Ecuador Court Orders Stolen Land Returned to Siekopai People

“This groundbreaking precedent paves the way for other Indigenous communities who dream of recovering their territories within protected areas,” said one campaigner.

Amazon defenders this week cheered what one group called “an invaluable precedent for all Indigenous peoples fighting to recover their lands” after an Ecuadorean appeals court ruled in favor of the Siekopai Nation's ownership claim over its ancestral homeland.

The November 24 decision by a three-judge panel of the Sucumbios Provincial Court of Justice gives Ecuador's Ministry of the Environment 45 days to hand over title to more than 104,000 acres of land along the country's border with Peru.

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