Durable freshwater protection requires a fluid approach, and in the Amazon River Basin, a commitment to Indigenous Peoples’ self determination.
“Here you can see where the river is born,” says Carolina Carrillo, recalling her most recent journey through the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Aboard a narrow boat called a peke peke, Carrillo, a freshwater conservation specialist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), traverses a tributary of the Amazon called the Curaray.
Over 1,000 other tributaries drain the Amazon basin, the world’s largest watershed.
Water flows for thousands of kilometers through a network of wetlands, waterfalls, and branching channels, supporting human communities and nurturing a myriad of species along the way. But the vast scale and dynamic nature of these ecosystems makes conserving them a challenge.
“Freshwater ecosystem protection has been left behind and Ecuador is not an exception,” says Gabriela Celi, coordinator of TNC’s conservation strategy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
There’s been a long-held assumption that land protection is sufficient for freshwater ecosystems. But freshwater conservationists, observing how land conservation hasn’t prevented freshwater systems from being dammed, polluted and overused, see the need for more dedicated protections.
Get our latest research and insights about climate & biodiversity challenges, every month.
Sign UpSo, how can we effectively protect freshwater ecosystems?
Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon are working with TNC on the answer.
“Since more than 60% of the Ecuadorian Amazon region is Indigenous territory, we need to co-create frameworks and freshwater conservation models in partnership with Indigenous Nationalities and communities,” says Celi.
Carrillo, Celi and the TNC team have been working with representatives from 33 Waorani communities and 47 Kichwa communities to implement an innovative territorial protection strategy. In 2022, the communities established a conservation model for 371,380 hectares of land and water, encompassing the Nushiño, Curaray, and Villano rivers.
This initiative seeks to safeguard rivers by protecting natural water flow, water quality, and connectivity between ecosystems. It aims to protect 1,860 km of these three rivers from threats like mining and deforestation while providing connectivity for 200 species of fish.
And as Celi notes, it borders Yasuní National Park. “Connecting the Nushiño-Curaray Villano river system with this protected area will allow us to create a big freshwater corridor.”
As representatives of the two Indigenous Nationalities continue to develop together the community-led mechanism to protect and monitor the fluvial system, numerous legal discussions are underway in Ecuador on how to recognize nationalities’ conservation efforts within their territories.
Enduring freshwater conservation success in the Amazon and beyond will depend not on a single solution but on the process of getting there.
That process begins and is shaped throughout by local conversations. Policy, economic or conservation-oriented solutions better withstand the test of time when they reflect local values and address local concerns.
Since the world needs a healthy, connected and resilient Amazon basin to thrive—and since much of the region is within Indigenous territory—governments and NGOs need to bolster Indigenous Nationalities’ rights and capacities to steward nature.
To develop lasting strategies for safeguarding dynamic systems like rivers, the world must be willing to listen to what Indigenous Peoples have to say.
Carolina Carrillo is eager to listen; she just has to physically get to the conversation.
She drives four to five hours from her home city of Puyo and then does the final stretch on a three-to-five-meter peke peke boat. Over the course of a week, she and her team will travel by boat to multiple Indigenous communities, talking about freshwater protection in workshops and informal conversations before reversing course and returning to Puyo.
“When I’m in the community, I have the time to talk to people, to know their places, to know small rivers and to see some animals that have fascinated me for years,” says Carrillo.
“In the past they used to say:
Yakumama, the boa that took care of us…the boa helped to preserve the water. There the boa remained and attracted the fish.
For that reason, we have maintained it from contamination so that the mother of the water, the boa, wouldn’t be scared away. It remained there so that fish came, big or small.
This is how we think as women. Our mothers, our grandmothers. This has been taught to us, and what we plan to continue."
—Yolanda Vargas, Kichwa
The biodiversity here is awe-inspiring. Carrillo has observed fish she had previously only seen in museums: species like the nocturnal blue whale catfish or the armored catfish known as the royal pleco.
And there is always the possibility that a species unknown to Western science is slipping silently beneath her boat.
But recently, she’s made less heartening observations, like the severe regional drought exacerbated by climate change.
“You can see the bottom of the river, and that is something awful,” says Carrillo, highlighting how Indigenous communities along these rivers are being affected by changes in the flow regime, which could impact the livelihoods of communities that rely on the river for transportation, food and other resources.
Threats such as deforestation, oil production and mining activities in the upper basin can cause significant negative impacts throughout the watershed.
Populations of catfish, a main source of protein and healthy fat for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, have dwindled and are being monitored for contamination from different potential sources.
“When we first arrived to the community, when I was the age that my kid is today, I saw there was a lot of catfish.
Since the water was clean, [community members] were hanging out there. They caught catfish every day. And sometimes I went with [my father], following him, and he taught me how to fish, how to cast a net and how to dive in the water.
With time, there are almost no more now. People threw dynamite to the river and the catfish has almost disappeared.
—Toribio Simbaña, Waorani
Threats to healthy rivers, wetlands and lakes are not unique to the Amazon. Monitored wildlife populations from freshwater ecosystems around the world have declined 85% and mega-fishes by 94%.
Fluid challenges need fluid solutions. The first step? Set aside the terrestrial toolkit in exchange for a much larger and more flexible set of tools that can be tailored for the special dynamics and vulnerabilities of freshwater systems.
How we're scaling up efforts to protect freshwater ecosystems, complete with global case studies.
DOWNLOADOn the ground, and in the water, we need solutions that maintain natural flow and water quality through a combination of innovative protection strategies and effective management. Sometimes those strategies look like conventional protected areas, but just as often they don’t.
Carrillo and her team regularly participate in workshops with Waorani and Kichwa communities to co-design the initiative’s management plan, define the governance model and establish a financial sustainability strategy that supports community health and sustainable livelihoods.
When making decisions that impact resources as vital as water and food, the stakes for remote Amazon communities are understandably high.
Communities don’t take lightly decisions to partner with outside people or organizations. Trust must be earned, continuously.
TNC takes steps to ensure the communities’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) on all decisions.
FPIC is an international legal standard and an ongoing process to protect the right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination, allowing meaningful discussions and the freedom to make decisions without intimidation.
“This is a time-consuming process, but really important,” says Carillo. “We have to take one step by one step.”
Sometimes, a relationship can take a backwards step due to confusion or miscommunication. “That is something we have to continually work on as humans,” acknowledges Carrillo.
Useful info, guidance and tools about Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
Learn MoreBut partnerships committed to FPIC allow the space for disagreement and resolution. Rather than shy away from potential obstacles, an FPIC process encourages dialogue that identifies and anticipates issues that could be more costly later on to budgets or to the relationships themselves.
While conversations occur deep in the Amazon, they’re supported by dialogue going on in cities like Puyo and Quito. Cevallos underscores the need to advance recognition of these conservation spaces.
"My hope is that conservation-designated areas will eventually gain national and international recognition, if communities so desire," says Cevallos. "That way, we move beyond ‘paper areas’ and ensure these areas are actively and effectively managed within our Ecuadorian Amazon."
For Carrillo, the motivation is about more than scientific curiosity. It’s about the quality of life of the people she meets and securing freshwater ecosystem protection that benefits the whole world.
Says Carrillo, “If people can thrive, it's a big mark of success."
More stories from the world of fresh water conservation.
