Declaration of Túpac Amaru: “We warn that carbon markets promote the dispossession of our territories”
Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on Carbon Markets: Impacts, Initiatives, and Resistance in San Martín, Peru.
From 15 to 19 September 2025, a meeting of Indigenous Peoples took place in the Kichwa Túpac Amaru community, in Chazuta, San Martín, Peru. The “Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on Carbon Markets: Impacts, Initiatives, and Resistance” included Indigenous People and organisations from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Bolivia.
Following the meeting, the organisations published the Declaration of Túpac Amaru. The Declaration rejects carbon markets and REDD:
We reject the violations of our fundamental, collective, spiritual, and ancestral rights, as well as the conflicts over land ownership, the division and disharmony of our communities and representative organisations, and the loss of autonomy caused by the expansion of carbon markets, such as REDD+, and other green economy mechanisms that are false solutions to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
In a video about the meeting by Somos Kichwa, Wrays Perez of the Nación Wampís in Peru explains that there are two struggles: The legal recognition of Indigenous self-determination; and the recognition of Indigenous territory.
One of the issues discussed during the meeting was the Cordillera Azul REDD project. Since 2001, when the National Park was created without their free, prior and informed consent, the Kichwa have lost the use of and access to their traditional territories inside the Park.
In 2023, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) sent a formal letter to the Peruvian State about the impact of the Cordillera Azul National Park on the rights and territories of the Kichwa people and other Indigenous peoples.
But the Peruvian government has failed to implement the recommendations of UN CERD, and despite winning a series of legal cases the situation of the Kichwa has not yet improved.
In Somos Kichwa’s video, Marisol García, a Kichwa leader, says that,
“We, as the Kichwa people, have been dispossessed and exiled from our ancestral territory to create a protected area for the purpose of selling carbon credits. We have identified, for example, that one of the major oil companies, TotalEnergies, is buying carbon credits from the Cordillera Azul National Park, and is building an oil pipeline in Uganda.
“That’s why we’re issuing these warnings that it’s not real, because you can’t clean with your left hand and pollute with your right hand.”
The Declaration is posted here in full (and is available here in Spanish):
The Declaration of Túpac Amaru
The Indigenous Peoples, nations and nationalities of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, and Paraguay, gathered in the native Kichwa community of Túpac Amaru in the district of Chazuta, San Martín region in Peru, from 15 to 19 September 2025, within the framework of the “Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on Carbon Markets: Impacts, Initiatives, and Resistance” declare:
We reaffirm our spirituality, autonomy, self-determination, and the law of
origin of our peoples, nations, and nationalities in the fight against the
dispossession of our ancestral territories.
We demand that our Indigenous territories be valued as spaces for life and
conservation, based on our historical ancestral practices and knowledge
that we have been practicing for millennia, without the need to create
additional categories of imposed conservation.
We reject the violations of our fundamental, collective, spiritual, and
ancestral rights, as well as the conflicts over land ownership, the division
and disharmony of our communities and representative organisations,
and the loss of autonomy caused by the expansion of carbon markets,
such as REDD+, and other green economy mechanisms that are false
solutions to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
We warn that carbon markets promote the dispossession of our territories
and the criminalisation of our traditional and subsistence practices
through deceptive, abusive, long-term, unclear, and unsocialised
contracts with our constituents, disregarding our organisational
structures and procedures.
We denounce that activities linked to carbon markets and other forms of
extractivism generate differentiated impacts on the bodies and lives of
women, children, and adolescents in the territories, in addition to
stigmatisation, persecution, and criminalisation of human rights
defenders.
We denounce that the carbon projects underway in several of our
territories have failed to meet the required safeguards, let alone deliver
the promised benefits.
We reject all actors involved in the operation of these false solutions, such as: the certifying bodies VERRA, CER CARBONO, COLCX, Biocarbon Standard, and Gold Standard; developers such as CIMA Cordillera Azul, SERNANP, and the Ministry of the Environment in Peru; Yauto SAS and Biofix consultores SAS and others in Colombia; Green Carbon in Bolivia, and others in Ecuador and Paraguay; and validation and verification bodies such as AENOR International SAU, ICONTEC, Ruby Canyon Environmental, the Rainforest Alliance, and others in Colombia.
We condemn the fact that the buyers of carbon credits are the world’s
leading polluters, such as Total Energies, Shell, BHP, Chevron Petroleum
Company, Glencore, Geopark SAS, Organizacion Terpel SA, and others.
We are not willing to be complicit in their image-washing or any form of
extractivism. We hold private banks and investors, and their useless and ineffective safeguards, such as the World Bank, KFW, IDB, and others,
accountable for the economic, social, and cultural impacts of these
carbon markets on our territories, and at the same time we call for transparency in their financing.
We urge States to fulfill their role as guarantors of our rights and remedy
the impacts we denounce, and therefore reject their complicity and
inaction.
We reject the exclusionary conservation policies of states and other
private institutions for the creation of Protected Natural Areas on our
ancestral territories, ignoring our right to free, prior, and informed
consultation and to binding consent for our decisions.
We denounce that conservation organisations such as the IUCN, the Moore Foundation, and others support exclusionary conservation models that undermine our own vision of development and self-determination.
We demand that Pachamama be respected and recognised as a subject of
law to guarantee the well-being of future generations.
We declare ourselves in permanent mobilisation and subscribe to this declaration:
Bolivia
• Autonomía Guaraní Charagua Iyambae
• Coordinadora Nacional de Autonomías Indígenas de Bolivia (CONAIOC)
• Nación Monkoxɨ de LomeríoParaguay
• Organización de Mujeres – Comunidad Nueva Promesa del pueblo Sanapaná – Miembro de la OCUN
• Representantes de la Red de Promotores Jurídicos Indígenas de la región Occidental.
• Comunidad El Estribo del Pueblo Enxet – Base de la CLIBCHColombia
• Pueblo Inga del medio Putumayo
• Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Municipio de Villagarzón Putumayo (ACIMVIP)
• Asociación de Autoridades Indígenas del Pueblo Cofán (AMPII-CANKE)
• Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca - Çxhab Wala Kiwe (ACIN) Pueblo Nasa.Peru
• Federación de Pueblos Indígenas Kechwa Chazuta Amazonía (FEPIKECHA) y sus bases Túpac Amaru, Rebalse Chazuta, Alto Chazutayacu, Pongo del Huallaga, Ankash Yaku de Achinamisa, Sinchi Runa de Llucanayaku y Allima Sachayuk Siyambayok Pampa.
• Federación de Pueblos Indígenas Kechwas del Bajo Huallaga San Martín (FEPIKBHSAM) y sus bases Shilcayo, Chipeza, Ishkay Urmanayuk Tununtunumba, Ricardo Palma y Callanayaku.
• El Consejo Étnico de los Pueblos Kichwa de la Amazonía (CEPKA) y sus bases Anak Pillwana, Winkuyaku, Puerto Franco, Mishkiyakillu, Solo del Río Mayo, Wayku y Mushuk Belén.
• Gobierno Territorial Autónomo de la Nación Wampis (GTANW)
• Consejo de Mujeres Awajún Wampis Umukai Yawi (COMUAWUY)Ecuador
• Nación Shuar
Indigenous peoples, defenders of life!