Diego Rázuri Montoya

Diego works on strengthening indigenous territorial governance and community-based conservation in the southern Peruvian Amazon. His training as an anthropologist, combined with his commitment to serving Indigenous populations, motivates his advocacy for Indigenous peoples’ and territorial rights, and drives him toward community-led grassroots political processes that support the buen vivir of native communities and Indigenous federations, as well as the restoration and protection of forests and their territories. He has been working and living with different Amazonian Indigenous populations since 2015, particularly with Awajun, Yine, Ese Eja, Wampis, Shipibo, Asháninka, and especially Matsigenka communities, to whom he owes deep family, friendship, and political relationships.

His experience includes critical and participatory ancestral territorial mapping, documenting threats to Indigenous territories, developing governance tools that strengthen territorial governance and sovereignty, community mercury pollution monitoring through a One Health approach, community strategies for climate change adaptation, participatory forest restoration and conservation, and defending the life and security of Indigenous authorities threatened within their own territories. All of this is guided by a firm conviction to ensure that Indigenous worldviews and traditional knowledge systems remain at the center of conservation governance rather than being treated as secondary considerations.