In the northern Peruvian Amazon, where the rivers run gold with silt and mercury, the Wampís Nation has grown tired of waiting for the state. Faced with illegal miners, loggers, and drug traffickers, the community has formed its own territorial guard, Charip, to patrol a stretch of rainforest roughly the size of Connecticut, reports Aimee Gabay.
The results came swiftly. Within weeks of its creation in 2024, Charip detained three police officers caught mining illegally near the Santiago River. The government responded with promises to restore order but, according to local leaders, has yet to follow through.
“The state has abandoned us,” said René Santiago Ti, Charip’s president. “We feel very outraged because we haven’t had any support in terms of security.”
Operating without pay, Charip once counted 60 volunteers. Only nine remain. They destroy mining dredges with their bare hands and patrol the waterways with ancestral weapons.
“Without food and money, we fight,” Santiago said.
Peru’s constitution grants Indigenous peoples limited authority to administer justice within their territories. In practice, it leaves them to shoulder the state’s duties with little protection.
“They are putting their lives at risk for their territory, for its natural resources,” said Silvana Baldovino of the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law (SPDA).
The miners are fewer now, but Charip’s ranks are thinning too. Courage alone, it seems, cannot fill the vacuum where the government should stand.
