After more than 80 years of forced exile, the Siekopai people of the Ecuadorian Amazon have won back legal ownership of Pë’këya — 42,360 hectares of jungle along the Ecuador-Peru border that their ancestors called home for centuries. A ruling issued on November 24, 2023 C.E. by the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos made Ecuador the first country in the region to recognize an Indigenous community’s right to own, not merely occupy, land inside a nationally protected area.
At a glance
- Siekopai land rights: The court awarded full ownership of 42,360 hectares — also known as Lagartococha — to the Siekopai Nation, a community of roughly 720 people in Ecuador and more than 1,000 across Ecuador and Peru combined.
- Protected area precedent: Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution had previously barred full ownership of land within its National System of Protected Areas. This ruling, enabled by a 2017 land law, breaks that barrier for the first time.
- Public apology required: The court ordered Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition to issue a formal public apology to the Siekopai in a ceremony held on their own territory.
Expelled by a war, sustained by memory
The Siekopai speak Paikoka and have lived in the western Amazon for centuries. When Ecuador and Peru went to war in 1941 C.E., the Siekopai were caught in the middle. The conflict militarized the border, and the community was pushed out of Pë’këya — a territory centered on a network of lagoons, rivers, and forest that forms the spiritual and ecological core of their world.
The expulsion was not a clean event but a slow unraveling. Families were split between two countries. Those who tried to return faced harassment and legal barriers. The creation of the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve later added another layer of restriction, designating Lagartococha as protected land where Indigenous ownership was not permitted under existing law.
Justino Pianguaje, head of the Siekopai Nation, told El País that the struggle to return was started by his grandfather, Cecilio Piaguaje, in 1942 C.E. “He wanted to return to his territory. He began to look for a way to reunify his people, but he never succeeded due to harassment.” That fight stretched across three generations.
A 1753 manuscript and the case for restitution
To win their land back, the Siekopai had to prove they were the original inhabitants. That is a difficult task for a culture rooted in oral tradition rather than written records. Their legal team turned to historical documents held far from the Amazon — including an anonymous Jesuit manuscript from 1753 C.E., preserved at the New York Public Library, which contains roughly 1,200 words in Paikoka.
Argentine anthropologist María Susana Cipolletti, who testified in the proceedings, confirmed that the manuscript’s Spanish-to-Paikoka translation is strong evidence of long-term Siekopai presence in Lagartococha. Combined with oral testimony from elders and community members, it persuaded the court.
The ruling states clearly: “It has been demonstrated that the Siekopai Nation is the ancestral owner of the territory of Pë’këya, with which it has maintained a historical, spiritual, cultural and material relationship that has been essential in the creation and development of their cultural identity and worldview and that is essential for their physical and cultural survival.”
A matter of spirit, not just land
For the Siekopai, returning to Pë’këya is not primarily about property. Community member Maruja Payaguage put it plainly before the court: “My grandfather was there, drinking yagé; my grandparents’ home was there. That’s why we continue to feel [a connection] and want to return. It’s not a problem of land — it’s a matter of the spirit, of not suffering anymore.”
The court’s written ruling acknowledged the human cost of the long exile. It cited Cesario Piaguage Payaguage — who lived to 112 years old — and noted that he “wished he could die there, to be able to fulfill his ritual cycle.” He died on April 5, 2023 C.E., before the ruling was issued.
The 42,360 hectares recovered represent just over 40% of the original 100,000-hectare Lagartococha territory, where other Indigenous groups now also live. But Pianguaje says the recovered land contains the most sacred sites: Ñañokomasira, where ancient leaders reached an agreement with the mythological beings of water; the sacred river Emuña; and Kwiñajaira, a site where ancestors gathered medicinal plants. It is also where the Siekopai produced kwarawëko — a traditional plant syrup in the Paikoka language — which the community used during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A precedent for Indigenous land rights across Latin America
The ruling’s significance extends well beyond Pë’këya. Pianguaje has said he believes it can serve as a model for other Indigenous communities seeking to reclaim territories that have been absorbed into state-protected conservation zones — a pattern repeated across Latin America and beyond.
Ecuador’s legal framework already existed to support this outcome. The country’s 2008 Constitution guarantees Indigenous communities the right to possess ancestral lands. The 2017 Organic Law of Rural Lands and Ancestral Territories extended that protection into protected areas. What the Siekopai case adds is proof that those laws can be enforced — that courts will act, and that an apology from the state is not just symbolic but legally required.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has long recognized Indigenous territorial rights as a human rights issue, and international frameworks like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples have built the normative foundation for rulings like this one. But norms need courts willing to apply them — and that is what the Provincial Court of Justice of Sucumbíos did.
The recovery is not without complexity. The Siekopai received less than half of their original territory, and the coexistence of multiple Indigenous communities within Lagartococha will require ongoing negotiation. The promised ministerial apology, and what happens after it, will also test whether the ruling translates into durable change on the ground.
Pianguaje, for his part, is clear about what the ruling means: “I finally feel an internal peace, for having demanded respect for the rights of the Siekopai and having guaranteed this territorial space for current and future generations.”
Read more
For more on this story, see: El País — Historic ruling in Ecuador returns ownership of ancestral land to the Siekopai people
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Ghana expands marine protection at Cape Three Points
- Indigenous land rights: 160 million hectares recognized ahead of COP30
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Ecuador
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