(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Centro de Investigación en Geografía Aplicada, 2022-07-11) Pérez Cubillos, Camila María
Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge is used as a tool for the defense and vindication of territory by the indigenous communities located in the municipality of Leticia in the Colombian Amazon. These actions are the result of a series of socio-environmental tensions related to the territorial planning of this area, which has generated different territorial figures and problematic situations related to the productive and social activities of these communities.
The indigenous population in question is composed of the ticuna, cocama, yagua, and other peoples that have settled in recent decades (muina Murui, muinane, bora, miraña, andoque and others), totaling 54 indigenous peoples in the municipality. This manuscript analyzes the situation of the communities in suburban areas who have small indigenous reserves or who are in process of requesting the declaration of this with the national government. Due to their location and history in this place, those families are becoming surrounded by areas of urban expansion and overlapped by other territorial entities or actors. Consequently, generating direct effects on the space available for housing, traditional cultivation and other productive and cultural activities.
The vindication of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge of these peoples is the basis for indigenous leaders and knowledgeable people in their struggle for the recognition of their territory and their problems with the government. At the same time, they wish to express their ways of conceiving the territory as a space for life, health and wellbeing that is achieved under their practices, rituals, ceremonies and ways of relating to the surrounding ecosystems. With the interest of defending and protecting their territory and in order to change the Amazon Forest Reserve into Indigenous Reserve, they have created significant alliances among their organizations and have reached out to both international as national regulations to achieve their goals and benefit the rights recognized in Colombia.
