Cartography of Sumak Kawsay among the Ancestral Kichwa Peoples of Pastaza

Cartography of Sumak Kawsay among the Ancestral Kichwa Peoples of Pastaza

Written on 09 January 2026. Posted in News

BY PAUL ANDRÉS SABANDO MOSQUERA FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

In the Ecuadorian Amazon, sumak kawsay embodies the Kichwa peoples' vision of life, which guides the management of their territories. When incorporated into modern cartography, this knowledge enriches their interpretation of their territory, facilitates community-based monitoring, and provides a foundation for Indigenous self-government. Kichwa cartography responds to the need for communities to express their own logic of territorial occupation and management, grounded in their worldview.

In the Ecuadorian Amazon, the rainforests of the Pastaza Province are threatened by illegal alluvial mining, indiscriminate logging and wildlife trafficking operating along its border areas. Compounding this irregular pressure is a government policy to expand the oil frontier through the so-called Ronda Suroriente. Within this framework, 21 oil concession blocks were auctioned, 13 of them in the Pastaza Province, covering the entirety of the territories of the Achuar, Andwa, Shiwiar and Sápara nations, as well as 97 per cent of Kichwa territory.

As a result, the Indigenous communities of Pastaza live under constant alert. In the face of multiple threats, the ancestral Kichwa peoples are consolidating their sumak kawsay Territorial Management Agendas", as a means of fully exercising their rights to autonomy, self-determination, autonomous territorial governance and the sumak kawsay of their families and communities. Their aim is to enforce the rights enshrined in the Ecuadorian Constitution and in international instruments, within their sovereign ancestral territories.

Sumak Kawsay: Core Pillars and Way of Life

Sumak kawsay is the Kichwa peoples' vision of life, which guides territorial stewardship (Sumak Allpa Mama), the organisation of families, communities and the people (Sumak Ayllu), the management of the community economy (Sumak Mirachina), and the transmission of ancestral knowledge and wisdom (Sumak Runa Yachay). Communities are understood as integral to all beings that inhabit the living forest: supay (guardian spirits that protect all existing entities), animals, forests, ancestors, peoples and worlds, which together constitute the Kichwa territory of Pastaza.

Kichwa communities manage their lands according to two main conceptions: sacha and yaku. Sacha encompasses the different types of forest, considering dominant plant and animal species, soil characteristics, and groundwater recharge areas. Yaku refers to aquatic ecosystems and their surrounding environments. These principles guide their territorial management, ensuring that conservation and restoration efforts remain grounded in ancestral knowledge and in the values of sumak kawsay.

Participatory work with the communities has enabled the documentation of a locally rooted system for recognising habitat diversity in their environment, in which each category brings together biophysical and cultural attributes: cachi refers to mineral licks where hunting is strictly prohibited; turu designates seasonally flooded palm swamps critical for groundwater recharge; cucha describes deep pools that serve as refuges for aquatic species; urku encompasses forested hills, sources of seeds and medicinal plants; pamba denotes upland plains suitable for diversified chacras (traditional farming plots); yaku patapamba refers to riparian floodplain forests essential for mitigating river surges; and runa aylluguna kawsana allpa includes settlements, schools and community centres interconnected by pathways.

When integrated into modern cartography as vector layers labelled with Kichwa terms and their biocultural descriptions, this knowledge enriches territorial interpretation, facilitates community-based monitoring, and provides a structured foundation for Indigenous planning and self-government. In this way, Kichwa communities-particularly those along the border with Peru-have initiated zoning processes in response to the need to regulate and manage their territories. To this end, they have carried out workshops combining the collection of geographic information on Sumak Allpa Mama with analyses of territorial management, its challenges, and its alternatives.

Technical Capacities for Monitoring Life Spaces

The community-strengthening strategy progressed on two complementary fronts. On one hand, local teams were trained to operate sub-metric Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, set up camera traps, and record observations using standardised mobile applications. Using these tools, local technicians georeferenced water sources, salt licks, transit routes, and points of human activity, both in the upper reaches of the Anzu River (exposed to agricultural and livestock expansion) and in the lower Curaray-Pinduyaku basin.

The collected data feed into high-resolution mosaics obtained from drone flights and satellite analyses, which are used to derive coverage and disturbance indices, creating a consistent technical foundation for assessing risks and planning conservation actions.

In parallel, participatory "talking mapping" workshops were conducted in the territory. Elders who safeguard territorial memory, community leaders, and youth gathered to identify the life spaces defined by the Kichwa worldview. Each site was described not only by its physical characteristics but also by the supay that protects it-the guardian spirit conferring obligations of respect and proper use. Once digitised, these polygons are integrated with the geographic information gathered by the monitoring teams, ensuring that the Territorial Management Agendas combine empirical evidence with the symbolic heritage underpinning sumak kawsay.

Two Experiences Strengthening Territorial Management

The Kichwa people of Kawsac Sacha comprise six communities, with their territory spanning 245,735 hectares between the Pindoyaku River to the south and the Curaray River to the north. Work was carried out with the community of Yana Yaku, the only Kichwa settlement in this area, strategically located for territorial control and management due to its position on the border with Peru and adjacent Indigenous nationalities. Since 1992, Yana Yaku has played a pivotal role in advancing the rights of Indigenous Peoples, establishing and managing community territories, and overseeing the forests of the Kawsac Sacha people.

Beyond the main zoning categories for life spaces, specific categories for lacustrine ecosystems were identified, such as Yana Jita Lake. Lindus refers to the immediate shores of rivers, lakes, and lagoons, which contain a high concentration of organic matter. Pulaya are beaches that form during the dry season, either as dry sandbanks (tiu pulaya) or muddy shores (turu pulaya). Chimbana Sacha denotes the connecting area between two bodies of water originating from the floodplains of the main channels. Uma is found at the terminal end of the lagoon and is often linked to a spring. Pungu, also called bocana, refers to points where two bodies of water meet, with one feeding into the other.

The ancestral Kichwa people of the Anzu River consist of seven communities, with primary and secondary road access and connections to the provincial capitals of the Ecuadorian Amazon. They maintain strong organisational structures, with a focus on ecosystem conservation, Indigenous rights advocacy, and territorial management guided by the vision of sumak kawsay. Their territory encompasses biodiverse highland forests alongside agricultural plots. As all lands are subdivided and allocated to different owners, the association of neighbouring plots is essential to preserve territorial cohesion, which faces pressure from population growth and expansion. These highland areas contain the headwaters that feed the Pastaza River basin, underscoring the strategic importance of their conservation.

Through continuous monitoring and the development of sumak kawsay cartography in the Kupal Paccha micro-basin, a restoration plan was implemented. Local technical brigades georeferenced degraded polygons along the Kupal Yaku River. Drawing on botanical inventories and local knowledge, seeds were collected and seedlings of native species with high ecological and cultural value were acquired. Over 1,000 plants-including morete, wayuri, ayahuasca and taraputu-were planted in water recharge zones and areas with verified biodiversity loss. Restoration progress is monitored by community technicians using camera traps and permanent plots, which have already documented a variety of bird and mammal species.

Conclusions and Future Challenges

Kichwa cartography has emerged as a response to the need for communities to express, in a contemporary spatial language, the logic of land use and management derived from their sumak kawsay worldview. By translating the traditional classification of sacha and yaku into vector layers, tabular attributes, and thematic symbology, communities transform their oral knowledge into a reference system capable of engaging with regional scales, legal frameworks, and technical standards, while retaining its cultural depth.

This process goes beyond the mere translation of terms; it constitutes the development of a data model that reflects the reciprocity between people, rivers, forests, and all beings that inhabit them. In this way, spatial analyses preserve the ontological meaning of each element. The resulting cartographic files provide the empirical foundation for the Kichwa Territorial Management Agendas.

By integrating communal boundaries, cultural zoning, biodiversity hotspots, and records of external pressures, these agendas obtain the technical support needed to plan land use, regulate extractive activities, substantiate complaints, and design restoration programmes. The ability to produce, update, and safeguard this data strengthens self-government and self-determination: communities control the scale of information dissemination, define access protocols, and, above all, legitimise their decisions before state and private actors from a technical standpoint grounded in ancestral knowledge.

The communities of Yanayaku and Gavilán del Anzu have been pioneers in this process, using sumak kawsay cartography as a strategic tool to conserve their ecosystems and protect their territories from extractive activities. In the medium and long term, the project aims to consolidate the Territorial Information System (SIT) as an integrated platform combining advanced technology with ancestral knowledge, promoting environmental resilience, sustainable development, and the self-determination of the Kichwa Indigenous Peoples in Pastaza.

Paul Andrés Sabando Mosquera is a Geographic Technician at the Quichua Institute of Biotechnology Sacha Supay (IQBSS). The IQBSS's main objectives are the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity in Kichwa territories of the southeastern Ecuadorian Amazon, through socio-environmental research and management plans.

Cover photo: Capacity-building workshop on camera-trapping techniques in Gavilán del Anzu. Photo: IQBSS

Tags: Indigenous Debates