A River’s Rights: Indigenous Kukama Women Lead the Way with Landmark Legal Victory

Defending the rights of nature represents a big step forward in the fight against climate change.

Here’s one of the most powerful pieces of good news you probably missed this year: a group of Indigenous women in Peru succeeded in asserting the legal right to integrity and protection of the Marañón River, a sacred waterway that flows from the Andes to the Amazon. This is a significant victory for the preservation of nature, water, forests, and biodiversity; in other words, life itself. It’s also a big step forward in the fight against climate change, and for the rights of nature, both topics that were debated last week at the 11th Pan Amazonian Social Forum in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia.

The women warriors behind this legal victory—the second of its kind in Latin America after the case of the Atrato River in Colombia—come from the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana, a Kukama women’s federation in the lower Marañón Watershed.

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