In June 2025, after more than ten years of petitions, negotiations, and persistence by the indigenous communities who have always called it home, the Peruvian government signed the decree creating the Medio Putumayo-Algodón Regional Conservation Area.
In the months since, the forest has continued doing what it has done for millions of years: holding carbon in its trees, filtering water through its root systems, sheltering species that exist nowhere else on Earth. By March 2026, the regional government of Loreto is finalising the master management plan that will guide the area's protection for the next decade.
What's Being Protected
The conservation area covers 283,595 hectares (approximately 701,000 acres) of primary Amazonian forest in the Loreto region of northern Peru, at the junction of the Putumayo and Algodón rivers, close to the Colombian border. It forms part of one of the richest biological corridors on the planet — connecting protected areas in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador in a continuous mosaic of forest stretching across roughly four million hectares.
The biodiversity of the region is extraordinary, even by Amazonian standards:
- An estimated 3,000 species of plants
- 550 species of fish
- 110 amphibian species
- 160 mammal species, including jaguars, giant otters, giant armadillos, and tapirs
- Amazon river dolphins (pink dolphins) in its river systems
- 27 species new to science identified in the region, according to a 2024-2025 Field Museum-led survey
The area also protects 53% of the total carbon stock in the Loreto region, and its preservation is projected to prevent over 46,000 hectares of deforestation in the next 20 years — a significant contribution to Peru's national carbon goals.
Indigenous Leadership
What makes this protection particularly significant is who led it. The campaign was driven by 16 indigenous communities from eight ethnic groups: Murui (Huitoto), Yagua, Ocaina, Kukama-Kukamiria, Kichwa, Maijuna, Secoya, and Bora peoples. These communities have managed the forest for generations. Their establishment of the conservation area formalises that stewardship under Peruvian law.
Under the conservation area's governance structure, indigenous communities will continue to monitor the territory, maintain borders, and prevent illegal activities including logging, mining, and drug trafficking routes that have historically threatened the region.
"This is a victory for our peoples," said representatives from the indigenous federations who led the decade-long campaign. "The forest was always ours to protect. Now the law agrees."
The Medio Putumayo-Algodón is not a story about governments giving nature to people. It's about people who never stopped caring for nature, finally receiving the formal recognition they asked for.
Sources: Conservation International; Mongabay, September 2025; Field Museum, 2025; Andes Amazon Fund; Impactful Ninja; noticiasambientales.com
