The Amazon Sacred Headwaters is a bioregion, a living territory

THE SACRED HEADWATERS

The Amazon Sacred Headwaters form a bioregion of 35 million hectares, an area comparable to the size of Italy, spanning the northern Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon.

The Sacred Headwaters originate in ancient Andean glaciers, giving life to the Pastaza, Marañón, and Amazon rivers. This territory is invaluable, not only for its unparalleled biodiversity but also for its role in creating "flying rivers," which are essential to the flow of vast water currents that moderate global climate. The Amazon Sacred Headwaters are home to ancestral cultures that have lived in sustained interdependence with nature, guided by reciprocity and spiritual connection. Protecting the Sacred Headwaters is crucial to preserving a source of life, knowledge, and resources of great importance to humanity.

Amazon Sacred Headwaters Bioregion

The Sacred Headwaters spans more than 86 million acres,

harboring a unique biodiversity found nowhere else on the planet, placing Ecuador and Peru among the 17 most megadiverse countries in the world.

These forests also capture approximately 24.155 million tons of carbon, a key contribution to limiting global temperature rise and mitigating the climate crisis.

LEGEND

  • Effective area Sacred Headwaters
  • Influence areas
  • Natural Protected areas
  • Indigenous territories

There are 5,470 mining concessions affecting more than 5.3 million acres...

from the Sacred Headwaters bioregion. 5 billion barrels of oil reserves are located underground, and keeping them there is equivalent to preventing the emission of more than 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases.

The oil industry has had a disastrous environmental, social, and cultural impact in Ecuador and Peru for decades, and mining, both now and in the future, holds a very high destructive potential for this bioregion.

LEGEND

  • Oil blocks
  • River contamination
  • Oil pipeline