Peatlands, some of the world's largest carbon reservoirs, are protected in the Peruvian Amazon by communities.

September 9, 2025, 9:00 AM Updated: 09.09.2025 09:00

On the banks of the Pastaza River in Datem del Marañón, Kietre Gonzales recalls that as a child, the aguajales, the swampy palm forests most prevalent in this area of ​​the Peruvian Amazon, were located not far from the wooden houses that abound in his community. But over time, the landscape changed. The aguajes (Mauritia flexuosa), where the wine-red fruit of the same name grows, began to be cut down.

“Fifteen years ago, we were destroying the land ourselves. Before, we cut down the aguaje palm to harvest its fruit, leaving its place empty and other types of weeds growing. We started cutting down trees because there was no initiative to take care of them,” says Gonzales, a member of the Recreo native community, part of the Kichua indigenous people.

At the foot of one of the trees on the riverbank, Kietre turns around, raises his head, and looks at the large leaves of the aguaje palms poking out from the vegetation in the distance, toward the end of the bright green of the space used as a sports field, under the clear sky and a scorching sun that makes his skin glow. A rooster crows, interrupting his contemplation of the landscape. “Now we have realized that we should not cut down the trees, the lungs of the world, of the Amazon,” he says.

The aguajal peatlands that still exist in this Amazonian territory are part of the Pastaza Fan, one of the deepest wetland complexes globally: the third deepest tropical wetland at 8.1 meters, after Central Kalimantan in Indonesia and Cuvette Centrale in the Congo.

Furthermore, the Pastaza Fan was classified as a Ramsar site in 2002, a category of international importance due to its water resources and biodiversity. Its more than 3.8 million hectares of forest are home to nearly 300 species of fish, 261 species of birds, and a wide variety of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.

But not only that, it has also gained global relevance due to its ability to mitigate the effects of climate change through carbon storage.

Now, members of the native communities, including the Achuar, Kichua, Kandozi, Awajún, Wampis, Chapra, and Shawi peoples who live in the area, are seeking to conserve the peatlands from extractive activities.

The high consumption of aguaje in Amazonian areas due to its health benefits—its vitamin A content is five times higher than that of carrots—has generated an increase in demand for this forest product.

However, they are not the only danger they face. Deforestation, illegal mining, proximity to hydrocarbon exploitation sites, land use changes, among other threats, are gaining ground in the region.

In Datem del Marañón, there are three types of forests linked to peatlands. The main one, due to its size, accounting for 80% of the Amazonian peatlands, is the aguajal forest, like the one found in the Kietre Gonzales community.

Layers and layers of organic matter accumulated over decades, hundreds, or even thousands of years make up peatlands. This organic material never fully decomposes because it is always partially submerged in water. It is trapped within the ecosystem, notes Aoife Bennet, a political ecologist who has researched peatlands in Peru.

Along the same lines, Gabriel Hidalgo, researcher and representative of the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP), an entity affiliated with the Ministry of Environment, adds that water saturation is a critical condition for the formation of peatlands, which contribute to water supplies. "That is, during the dry season they serve as a buffer, a water supply that is gradually released into small rivers and streams, which later end up in larger rivers. They are also a source, a storehouse of pure carbon."

As a result of the study conducted by Hidalgo and other scientists from IIAP and the private organization Fondo de Promoción de las Áreas Naturales Protegidas del Perú (Profonanpe) in 2022, published two years later, to generate a baseline of information on the state of the forest and the carbon stock in peatlands and swamps in Datem del Marañón, it is estimated that peatland vegetation contains an average of 80 tons of carbon per hectare. In peat soil, estimates reach as high as 1,700 tons, representing 21 times more carbon stock, making this an area of ​​great importance. In other words, 75% of the carbon stock in this area is stored in peatland soil, and peatland can store three to five times more carbon dioxide than other tropical ecosystems.

However, their degradation can turn them into sources of carbon emissions. "If there is a change in temperature and loss of moisture, this organic matter begins to decompose more quickly, producing greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2 and methane," Hidalgo notes.

Gonzales, who is also vice president of the Association of Amazonian Fruit Producers of Recreation (Asprofar), learned this from specialists who visited his community and recognizes the benefits he has gained since they began caring for this ecosystem. The abundance of aguaje (watermelon) in communal territories for hundreds of years has made the extraction of the fruit one of the main economic and food-supporting activities in the area.

From the early hours of the morning, between September and January, Gonzales and other members of the Recreo community enter the forest with rubber boots, new equipment for climbing the palm trees, and raffia sacks to harvest the aguaje (fruit). Long gone are the days of felling the trees to extract the fruit. Cutting down the aguaje (fruit trees) prevented them from harvesting again in the future, so they decided to change their method of extraction. While the men climb the palm trees, some held by harnesses, the women remove the fruit that falls and fill it into sacks. Throughout the season, they will extract an average of 80 sacks, receiving 40 soles (about $11) for each one.

"Before, we harvested by felling trees, now we climb trees. That is, we no longer fell them; we harvest the palm tree while it's standing. That has been the main change over the years," says Segundo Chanchari, a climber from the Puerto Díaz native community.

Climbing the 15 to 30 meters that aguaje palm trees can reach has become quite an adventure for Chanchari. He's been doing this for 16 years, but now that he's learned new techniques for climbing and harvesting the fruit, he visits other communities to train them.

After a hike from the community's abundant wooden dwellings, and with his high rubber boots on to traverse the woods and the local lakes, he rests his heavy backpack containing his work implements at the foot of an aguaje palm tree. One by one, he begins to put on the ropes that will hold him up. He changes his rubber boots for others with spurs to climb toward the fruit above. "The aguaje is the lungs of the world; it receives carbon dioxide, and now more people are becoming aware of preserving the environment due to climate change," he adds, while using his sun-kissed arms to swat away the mosquitoes that lurk in wait for him.

But not everything is extraction. Some clusters of aguajes remain as food for local wildlife, including the sachavaca (Tapirus terrestris), the majaz (Cuniculus paca), the gray deer (Mazama gouazoubira), and monkeys such as the black-faced guapo (Pithecia monachus) and the red-faced guapo (Cacajao calvus).

Although the Datem del Marañón has been under investigation for 26 years, it has been receiving scientists from the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP) and the private organization Fund for the Promotion of Natural Protected Areas of Peru (Profonanpe) for seven years. In addition to developing a methodology for measuring carbon stock levels in peatlands, they have worked with indigenous communities on the conservation of this ecosystem.

In 2015, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a financial mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, approved funding for the Building Resilience in the Wetlands of the Datem del Marañón Province of Peru project. It was the first Green Fund project in Peru and worldwide.

Thanks to this initiative, local communities were able to strengthen their knowledge of the use of aguaje and peat bogs.

In the Puerto Industrial Native Community, an hour by river from Recreo, Kietre Gonzales's home, there is a single male aguaje palm tree growing alone. The heat and humidity produced by the nearly 30-degree Celsius temperature are its only companion. Only the female aguaje palm trees produce the fruit they need to sustain themselves, but they both need each other to survive. The one found here will not be able to pollinate any other.

This aguaje, growing into the vastness of the Amazon's azure sky, in the area of ​​a fruit processing plant, reminds Felipe Gutiérrez of the territory's vulnerability.

His work as a teacher in the Puerto Industrial community led Gutiérrez to establish a close relationship with the forest. After living in the community for years and being one of those responsible for promoting community development, he became interested in the aguaje production chain. While there are plantations within the Puerto Industrial area, they are located far away, and harvesting them requires more time and effort. Therefore, they have focused their efforts on processing the fruit from other towns, such as Recreo.

“Here in Puerto Industrial, there are aguajes (waterholes), but they're very far away. It's very difficult to get there because of the distance. On the other hand, in other communities, the fruit is there,” says Gutiérrez from the processing plant, which is now photovoltaic thanks to the solar panels that generate energy.

Since 2018, community members have joined together in the Aguaje Producers and Management Association to process the sacks of fruit that arrive by river from 13 other nearby communities. The aguaje production season is short, and they must take advantage of every day of work at the plant, for which each earns 40 soles a day (about $11).

If she could go out and harvest the aguaje, Llona Castillo, a 48-year-old native woman and mother of three, would. “Wetlands are like quicksand, and you can get submerged up to your knees. Now we don't work cutting down the aguaje; we take care of the plant.”

Not having a stable job and being a working mother, as she considers herself, is one of the greatest challenges facing women in Amazonian communities. "We need a daily bread, and this is how we earn a little money. Our quality of life has improved since aguaje production began. We take advantage of it and go to work," Castillo says.

Currently, they receive this seasonal fruit and process it in the plant they remodeled, thanks to funding from the Green Fund, to obtain nearly 7,000 ice creams, 20 liters of oil, and 40 aguaje soaps. Castillo comments that he would like to have more equipment to continue production the rest of the year when the aguaje is not harvested. At the end of the day, the operations at the community's small factory complement other traditional sources of livelihood such as agriculture, hunting, and fishing in the Datem River.

For other communities, such as the Kandozi ethnic group, artisanal fishing is an ancestral activity they practice to take advantage of available aquatic resources. In the San Fernando community, aguajales are not an option because they are far from their territory. Their biggest concern is not having fish, their main productive reserve, especially now that they have an ice plant that allows them to preserve what they catch to transport by river to urban markets, says Rider Gais, president of the Kachizpani Artisanal Fishermen's Association, who has dedicated his entire life to fishing.

The area's lakes and rivers are being affected by rising temperatures and the sedimentation of lagoons. Therefore, they are trying to address the situation through sustainable fishing, preventing peatlands degradation, and adapting to the effects of climate change, says Claudia Godfrey, Director of Innovation and Strategic Management at Profonanpe.

Furthermore, biobusinesses are one of the ways communities are generating economic value and conserving available resources and the ecosystem.

For Godfrey, the project developed in the Marañón wetlands (which involves aquaculture and aguaje production, among other activities) had two focuses: on the one hand, conserving the peatlands, and on the other, promoting the conservation of activities in a sustainable manner. "Biobusinesses have a triple impact: they conserve the ecosystem, improve the population's quality of life, and generate income," he says of the sites where these activities are carried out, which function as buffer zones for the care of the peatlands.

Conducting specialized studies in the Datem del Marañón peatlands is complex. The journey is long, involves costly logistics, and requires an agreement with indigenous communities to enter the areas. However, as a result of the team's exploration in 2022, a methodology for measuring carbon stock levels in peatlands was created. This document will serve as a baseline for the country's peatland policy, which the Ministry of the Environment and the National Forest and Wildlife Service (Serfor) must design and manage.

But are there any differences compared to other previous studies measuring carbon stocks? What is unique about this recent study? The key lies in the difference between measuring carbon in peatlands and in standing forests. “Not all trees have the same characteristics and store carbon differently. Including this variation is important to improve the accuracy of our estimates. Knowing the amount of carbon stored contributes to our understanding of climate change mitigation, since if this carbon were released into the atmosphere, it would affect regional and global weather patterns,” says researcher Gabriel Hidalgo.

In December 2024, the director of the National Forest and Wildlife Service (Serfor), José Nieto, acknowledged the presence of risks and illegal activities such as illegal mining, illicit crops, and deforestation in the Datem del Marañón, and highlighted the importance of projects like those developed in the area that "show the right path for how we should work with people." However, when inquiring with MINAM and SERFOR about the measures adopted based on the results of the team of scientists to generate policies on peatland conservation, no response was obtained.

Although there is no monitoring system for these ecosystems in the country or the region, there are initiatives to encourage conservation in the implementation process, for example the project "Guidelines for the Identification of Peatlands with the Purpose of Adopting Measures for Their Registration, Conservation, and Sustainable Use in Peru."

A few weeks ago, another study was published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists from the United States and the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP) revealed that the Quistococha peatlands in the neighboring province of Maynas, also in Loreto, have lost their ability to capture carbon dioxide due to climate change. "The fact that an ecosystem without major human alterations could lose its essential ecological role, solely due to the effects of climate, is alarming," said Jeffrey Wood, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Missouri's School of Natural Resources.

For the organic soil of the Datem del Marañón peatlands to maintain their carbon storage capacity, coordinated policies across different levels of government are necessary for their conservation and sustainable use. Otherwise, the efforts of scientists and the native communities living in the area could be for naught. As expert Aiofe Bennet points out, "It's like having the eighth wonder of the world. You're going to want to protect it and claim to own it, so you can include it in your environmental commitments."

(*) This article is part of a collaborative special between Mongabay Latam, EL TIEMPO, La Barra Espaciadora and Runrun.es