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“Our territory does not begin or end within the boundaries of a single community. It is one territory, inherited from our ancestors, where our peoples, our spirits, our lakes, and our forests live.”

A People and their Territory, Inseparable

The Ancestral Territory of the Kandozi People covers 10 323.60 km² in the northern Peruvian Amazon, in the province of Datem del Marañón, Loreto region. The Pastaza, Huitoyacu, Chapulli, Chuinda, Pirumba, and Huituyacu rivers flow through the territory, which is also home to the great Musa Karusha lake (Lake Rimachi) and part of the Abanico del Rio Pastaza Wetland Complex, the most extensive wetland in the Peruvian Amazon (~38 000 km²).

The Kandozi People have maintained a deep relationship with the Abanico del rio Pastaza since time immemorial and have continuously occupied this territory since pre-Hispanic times, despite colonisation, epidemics, and external pressures. For the Kandozi, forests, lakes, aguajales (palm swamps), and rivers form a single living system: there are no boundaries between nature and culture, only one reality. This makes their territory the space where life unfolds, where ancestors dwell, where knowledge is born, and where sacred places are found.

Governance Based on Collective Responsibility

Peruvian law recognises Indigenous territories at the community level (i.e. portions of the territory safeguarded by individual communities) rather than recognising the territory as a whole, which is safeguarded collectively by multiple communities. In this context, the Kandozi People manage their territory as a single, integral unit, through collective agreements and traditional rules passed down from generation to generation. Decisions are made in assemblies, and the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Kandozi Nation (GTANK) strengthens their representation before the State.

This form of governance has brought concrete benefits: control over natural resources, conflict resolution through their own mechanisms, territorial cohesion, and food and cultural security for the communities.

More than simply managing resources, Kandozi governance expresses a collective responsibility toward the territory inherited from their ancestors and toward future generations.

The Case of Lake Musa Karusha: An Emblematic Example of Governance

In 1991, hundreds of Kandozi families collectively regained control of Lake Musa Karusha in the face of fishing exploitation promoted from outside the territory. This action put a stop to the overexploitation of one of the country's most important aquatic ecosystems and reaffirmed the people's right to protect their ancestral territory. Since then, Musa Karusha has become a symbol of Indigenous territorial defence in the Peruvian Amazon.

Conserving Biodiversity Is Caring for Life

The territory is home to one of the most important wetland systems in the western Amazon: around 804 plant species, 292 bird species, 261 fish species, 66 mammal species, 66 reptile species, and 57 amphibian species have been recorded, including emblematic species such as the Amazon pink river dolphin, the Amazonian manatee, the giant otter, and the paiche (arapaima).

The great lakes, aguajales, floodable forests, and rivers sustain Kandozi food security and culture. Fishing, hunting, family farming, and gathering are guided by traditional ecological knowledge, which determines when and where to fish or hunt, and which places must remain protected.

This biodiversity has been conserved thanks to the continuous exercise of Indigenous governance and the traditional management of the territory over generations.

Currently, among the activities led by GTANK together with allied organisations are community monitoring of Lake Musa Karusha (by the Katimbaschi and Kachizpani fishers' associations); the repopulation and conservation of the taricaya (yellow-spotted Amazon River turtle) by the Charapi women's association; the protection and recovery of medicinal plants; and the participatory development of indicators to assess the territory's contribution to biodiversity conservation.

Current Challenges

Despite the strength of their organization and the progress made in exercising self-governance, the Integral Territory of the Kandozi People faces growing challenges that put at risk the ecological, cultural, and territorial integrity of one of the most important wetland landscapes in the Peruvian Amazon.

Among the main threats are oil and gas exploration and extraction, unsustainable commercial fishing, illegal resource extraction, pressure from infrastructure projects, and climate change, which alters the hydrological cycles of the wetlands and the availability of fishery resources. Added to this is a legal framework that still favors the individual recognition of native communities, without fully recognizing the integral territory and collective governance that Indigenous Peoples, such as the Kandozi People, have exercised since ancestral times.

In response, GTANK works to strengthen community monitoring, self-governance, and traditional knowledge. At the same time, the Kandozi People are advocating for recognition of their territory as an effective contribution to national and international conservation goals, reaffirming that biodiversity protection and the exercise of collective rights are inseparable processes. In this way, recognition of their Territory of Life strengthens the exercise of their self-determination and helps ensure that national and international policies recognize Indigenous Peoples not merely as beneficiaries of conservation, but as its principal protagonists and custodians.

Lessons from our experience

The Kandozi experience demonstrates an approach to biodiversity protection led by Indigenous governance, the exercise of self-determination, community monitoring, strong community-led organizations, and the ongoing transmission of ancestral knowledge.

Three central lessons emerge from this:

• Strengthening community vigilance helps safeguard the integrity of the territory, enabling threat prevention and defense against illegal activities that affect forests and wetlands.

• Community monitoring supports conserving biodiversity. For the Kandozi people, these communal efforts enabled the recovery of species such as the taricaya (yellow-spotted river turtle), the protection of Lake Musa Karusha, and the sustainable management of wildlife, flora, and aquatic ecosystems.

• Promoting the participation of women, youth, fishermen, and elders or sabios (“wise ones”) in decision-making, as well as promoting the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, strengthens governance, culture, and traditional knowledge.

This case study was originally published by UNEP-WCMC in August 2026. The content was provided by the custodians of this ICCA. The ICCA has been self-declared and has not yet been through a peer-review process to verify its status. More details on this process can be found here. The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UN Environment Programme or UNEP-WCMC.