San Martín. During the week of May 11, residents of the community of Balsapuerto, guided by strange lights coming from the forest, discovered a significant number of intruders within the territory of the Shawi Nation, specifically in the Cachiyacu River area, located between the Pomayacu waterfalls and the salt mine. In this regard, a journalist captured images within the buffer zone of the Cordillera Escalera Protected Natural Area (May 17, 2026, RTV Total): https://www.facebook.com/reel/1013879537839822 https://www.facebook.com/reel/1013879537839822 ).
In response, the Shawi Territorial Government convened an assembly in Canoa Puerto to make urgent decisions. During the gathering, Víctor Pizango, President of the Federation of Shawi Communities of the Armanayacu (FECOSHARMA), raised the alarm before leaders of other communities and Territorial Government authorities. “There is interest from the state in building the Moyobamba–Balsapuerto road. Because of this, outsiders are coming to settle here; we are being invaded. We uphold our territorial rights recognized under ILO Convention 169,” Víctor Pizango told RTV Total.
In light of the situation, Shawi authorities gathered in the Native Community of Canoa Puerto agreed to send a delegation to the city of Yurimaguas to file the corresponding complaints with authorities and seek a solution through dialogue.
The Shawi Nation warns that the Regional Government of Loreto has been irregularly advancing the Balsapuerto–Moyobamba road project without conducting the studies required by law to determine whether a road should be established in this highly fragile and sensitive area, which contains important headwaters and sacred places for the Nation. Through its communities, grassroots federations, and Autonomous Territorial Government, the Shawi Nation has repeatedly expressed in public statements its opposition to the road project, recognizing that it would open the door to invasions by outsiders, land trafficking, the destruction of natural resources, and the expansion of illegal economies into territory that the Shawi people have defended ancestrally since time immemorial (see public statements from 2024 and 2025). Today, that threat has materialized in the invasion by a group of unidentified individuals reported on May 16.
In addition, through Law No. 31938, the Congress of the Republic Law Nº31938declared the construction of the Yurimaguas–Balsapuerto–Moyobamba highway to be of national interest. Both the road project and the law in question fail to comply with the obligation to carry out prior, free, and informed consultation with the Shawi people, who will be affected by the infrastructure project. This situation has generated strong opposition and has compelled Indigenous communities to defend themselves against land trafficking and incursions by outsiders into Shawi territory.
From the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, we express our concern and extend an urgent call to the competent authorities (MININTER, the Regional Governments of San Martín and Loreto, among others) to respond in support of Shawi communities whose territorial integrity and collective well-being are at serious risk.