Alto Tamaya Saweto: An Important Step in the Protection of its Territory, Culture and Resources
Upper Amazon Conservancy recently expanded activities to include working with the native community of Alto Tamaya Saweto on social and economic development and institutional capacity building. The first steps are to focus on education, institutional organization and to define and prioritize natural resource monitoring and management projects with the community.
Saweto is located on the Tamaya River, which is a hotspot for illegal logging and drug trafficking. Saweto has been working to defend its territory from these forces, which include a new, illegal road along its southern border. Because of its remote location, the community lacks basic government services and development opportunities.
The community of Alto Tamaya Saweto, 2021
The directors of the Alto Tamaya Saweto Native Community reached out to UAC to request help with their work on the environment and community development.
UAC has a long history with Saweto. We worked for years with its leader Edwin Chota in titling his community until this formidable environmental defender was ambushed and cowardly murdered in 2014 along with his friends Jorge Ríos, Leoncio Quintícima, and Francisco Pinedo after confronting illegal loggers and obtaining an investigation against the forest concessions that overlapped the Saweto territory. After his death, UAC continued to support the titling of the community, which finally was approved 2015.
This new stage of collaboration will focus on education and leadership training—two key issues for the sustainable development of communities. The project includes supporting bilingual education for Andrés Arévalo, a representative of Alto Tamaya Saweto in the city of Pucallpa, who wants to work for his Ashéninka community, his culture, and the protection of their ancestral territory.
Andrés Arévalo (left) and his father en Saweto, 2021
Our support in institutional capacity building will allow a group of leaders from Alto Tamaya Saweto to participate in meetings of a new cross-border commission working to protect the Tamaya / Amonia / Yurua rivers from the impacts of the illegal highway Nueva Italia - Puerto Breu, Yurua. UAC is ensuring that the Saweto community is involved in this collaboration despite the logistical and financial obstacles that this remote community presents.
In addition, Saweto leaders approached us about helping with a surveillance and monitoring program to help protect their territory from loggers, farmers and drug smugglers. We are pleased that Saweto approached us and trusts us to collaborate on this critical work.
Andrés and Saweto leaders in UAC’s Pucallpa office, January 2022