On June 24, 2026, Quito, the capital of Ecuador, saw the arrival of around 160 members of the Siekopai Indigenous People, “the nation of the multicolored people,” to demand the definitive compliance with a historic court ruling that orders the formal titling of their ancestral territory in the Amazon region, which is located within a protected area. The Siekopai have a population of 800 inhabitants on the Ecuadorian side and 1,200 on the Peruvian side.
The claim is primarily being made at the doors of the Constitutional Court and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE), public entities that should be responsible for enforcing a ruling issued in November 2023, but which remains unfulfilled. This ruling was adopted by the Multi-Competent Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos, which based its decision on constitutional and international norms such as ILO Convention 169, ratified by Ecuador in May 1998.
Ecuador’s Constitution, one of the most advanced on this matter, includes several articles that not only recognize the country’s intercultural and plurinational character (Articles 1, 10, and 56) but also the territorial rights of communities, peoples, and nationalities. Thus, Article 57 of the Constitution grants several collective rights to peoples and nationalities, including the right to preserve the imprescriptible ownership of their community lands, to maintain possession of ancestral lands and territories and to obtain their free allocation, as well as to participate in the use, usufruct, administration, and conservation of renewable natural resources found on their lands.
The resolution ordered the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE), within 45 days, to grant the Siekopai Nationality an enforceable title of ownership over the 42,360 hectares of the ancestral territory called Pë’këya. The delivery of the resolution had to be public and in-person, on the territories of the Indigenous People. Furthermore, the MAATE was obliged to offer formal public apologies aimed at the elders, youth, and members of the Siekopai nationality. This act aims to redress the historical violation of their collective territorial rights and the forced displacement suffered after the 1941 war conflict and the subsequent unilateral creation of the Cuyabeno Reserve in 1979.
Finally, as the Court determined that the declaration of a Protected Area (Cuyabeno Reserve) does not nullify ancestral ownership, it ordered the State to adapt its records so that ownership of the space coexists with the conservation status, guaranteeing that the Siekopai people exercise free governance, administration, and spiritual use of their territory.
The problem is that, as of June 2026, there has been no progress in the administrative titling process, which is why the people have mobilized and will continue to do so until they see positive developments in this regard.
An ancient history
The ancestral territory of the Siekopai people was seriously affected by territorial conflicts between Ecuador and Peru, especially what occurred in mid-1941. At the end of the confrontations of that year, the Talara Agreement was signed on October 2, through which Ecuador and Peru agreed to and applied a bilateral ceasefire, establishing a demilitarized zone under the observation of military representatives from Argentina, Brazil, and the U.S. as mediators, who also signed the agreement and would later sign the Rio Protocol in 1942.
However, the conflict was not fully resolved, and the borders between both countries continued to be discussed. In fact, about 78 km of the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border remained unmarked for decades, which continued to cause diplomatic conflicts and military clashes between both countries. It was only in 1998, in Brasilia, that a final peace agreement was signed.
From 1941 onward, the Siekopai could not return to their territory, to Pëëkë’ya, because the area was militarized, except for clandestine incursions to visit family members. Starting in 1993, the people began legal processes to claim their lands.
In 1997, they managed to obtain a map of their territory based on historical records such as documents from 18th-century Jesuits that included letters and maps indicating rivers with terms in Paikoka, the language of the Siekopai. They also presented Spanish colonial maps from the Royal Audience of Quito from 1779; and territorial maps created by the Siekopai Nation itself, in which they characterized historical and sacred sites, as well as important rivers and lagoons.
Their bond with the territory
Pë’këya is the ancestral territory of the Siekopai nation and is also a place of enormous natural wealth, harboring some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, hundreds of species of birds, reptiles, and mammals, including some seriously threatened ones such as the Amazon river dolphin, the manatee, and the paiche. It also has a very important variety of plant species, many of which are deeply present in Siekopai life, food, medicine, and spirituality.
Their deep relationship with the territory was expressed with particular clarity during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the first cases appeared in the Siekopai community in Ecuador, and in April, two people died. Faced with this situation, the first thing the community did was protect its elders, taking them to strategic sites to avoid contagion—small islands in the Cuyabeno area. “There, where our ancestors told us the center of origin is,” Justino Piaguaje, President of the Siekopai native nation, told us in a telephone communication we had at that time.
But the Siekopai did much more than that. In a process of collective reconstruction of their histories and knowledge, they began to recover and analyze the stories of the grandmothers that told of ancient diseases like whooping cough and the more common malaria. To face them, the people have always turned to what the jungle itself produces and makes available to people. They analyzed the various uses given to medicinal plants, compared them with the symptoms and effects of the coronavirus, through a kind of minga (communal work effort) to find out how to face this disease, according to Justino. They prepared concoctions, tested them, and finally identified which plants were most suitable for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
With that information, they carried out an expedition deep into the jungle with the presence of the elders who have the knowledge to identify and know how to collect the medicinal inputs. With what was collected, they moved on to the stage of preparing the medicinal concoctions, formed an orderly reservoir of the medicines, and then applied them according to the needs and condition of the affected people. Depending on the situation of the people treated, the medicines were applied orally, by drip, or by vaporization.
The result was very encouraging: all the sick recovered using this medicine, as they did not have others provided by state authorities. “The doctors who came brought nothing, only that device to listen to the lungs, nothing else,” Justino recalled.
Subsequently, the Siekopai sought to share their knowledge with the rest of the Amazonian peoples, with the other nationalities of the area. The idea was to convey the message that the communities were not alone and that they could use their own medicine found in the jungle. Together with CONFENAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon), they shared the medicine with the Kichwa, Siona, Kofán, Shuar, and Awa peoples, making a solidary and significant contribution to the fight against that serious disease at the time.
Compliance requirement
The resilience of the Siekopai in the face of an unknown disease is a concrete and notable example of a conception of health that is not merely an absence of illness, but an expression of the systemic conception of Good Living (Vivir Bien). Within indigenous territories and communities, we find people with the capabilities and knowledge to balance energy, calm pain, and heal the ailments that afflict the population—people who, as carriers and depositaries of millenary wisdom, are recognized by the community itself.
But moreover, it is a clear example of the relevance of the territory—not just any territorial space, but the ancestral territory—because the people exist in relation to their place of origin, and outside of it, the situation is very different. In fact, during the process of recognizing their territorial rights, at some point the state authorities offered territories in other different places with “better access and larger,” according to officials. But the Siekopai did not want more land; they only wanted their place, their ancestral domain, an essential part of their culture.
And there they are, marching on Quito demanding what is rightfully theirs, which judges recognized but which remains unfulfilled.