At present, the main stem of the Napo River and most of its tributaries are free-flowing, with just two small 10 megawatt (MW) dams located on minor streams. That is all about to change, in a very big way, and the future of one of the last major free-flowing tributaries of the Amazon is at stake.

There are currently hydroelectric projects either proposed or under construction on nearly every tributary within the Napo watershed. In a 2012 paper, Finer and Jenkins reported that 19 dams were planned, including four large and two mega dams, one of which is the largest dam slated for the Ecuadorian Amazon, Coca Codo Sinclair. Only one of the Napo dams, Mazan, is outside Ecuador.

Hydroelectric Dams of the Napo River Basin. Dams are grouped by Status (Existing, Planned, and Advanced Planned) and size (2-99 MW, 100-999MW and >1000 MW electrical generating capacity). Advanced Planned corresponds to projects already under some type of contractual process. Map credit: Finer and Jenkins (2012)

Many ecologists are concerned by the plans for massive development. “Considering that the Napo River is one of the sixth largest Andean tributaries of the Amazon, altering its flood pulse dynamics and hydrological connectivity would affect not only one of the best preserved river systems in the basin, but also many of the ecosystems and species downstream, and the ecosystem services that they provide,” Jorge Celi told mongabay.com. Celi evaluates environmental impact assessments and Biodiversity Offsets for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He has been studying the Napo River since 2007.

With dams already being built or planned on other large Andean Amazon tributaries, such as the Madeira River and the Marañon River, projects like those intended for the Napo and other major Amazon tributaries “should be avoided,” said Celi.

The harm of headwaters dams

Well-planned hydroelectric projects can provide excellent, local, renewable energy sources. However, the unchecked proliferation of dams in the Andean Amazon region is of great concern to many scientists and conservationists due to potential environmental impacts including disruptions to free-flowing river connectivity, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and ecosystem fragmentation.

Plunging over 480 feet (146 meters) in two spectacular drops, San Rafael Falls is the largest waterfall in Ecuador. The aesthetic qualities of this world heritage site in the UNESCO Sumaco Biosphere Reserve will be heavily impacted by the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

Each of the Andean Amazon tributaries is a unique system with unique diversity patterns. However, those rivers are also part of a bigger, more complex pattern of ecosystem functionality. “Losing or damaging the connectivity between these systems and the main stem of the Amazon is like cutting veins or creating clots in a circulatory system,” Dr. Jorge Celi, a specialist who has studied aquatic ecosystems in the Napo River basin since 1992, told Mongabay. With enough blockages, eventually the entire system fails.

Amazonia is home to approximately 10 percent of all freshwater fish species in the world – roughly 1,500 species. “Considering this extreme level of concentration, especially in western drainages that originate in the Andes, changing flow regimes affect more [regional] species than they would anywhere else [on Earth],” said Kelly Swing, professor of environmental science at Universidad San Fransisco de Quito and director of the Tiputini Biodiversity Station.

“Many large Amazonian species, which are commercially important, must migrate great distances to complete their life cycles. The construction of dams anywhere along their routes impacts local economies as well as access to protein for many subsistence cultures,” Swing said.

Over 600 freshwater fish species have been identified in the Napo River watershed, and new species are discovered on each sampling trip, making the Napo one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world in terms of fish species in relation to river size.

Agoyan falls (right) is nearly completely de-watered by a hydroelectric project on the Pastaza River in Ecuador. Run-of-river hydroelectric projects often divert all of the flow from natural river channels causing severe impacts to aquatic ecosystems, disrupting ecological connectivity, and altering natural landscapes. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

“Disrupting the connectivity of the Napo River would isolate populations of an extremely diverse fish fauna and interfere with large scale fish migrations (that migrate from the estuary to the Andean headwaters for reproduction) and lower the genetic exchange of rare and threatened species like the pink river dolphin. Most of the animal protein of local inhabitants comes from fisheries that depend on this hydrological connectivity,” Celi told mongabay.com.

NAPO WATERSHED DAMS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Five hydroelectric projects are currently under construction in the Napo watershed:

The Victoria-Quijos, Quijos and Coca-Codo Sinclair hydropower projects are located in the Quijos River Valley, a world class paddle sports destination and a Napo River tributary. The Quijos becomes the Coca River, which joins the Napo about 100 kilometers (62 miles) below San Rafael Falls at the town of Francisco de Orellana (also known as “Coca”.

The Dúe project is on the Dúe tributary of the Aguarico River, which joins the Napo near the border with Peru. The Pusuno hydro project is on a direct tributary of the Napo River near Puerto Misahualli. Here’s a detailed rundown of each project:

The Coca Codo Sinclair Project:

The Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) is the largest hydroelectric project in Ecuador and should be operating by 2018 with a 1,500 megawatt (MW) capacity. The dam is located in a seismically active area of notable geologic instability and volcanic risk, with active eruptions. Under normal operating conditions this project will dewater 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the Coca River, a world-class adventure tourism destination that boasts the largest waterfall in Ecuador, San Rafael Falls.

A new access road is opened up to a dam site for a small, run-of-river hydroelectric project on an Amazon tributary in Ecuador. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

Ecuadorian Rivers Institute Executive Director Matt Terry notes the dam’s problems: “The project is high cost, high risk, and over-dimensioned with respect to the available flow regime, and is located about as far away as possible from large population centers, and does not have an existing power transmission line.”

One way to minimize harm from dams is to develop them on rivers with existing hydroelectric projects, roads, and transmission line infrastructure. The CCS developers seem to have taken the opposite approach: Their project is being built in a roadless area, without transmission lines, far from population centers. The dam will require major new roads and extensive transmission lines to bring electricity to distant urban markets. Part of the new transmission line corridor will travel through an isolated roadless area, a natural heritage and biodiversity hotspot within the UNESCO Sumaco Biosphere Reserve.

“SINOHYDRO is building the CCS hydro project (diversion dam-tunnel-powerhouse) for the state-owned Coca Sinclair EP hydroelectric company, but the transmission lines were not included in the project studies or designs,” said Matt Terry. “The Chinese company Harbin Engineering was awarded an additional contract to build two, 500 kilovolt (kV), extra-high tension electric transmission lines to connect the CCS project to the nearest substation near Quito.” Each 500 kV transmission line needs a 60 meter-wide right-of-way, with new roads built to service them. “The transmission line was poorly planned, without stakeholder participation, and routed through protected areas to minimize the need to pay out compensations to private land owners,” Terry said.

The Quijos Project:

The 50 MW Quijos project includes a diversion dam, which will block both the Papallacta and the Quijos Rivers near the community of Cuyuja. Under normal operation, all water will be diverted from these rivers through tunnels, which will join into a unified penstock connected to the powerhouse located at the confluence of the two waterways.

Flowering “yutzos” grow along the Jondachi River in the Napo watershed in Ecuador. These, and other, riparian plants depend on the natural fluctuations and pulses of the river’s flow to maintain their habitat conditions. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

“This project will eliminate recreational use and tourism in the famed Papallacta River Gorge,” Terry explained. “However, the project is establishing a new road accessing the upper section of the Quijos River, which could open up a new section of river of great interest to the paddling community. The builder has not made any provisions to consider recreational use or tourism in its environmental flow regime or operation, which adds to the losing character of its proposition.”

The Quijos project includes the construction of a 138 kV power transmission line, which will run all the way to the main substation in Quito. This, despite the fact that the two 500 kV CCS project extra-high tension power transmission lines will pass near the Quijos powerhouse and substation, making the 138kV line redundant.

The Dúe Project:

The 49.5 MW Dúe project consists of an antiquated, river-wide diversion dam across the Dúe River. The dam diverts most of the river’s flow through a tunnel to a powerhouse located about 10 kilometers (6 miles) downstream, leaving little or no flow in a section of river now used for recreation and tourism, as well as subsistence fishing by native indigenous communities.

Hundreds of species of amphibians in the Napo Basin like this Eirunepes snouted tree frog (Scinax garbei) depend on the natural fluctuations and pulses of the river’s flow to maintain their habitat conditions. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

“The Dúe Hydroelectric project is somewhat of a quandary,” said Matt Terry. “The Dúe River drains off the back-side of the Reventador Volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in Ecuador, that is currently erupting. The project… will open new roads and a bridge across the Dúe River, which will eventually draw more people to settle in this high-risk area, which is also mostly within a designated protected area. The private developer reportedly has close ties to the Ecuadorian government and has received a number of incentives for investing in this project.”

The Dúe dam was also pushed forward by a consortium of government municipalities who want to use a portion of the water diverted for the hydro project as drinking water for approximately 100,000 inhabitants in the Sucumbios Province – people whose local surface water drainages and groundwater aquifers have been contaminated by oil development.

However, since the Dúe River drains an active volcano, its water quality has very high levels of metals and minerals, which will require extensive and costly treatment, and could lead to public health concerns, as well as issues regarding the long-term viability of the water supply for the local population. There’s also the susceptibility of the water supply to ongoing volcanic events. “After considering these observations, a prominent international finance institution rejected the application to provide a $20 million loan for the project earlier this year,” said Terry.

The Pusuno Project:

The Pusuno project is a series of 2 dams (26 MW and 21 MW capacity) that will purportedly dewater a direct tributary of the Napo River that flows from the Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park.

According to Matt Terry, this stretch of river is a “high-quality, natural heritage resource with extraordinary value which is used for community-based ecotourism and adventure sports.” At least it will be, until the dam Pusuno dam is completed.

NAPO WATERSHED PROPOSED DAMS

In the 2012 Finer and Jenkins paper 10 of the 19 dams proposed for the Napo Watershed were classified as high impact. Mongabay.com has gathered information on some of these dams proposed for the area:

The Mazán Project:

The 540 MW Mazán project will provide renewable energy to the city of Iquitos, which is not connected to the Peruvian transmission grid and currently depends on thermal generating plants for its electricity.

The Piatua River forms part of a strategic, free-flowing, Andean Amazon watershed corridor in the Napo basin and draws tourists from around the world who contribute to a sustainable economy. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

“This costly and ambitious project would construct a river-wide dam across the Napo River about 80 kilometers (49 miles) above its confluence with the Amazon, disrupting ecological connectivity for the entire Napo watershed, threatening the subsistence fishing of native indigenous communities throughout the lower basin rivers, and opening up a new road access to prime forest reserves on the northern side of the Napo River,” reported Matt Terry.

The Mazan hydroelectric project (named after the Mazan River, a black water tributary of the Napo) would actually dam the main stem of the Napo River below its confluence with the Mazan River. It would divert approximately 85 percent of the river discharge through a canal into the Amazon River.

“Most importantly,” said Jorge Celi, this project would “largely affect the canal geomorphological dynamics, the flood regime of extensive floodplains and wetlands controlled by riverine inundation downstream of the dam and the confluence of the Napo with the Amazon River, and disrupt the connectivity of the river with tremendous impacts on biota, including many species of migratory fish and aquatic mammals, among other things.”

La Merced de Jondachi Project:

This hydropower project would disrupt the ecological connectivity of one of the last remaining high-quality, free-flowing watershed corridors in a critical transition zone in the UNESCO Sumaco Biosphere Reserve.

Additionally, it would eliminate recreational uses and tourism from one of the most important paddle sports destinations in Ecuador, which brings in over $1 million dollars to local economies. All of this in order to generate only 5 MW of hydroelectricity under normal operating conditions.

Visitors gather at an overlook to take-in the scenic beauty and awesome power of San Rafael Falls, an iconic feature of the UNESCO Sumaco Biosphere Reserve threatened to be de-watered by the Coca-Codo Sinclair run-of-river hydroelectric project. Photo credit Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

This project is currently suspended due to legal opposition from local stakeholders and river users. The Ecuadorian Rivers Institute proposes an alternative vision for the river’s future, making it part of the proposed Jondachi-Hollín-Misahuallí-Napo Ecological Corridor, which could be included in the federal government’s new strategic plan to make Ecuador a major low-impact adventure tourism destination. The initiative is being spearheaded by the Ministerio del Deporte and the Ministerio del Turismo.

Santiago Miño of Ecuador’s Ministerio de Turismo told mongabay,com that he and his agency support this eco-tourism vision: “It is in our interest to declare the Jondachi River as a major tourist area and therefore try to keep the river in its purest form,” he said. “This year, the Ministry of Tourism of Ecuador has decided to make ‘Adventure’ an important priority,” especially since a quarter of the tourists who come to Ecuador come to participate in outdoor adventure activities.

“The [La Merced de Jondachi] project is high cost and high risk;” said Terry. “It will not recover its investment, including the interest on the loan, during its useful lifetime. The project is oversized, and has various deficiencies, including inadequate and incomplete studies and designs.”

The Jondachi-Sardinas Project:

The state-owned thermal generating company CELEC EP, also known as Termopichincha, is completely un-phased by the legal opposition to La Merced de Jondachi (LMDJ). The company maintains its intention to build not only the LMDJ hydro project on the upper section of the Jondachi River, but also the Jondachi-Sardinas hydroelectric project on the middle section of the same river.

Work is in progress on a diversion tunnel for a run-of-river hydroelectric project in the Upper Napo watershed. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

This they plan to do instead of pursuing other recommended projects in preferred sites on rivers that are of low natural resource quality, already contaminated, already developed, and close to larger population centers and existing transmission line infrastructure.

The Jondachi-Sardinas hydroelectric project would end recreational uses and tourism on the middle section of the Jondachi River which brings important economic benefits to local communities, and would disrupt the ecological connectivity of one of the last remaining high-quality, free-flowing watershed corridors in a critical transition zone between the Andes and Amazon. It would be a considerable loss in return for a mere 6 to 12 MWs of generating capacity.

The Baeza Project:

The 50 MW Baeza project is in the final phase of design, and would require construction of a diversion dam on the Quijos River just below the outflow of the Quijos hydropower project, and just below the confluence of the Papallacta and Quijos Rivers.

Nearly all stream flow would be diverted through an underground tunnel which would run alongside the north side of the Quijos River, effectively dewatering 2 prime sections of river near the town of Baeza – popular with whitewater paddlers from around the world. The Quijos River was the site of the World Rafting Championships in 2005.

Both the Quijos and the Baeza projects are located in an area with pronounced geologic instability and seismic activity, which threaten the integrity of these hydroelectric projects and make them high-risk investments.

The Chalupas and Langoa II Projects:

The Chalupas and Langoa II Projects would result in significant transcontinental water diversion for drinking water supply, irrigation and hydroelectricity generation for the central sierra valley.

They would both require the construction of new roads and infrastructure within a protected area, the Llanganates National Park, and allow major new development in an otherwise isolated and protected source watershed of the Napo main stem tributary to the Amazon.

Keep an eye on the water

Environmentalists argue that many of the 19 dams in the Napo Watershed are either unneeded or poorly planned. A far better, even ideal, strategy, they say, would be to build no dams on main stem Amazon tributaries, and designate and protect those streams as “free-flowing” waterways. Protected rivers under this plan would include the Marañon, Madeira, Putumayo, Ucayali and Napo rivers.

“Hydropower can be part of a sustainable energy future if designed and operated in a manner that avoids and minimizes impacts on vital river functions.” Jeff Opperman, Lead Scientist of The Nature Conservancy and of the Great Rivers Partnership Initiative told mongabay.com. “A scenario of dams located high in the [Andes Amazon] watershed and only on some of the tributaries might have the least amount of impact on the environment and still provide significant electricity benefits. The degree of the impact is very much a function of good siting and design.”

The future of the Napo Watershed hangs in the balance. Photo credit: Ecuadorian Rivers Institute.

Kelly Swing warns that: “As we continue to commandeer natural resources all over the world, we expand into the last remaining wild areas. With each passing day, nature is left with far less than scant decades ago. The proportion that we can actually take for ourselves without having disastrous impacts on the very resources we wish to exploit is undefined, but all indications suggest that we are nearing that tipping point.”

As mega-hydropower plans move forward in the Napo Watershed, a watchful, informed, and involved public could become an important factor in shaping Ecuador’s hydroelectric projects to be not only economically viable and developmentally useful, but ecologically sound and sustainable.

- This report was originally published in Mongabay and is republished by an agreement to share content.

Researchers with the University of East Anglia say the full extent of impacts to biodiversity of large hydroelectric dams in lowland tropical forest regions have been “severely overlooked.”

Mega-dams are being proposed the world over as sustainable development projects, even though there have been plenty of studies calling attention to the fact that the emissions savings from hydroelectric dams are drastically overstated. But this is one of the first times that such an extensive study has been done on the impacts to tropical forest wildlife biodiversity, and the results are stunning.

“Previous studies have shown that large dams result in severe losses in fishery revenues, increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and socioeconomic costs to local communities,” said lead author Dr. Maíra Benchimol in a statement. Benchimol received her PhD from UEA before moving on to the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz in Bahia, Brazil.

“Our research adds evidence that forest biodiversity also pays a heavy price when large dams are built.”

Benchimol and her team studied the Balbina Dam, a 250-megawatt hydroelectric dam and power station on the Uatumã River in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. When the project was completed in the late 1980s to supply energy to the city of Manaus, it inundated 312,900 hectare (773,193 acres) of forest.

The Furnas Reservoir, the first major hydroelectric project in Brazil was completed in 1963 and flooded 1,473 square kilometers (569 square miles). This satellite image clearly shows how riparian habitat is inundated and ecosystems fragmented by large dams. More than 400 dams have been built, are under construction, or planned for Amazonia. Photo credit: NASA.

The creation of Balbina Lake, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric reservoirs, turned what was once a continuous landscape of pristine forest into an artificial archipelago of 3,546 islands. Aquatic and semi-aquatic species adapted to the river ecosystem were decimated, as were terrestrial populations in the lowlands that were flooded, which is to be expected when submerging that much forest under water.

But according to the study’s results, published in PLOS One this month, tropical dams also affect terrestrial and arboreal species in forest areas well above the maximum reservoir level.

Large vertebrates that live entirely on land or in the forest canopy, including mammals, large gamebirds and tortoises, have all but disappeared from most islands in Balbina Lake. “Approximately 70 percent of all native medium to large vertebrate populations were predicted to have succumbed to local extinctions,” on the islands write the study authors. Of the 3,546 islands, a mere 25 are likely to harbor at least 80 percent of the species surveyed by Benchimol’s team.

When tropical rivers, like this Amazon tributary, are dammed, vast tracts of forest are flooded and untold wildlife and plant diversity is destroyed. Photo credit: Rhett Butler.

Co-author Professor Carlos Peres of UEA told mongabay.com in an email that “the local extinction rates we uncovered are staggering,” all the more so because the Balbina landscape has been strictly protected for over 27 years by the largest biological reserve in Brazil (Reserva Biológica do Uatumã, established in 1990).

That means, according to Peres, that “we can consider our estimates highly conservative, because had this archipelago been created in any unprotected landscape, observed levels of species persistence would be far lower.”

Peres contends that the study’s findings should force mega-dam project planners to vastly increase estimates of aggregate biodiversity impacts. “We also know that dams in tropical forest areas erode forest carbon stocks, not only in inundated areas, but also in forest areas immediately affected by the reservoir,” he added.

“None of these sudden or gradual losses in both biodiversity and forest ecosystem services are properly taken into account in EIAs [Environmental Impact Assessments] of proposed dam infrastructure projects, even if those studies could be defined as impartial and properly conducted.”

This aerial photo of a Costa Rican dam shows how such projects shatter biological connectivity, preventing migrating fish and other aquatic species from moving either upstream or down, while flooding forests. Photo credit: Rhett Butler.

Over 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) of Brazilian Amazon forests will be permanently inundated following the planned construction of new dams, potentially leading to a colossal impact on both terrestrial and aquatic biotas at regional scales, say the researchers. That’s doesn’t include the deforestation caused by hundreds of dams proposed or being built in Peru, Ecuador, and other Amazonian countries.

The solution, Peres said, is for licensing and approval of new dam projects to depend on a thorough, multidisciplinary EIA process “that has sufficient teeth to radically modify, mitigate, or block new dam proposals.”

Tropical river basins from the Amazon to the Mekong to the Congo are currently hotspots of dam-building activity. Research Professor Philip Fearnside of Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia in Manaus, Brazil, who was not involved in the PLOS One study but has done extensive research on the impacts of hydroelectric dams, agreed that the present findings are further cause for Brazilian authorities to reassess the push to build mega-dam projects as “green” energy sources.

“Biodiversity impacts are a major cost of Amazonian dams, and these impacts obviously have virtually no weight in decision-making on energy development in Brazil,” Fearnside wrote to mongabay in an email. “The monetary costs for dam construction (materials, labor, etc.) is what determines the choices, aside from the influence of political donations and corruption that are now coming to light.”

Over 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) of Brazilian Amazon forests will be inundated by proposed dams, with colossal impacts on terrestrial and aquatic biota. Hundreds more dams are planned for the wider Amazon, Mekong, Congo, and other tropical watersheds. Photo Credit: Horácio Fernandes; licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Fearnside has demonstrated in numerous studies that the carbon emissions savings of hydroelectric dams are wildly overstated, and that the costs of building mega-dams outweigh the benefits. The PLOS One study adds further heft to that argument.

The UAE’s Peres noted that, “The Balbina Dam, for example, flooded an area of well over 3,000 square kilometers [1158 square miles] and now only supplies about 10 percent of the energy demand of a single large city (Manaus).”

In other words, governments looking for sustainable energy solutions to growing their economy and the prosperity of their people should be looking elsewhere.

“The geopolitical strategy to deploy many more large hydropower infrastructure projects in regions like lowland Amazonia should be urgently reassessed,” the authors write in the report, “and we strongly advise that long-term biodiversity impacts should be explicitly included in pre-approval environmental impact assessments.”

- This report was originally published in Mongabay and is republished by an agreement to share content.

Yunguillo Indigenous Reserve stretches out into the Colombian forest. Photo courtesy of the Amazon Conservation Team.

A landmark achievement was celebrated in southwest Colombia in May when the Colombian Institute for Rural Development approved the expansion of the Inga people’s Yunguillo Indigenous Reserve. The expansion was first requested in 1983, but after 20 years of legal, administrative and infrastructural struggles, the efforts of those involved – including conservationists, human rights activists and indigenous communities – finally paid off as the reserve was quintupled from its original 4,320 hectares to 22,395 hectares.

Twenty-seven percent of Colombia – more than 30 million hectares – is designated as collective indigenous territory. The Yunguillo Indigenous Reserve houses many sacred sites for the Inga people and its expansion protects the headwaters of the Caquetá River – a major tributary of the Amazon River whose watershed covers 250,000 square kilometers.

The decision to expand the reserve shows significant progress in the implementation of legislation from 2009 that safeguards at-risk indigenous communities’ claims to their traditional lands. The Inga tribe of the region will, thanks to the expansion of the reserve, now have increased protection and additional rights to their territory, which is increasingly threatened by mining concessions and other development projects. The reserve’s expansion is credited to the coordinated efforts of the Inga community of Yunguillo, its four communal councils, the national institute for rural development (INCODER), regional indigenous organizations, and the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT).

Map courtesy of the Amazon Conservation Team showing the location of Yunguillo Indigenous Reserve and its planned expansion.

“This represents a huge victory, not only for the Inga communities, but for the protection of one of the world’s most biodiverse areas,” ACT co-founder Liliana Madrigal said in a press release. “The expansion connects Dona Juana National Park and Serrania de los Churumbelos National Park and secures an important piece of the Andes-Amazon-Atlantic Corridor proposed by President Santos.”

The Yunguillo reserve is also home to species like the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), the Endangered mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque), the Critically Endangered Colombian woolly monkey (Lagothrix lugens), the jaguar (Panthera onca), and many species of birds including parrots, toucans, and woodpeckers.

According to ACT, the Inga people consider Yunguillo their ancestral territory, making the recognition of their right to this land especially important. The reserve’s expansion helps the Inga people strengthen and engage in traditional customs based on their Laws of Origin and Higher Laws. The Yunguillo reserve and its neighboring reserves encompass an important area of environmental connectivity between national parks. The region consists of paramo – high, treeless plateau – and montane ecosystems, and includes the headwaters of two very important Amazonian tributaries – the Putumayo and the Caquetá.

Expanding a reserve in an area of high ecological value “will contribute to the conservation of habitats for many species of wildlife and promote the transit of species between interconnected habitats, which, considering that the Amazon Piedmont is one of the most susceptible regions to climate change, is a crucial factor in the ability of species to adapt to changes and pressures on the environment,” ACT Putumayo Coordinator, Maria I. Palacios Noguera, told mongabay.com.

Climate change isn’t the only threat to the region. More cocaine is sourced from Putumayo than from any other single site in the world, making the region rife with armed conflict. In addition, Putumayo is economically strategic, as it contains one of the country’s major oilfields. However, despite it all, Inga communities has managed to maintain their way of life, preserving festivals, traditional medicinal practices and their indigenous language. According to the ACT, Indigenous Reserves are the most well-conserved parts of Colombia. Given that community management of natural resources like forests requires a significant amount of communication with and between multiple stakeholders and decision-makers, it is worth noting that 100 percent of the Inga community in Yunguillo has received a bilingual education, setting itself up as a linguistic reference for other Inga communities in Caquetá and Putumayo. In these cases, ACT’s Colombia Director Carolina Gil told mongabay.com, culture is the basis of local work being developed in the community. In recent years, women have taken leadership roles in local education and politics, transforming the nature of the relationship between the Inga community and the Colombian government to one where the concerns of the community regarding their environment are heard.

Yunguillo students. Photo courtesy of the Amazon Conservation Team.

A 2014 report jointly issued by World Resources Institute (WRI) and Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) found that land held by local communities and indigenous people tends to be significantly less impacted by deforestation than land managed by governments or private entities. Legally recognized community-managed forests amount to 513 million hectares globally, representing an eighth of the world’s forests. Many communities rely on forest resources for food, water, medicine and building materials. The report attributed the health of community-managed forests to the vested interest members have in sustainably using them. President and CEO of WRI, Andrew Steer said, “What we find is that where there is legal recognition, and where that recognition is protected, enforced, then you have a very, very sharp reduction in deforestation.”

The legal protection Colombia grants to indigenous territories shields them from being sold to third parties, as well as being leased out or held as collateral for any debt. Additionally, the communities themselves manage their territories through traditional methods of hunting, fishing and small-scale agriculture, and through laws and internal rules of coexistence among members of the community as an element of balance with the natural world they inhabit.

“Regarding the management of mining and other proposals in their territories, such as mega development projects, roads, electrification and others, the Inga Yunguillo community have [sic.] opposed the construction of major roads in recent years,” Gil said. To enforce their rights, they have mobilized to block main roads and refused to answer consultation processes. “With the expansion of the reserve, the council led by its governor has proposed finishing a tertiary road, which will enable the community to address their basic needs such as access to basic public services, communication, health, education and marketing of agricultural products.”

Yunguillo forest vista. Photo courtesy of the Amazon Conservation Team.

While mining activities are, so far, “purely traditional,” according to Gil, the council has refused the various proposals by private sector interests to explore and survey the area.

“Land expansions are an effective tool to combat the various pressures surrounding protected territories. Nonetheless, indigenous communities, in particular the Inga of Yunguillo, are the most vulnerable actors in the face of development pressures, armed conflicts, and institutional weakness, all of which still persist to this day in the Yunguillo region,” Noguera said. The expansion of the reserve also ensures that population pressures from the 1,444-strong Inga community are dissipated over a larger area and that the community has sufficient territory for the development of their Life Plan – the most effective measure to guarantee the community’s survival – which they are currently working on updating to include proposals on self-governance, land and sustainable living and activities in the territory.

To Nydia Becerra Jacanamejoy, governor of Yunguillo, this land is intricately tied to Inga identity and she maintains the Inga are equipped to protect it.

“We consider Mother Earth to be both the reason for our existence and our reason for surviving,” Jacanamejoy told mongabay.com. “To use the land and its resources properly and respectfully, we observe the traditions passed down over generations. We maintain our identity by maintaining these traditions, while adapting to new conditions in order to protect our territory. We do not believe that identity is possible without territory or that we can protect these lands without a strong sense of collective identity.”

- This report was originally published in Mongabay and is republished by an agreement to share content.