A vast network of waterways descends from the glaciers in the Andes into Ecuador and Peru, feeding the Amazon River and providing the primary water source for the Amazon region. These headwaters extend over 86 million acres of dense forests, nourishing the “living forests” (selvas vivientes) that regulate weather and rainfall patterns around the globe. The region also supports one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems and is home to more than 30 Indigenous nations—a population of 700,000 people who have stewarded the land for more than 10,000 years.

In the 1970s, Indigenous nations in the region formed alliances in their respective countries to fight increasing encroachment from extractive industries and gain territorial autonomy. Corporations and governments used divide-and-conquer tactics to weaken these collaborations, fomenting internal conflicts between communities to push through their projects. In one well-publicized case from the early 2000s, the Kichwa people of Sarayaku sued the Ecuadorian government and won the suit over lack of consultation for an oil concession to an Argentine oil company, but other Indigenous communities in the region, persuaded by promises of economic benefits, jobs, and infrastructure development, opposed them.

In 2017, as environmental destruction endangered their communities, a group of Indigenous organizers decided that rather than fight each battle as individual groups, they would work together. This collective approach required them to surmount the challenge of finding alignment across different nations—each with its own history, cultural traditions, and aspirations—to unite behind a common vision to sustain their way of life.

“Each of the Indigenous organizations or nations was walking alone, doing their own work, but these isolated efforts didn’t sum up to addressing the main issues,” explains Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai, a leader of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance (ASHA). “Wherever there was division, we had to go and unite. Whenever there were power struggles, I would go and speak to each one separately and find out why. Then, having this information, everyone was convinced that we needed this now.”

Read the full article about a collective path forward by Cynthia Rayner, Sophia Otoo, and François Bonnici at Stanford Social Innovation Review.