Ecuador’s Siekopaai people demand enforcement of ancestral land court ruling

On Tuesday, a delegation of 160 members of the Amazonian Siekopaai community arrived in Quito to demand that the government respect territorial rights guaranteed in a 2023 provincial court ruling. The ruling ordered the Environmental Ministry to retitle the Pë’këya near the Peruvian border, recognizing it as part of ancestral lands inhabited by the indigenous nation for centuries.

A member of the Siekopaai community holds up a children’s workbook describing Siekopaai history and culture.

According to Siekopaai leaders, the government “refuses to comply with the ruling, filing pointless appeals to court and prolonging the wait for the elders who dream of returning to their ancestral territory and reconnecting with it,” Amazon Frontlines reports.

In October 2025, Siekopaai lawyer Jorge Acero filed an action for noncompliance before the Constitutional Court “because the Environmental Ministry has failed for more than two and a half years to comply with a ruling issued by the Provincial Court of Sucumbios.”

The provincial order applies to 42,360 hectares of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The Siekopaai nation is asking that the case be resolved “promptly and urgently,” because it is unacceptable for the situation to remain unresolved, Acero said, adding that the intervention of the court is required given the lack of compliance by government institutions.

“The ruling established an historic precedent in Ecuador,” Acero said. “It is the first time that provincial court judges, and hopefully soon the Constitutional Court, have been absolutely clear that this right must be fulfilled, guaranteed and respected.” He added that the indigenous peoples of Ecuador have suffered years of abuse and neglect by the government.

In 2017, the Siekopaai nation asked the Environmental Ministry to begin the process of granting title to part of its ancestral territory that had been taken away. This came after the community, with the support of anthropologists, had carried out mapping and field visits to prove the land belonged to the Siekopaais. The government, however, has ignored these studies as well as the court ruling, Acero noted.

Consuelo Piaguaje, a leader of the Siekopaais, stressed that the territory represents identity, worldview, and heritage to the Siekopaais people.

She also highlighted the importance for young people of returning to live in areas where their grandparents connected with the forest spirit. “For young people, this territory is important because we want to return to and honor our ancestry and to live again as true Siekopaais.”

Recalling the Indigenous nation’s more than 80 years of struggle “to return to our territory,” Justino Piyaguaje said the Siekopaai are a cross-border people because they were “divided by the policies and conflicts of Ecuador and Peru that have nothing to do with us. Our families live in both countries.”

“In Ecuador we are 800 people and in Peru about 1,200,” Piyaguaje said.
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Credit: TeleSur