"Historic land win for Ecuador’s Siekopai sets precedent for other Indigenous peoples", 08 January 2024

...After winning a historic lawsuit, an Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained legal ownership of its land in a protected area — 80 years since being forcibly displaced. According to experts, this new ruling may change the approach communities use to obtain their ancestral lands in Ecuador, and the country may see more communities filing similar lawsuits to obtain lands locked away for state conservation...

The decision by the provincial court of Sucumbíos means that the Siekopai people now have legal rights to the place where their ancestors are buried. It also means the community is free to sustainably manage the local natural resources as it sees fit...

The forests are an integral part of Siekopai culture, leaders say, and communities have experience trying to protect them using camera traps, drones and studies, to monitor impacts from extractive industries on biodiversity loss. Once their management plan is established, the Siekopai will sit down with the ministry and ask for any technical advice, Acero said...

In the 1940s, the community was forced off its land when the Ecuador-Peru War militarized the area and formed a border...In 2022, the Siekopai decided additional action needed to be taken and they filed a lawsuit against the government...

The environment ministry hadn’t issued a statement on the ruling and officials hadn’t responded to Mongabay’s requests for information as of the time this story was published...