This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant. YURIMAGUAS, Alto Amazonas, Peru — The boat sets sail early in the morning. The plan is to travel down the Huallaga River, reach the Marañón, then head north and sail up the Santiago River toward the border with Ecuador. But after a precarious start in shallow waters, a powerful blow, possibly by a log or a rock underwater, breaks one of the boats’ engines. In this region of northwestern Peru, the river is running dry; but so are many of the waters across the Amazon Basin, which is experiencing its most severe drought in decades. On board are two Indigenous leaders, Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai of the Achuar people from Ecuador and Wrays Pérez Ramírez of the Wampís Nation from Peru. They are on their way to visit communities of the Kandozi and Kichwa Indigenous peoples, after participating in the General Assembly of Members of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance in Tarapoto, in the department of San Martin. The collaboration of Indigenous peoples and civil society organisations from the two countries seeks to permanently protect more than 35 million hectares (86.5 million acres) across the two countries, an area in the Amazon home to 600,000 people of more than 30 nationalities and Indigenous peoples historically united by the rivers that interconnect their territories and their lives. “Our concept is: Amazonia — a living being, which has a spiritual connection with the Indigenous world,” Nampichkai says. “Either we…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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