else on Earth. It also home to 33 million people, including a diverse population of approximately 1.6 million Indigenous Peoples, who have lived in the Amazon for millenia, integrating their culture and language with their ancestral territories.
There were over six million Amazonian Indigenous People when the Europeans came into the region, bringing disease and many forms of oppression. Today, the Indigenous People of the Amazon comprise some 400 tribes or groups, each with their distinct language, practices, and organization. In Peru alone, there are 2,703 native communities belonging to 44 different ethnic groups.
As seen in the testimonies presented below, Indigenous communities are responding to the challenges of inadequate land tenure, health, education, and economic opportunity with innovative partnerships that support their forest-based livelihoods. In addition to these problems, ongoing discrimination, disputes to their land title claims, agriculture extensification and heavy extractive industries pose additional challenges. Overall, Indigenous Peoples play a critical role in the conservation and sustainable management of the Amazon and Andean forests. Because their territorial and economic interests often align with efforts to conserve biodiversity-rich forests and conserve valuable water resources, Indigenous People are integral partners of USAID programs in Peru and the Amazon region.
Learn more about the programs in the country and the region.
Indigenous Voices and Program Highlights
In the Peruvian Amazon, Indigenous Shipibo Conibo communities are finding new ways to earn income while protecting their forests. These communities know that forests are life and they sustain the culture and community. USAID’s Forest Alliance is supporting the Shipibo Conibo people to build local skills to develop sustainable and inclusive businesses. These practices are helping to address the underlying economic drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. “Our ancestors charged us with caring for our lands,” says Diana Mori, a leader in Peru’s indigenous Shipibo Conibo communities. “We will never abandon our forests.”
Read more about the Shipibo communities’ work, learn more about the Forest Alliance Program. See a video of the alliance.
Flora Magdomia Aquise Ponce is one of the community champions in USAID’s project National Infrastructure for Water Management (NIWS). Flora is a community leader whose life purpose is the development of her town Huamantanga, which is blessed by nature.
One of the objectives of the NIWS project is to rescue ancestral knowledge about water. Flora tells us about a technique inherited from the ancient inhabitants of Huamantanga for using water called mamanteo, which means breast milk. With help from the NIWS project, Flora and her community recuperated and re-learned mamanteo, putting it to use so that the community has better access to water.
“We use it during winter, which is when more water appears, and it helps us store the water in the Spring so that later, in times of drought, we can use it.” says Flora Magdomia. “But thanks to the fact that we have recovered these ancestral techniques such as mamanteo, we use it in a better way, and it is enough for us to have water for longer.”
Flora has a dream. “I would like to form and lead a group of women who know how to use water in the best way. I would like to be able to reforest our hills and improve our natural pastures, in order to have better livestock and improve our economy, ” concludes Flora.
Learn more about NIWS which is implemented by Forest Trends, with its partners CONDESAN, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), EcoDecisión, and Imperial College London.
USAID also implements regional programs to support Indigenous Peoples across the Amazon Basin, under the Amazon Regional Environmental Program. These programs are the Strengthening the Capacities of Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations (SCIOA) and the Amazon Indigenous Rights and Resources project (AIRR).
SCIOA aims to build the capacity of Indigenous organizations so that they can better represent the interests of their people, as described by two indigenous leaders:
“I am the chief of the Arawak village, Alfonsdorp in Suriname. We need to organize ourselves and be more aware of our responsibilities as traditional leaders. With the support of this project, we are strengthened to address the challenges that arise in the area of governance. At first, I did not know about the small grant design workshop which is also supported by this project. It is good that we can design and submit a project in this process. This is to strengthen ourselves. Furthermore, to initiate, write and make an institutional strengthening plan means strengthening for us all.”
—Margriet Biswane, Chief of Alfonsdorp, Marowijne, vice-chair of KLIM, the regional indigenous partner organization for the Marowijne region, Suriname, July 2020. Photo credit: SCIOA project
“In our project we were able to meet as leaders of the Moruca District Council, in Guyana, to analyze our organisation’s strengths and weaknesses and arrive at a plan to make changes in the areas of governance, administration, and financial management. The training activities allowed us to think critically of where we are and where we would like to go. We hope that this will make us a better organization to represent our people in the future.“
—Paul Pierre, Toshao, Kwebanna Village, Moruca Sub-region, Region 1, and Chair of the Moruca District Council, Guyana, July 2020. Photo credit: SCIOA Project
“In our project with Pact and APA and funded by USAID, we were able to meet as leaders of the Moruca District Council to analyze our organisation’s strengths and weaknesses and arrive at a plan to make changes in the areas of governance, administration and financial management. The training activities allowed us to think critically of where we are and where we would like to go. We hope that this will make us a better organisation to represent our people in the future. “
—Paul Pierre, Toshao, Kwebanna Village, Moruca Sub-region, Region 1, and Chair of the Moruca District Council, Guyana, July 2020. Photo credit: SCIOA Project
See a video from SCIOA on the International Day of Rural Women, and learn more about the program and Pact.
On September 24, 2020, the “School of Indigenous Governance and Amazon Development” (EGIDA in Spanish) of Peru was launched. The school will train Indigenous participants in leadership, good governance, political communication, and strategic negotiation skills. It is an effort to improve the institutional capacity of the national Indigenous federation—the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), and its leaders to design and manage programs, govern in an inclusive manner, and improve the defense of their rights and effective participation in the planning of their territories.
See a video about EGIDA, and learn more about the school.
Lastly, USAID published a reference to the history, culture, and challenges of the Indigenous Peoples of Madre de Dios, in southwestern Peru. The book, Madre de Dios Refugio de pueblos originarios, contributes to the understanding of Indigenous Peoples and their interests.
Madre de Dios is known around the world for shocking photos of the devastation and pollution caused by illegal gold mining. But the region is also known for its biodiversity, which is well conserved in the Madre de Dios’ many protected areas and Indigenous territories, due in part to the relationship of Indigenous Peoples with their forests and waters. Pope Francis chose Madre de Dios for his Amazon visit in 2018, as he saw both the devastation of illegal gold mining and the many conservation and development initiatives of indigenous communities.
Madre de Dios is home to Indigenous groups including the Harakbut, Ese-eja, Yine, Matsigenka, Kichwa Runa, Shipibo, and Amahuaca. Written by highly respected researchers, the book includes compelling testimonies of nine Indigenous leaders.
See a video on the launch of the book, download the book.