Indigenous Science Helps Defend Amazon Forests

Ecuador’s Indigenous Shuar community is using science and ancestral knowledge to protect biodiverse Amazon forests from mining and strengthen legal safeguards for nature.

“Ecoforensic gives me hope that this way of life can still be protected,” said Jhostin Antún, Shuar paraecologist from Maikiuants.

Community paraecologists are documenting jaguars, spectacled bears, giant anteaters, and endangered species, as well as newly discovered frogs, to build legal evidence under Ecuador’s “rights of nature” laws. Their work combines camera traps, species records, and water samples with generations of ecological knowledge, showing how mining could harm ecosystems that sustain 480 residents. Similar evidence helped halt a major copper mine in Ecuador’s Intag Valley in 2023, highlighting how community-led science can protect forests, defend Indigenous rights and preserve biodiversity.