Mariluz Canaquiri remembers playing on the banks of Peru’s Marañón River as a young girl. Every morning, girls from her community fetched water from the river.
“Since I was born, my parents made us walk along the river because we had crops across the river,” Canaquiri told CBC News in an interview in Spanish.
Decades later, the 53-year-old played a role in a historic Peruvian court ruling that granted legal personhood to the Marañón River. Canaquiri and the Kukama Indigenous Women’s Federation launched their legal action following a number of oil spills in the region.
The ruling recognizing the river as a person with legal rights in March 2024 and named the Kukama, an Indigenous group in northern Peru, as guardians of the Marañón.
Canaquiri is the co-producer of a documentary, Karuara, People of the River, released earlier this year that chronicles the deep connection between the Kukama and the river.
“Where I live, it is not easy. There is a lot of poverty,” Canaquiri said. “Making our voices heard as women,… also as Indigenous peoples, is important.”
Legal help from B.C.
Canaquiri and the federation, which represents nearly 30 communities along the Marañón, received support from legal experts at the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre Clinic.
Calvin Sandborn and a colleague presented an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, outlining examples of Indigenous Guardians programs and Indigenous co-governance over land use and resource development in Canada.
The lawsuit was launched in 2021 with a verdict acknowledging the legal rights of the river issued in March. An appeal spearheaded by the Peruvian government was rejected in October.
“It’s a huge victory for the Kukama Women’s Federation,” Sandborn told CBC’s All Points West.
He says he has talked to a number of First Nations in Canada who have expressed interest in seeking a declaration of legal personhood for a river.
“This is very much an Indigenous concept that you view the river as part of your family. You have a relationship. It’s not just a thing to be dominated and managed,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some similar actions here.”
An alternative to The Little Mermaid
Stephanie Boyd, the Canadian co-director of Karuara, People of the River, says the documentary was the result of intense collaboration between filmmakers and Indigenous artists, elders and journalists in Peru.
Boyd said she was invited to make the film by a local artist who wanted to see a film about the “spirit universe” beneath the river. His kids, Boyd said, were growing up watching films and TV shows like The Little Mermaid and Peppa Pig and he wanted them to watch stories that reflected his culture.
The documentary features animation based on children’s drawings and stories from elders that illustrate the spiritual towns under the river.
Boyd says the Kukama people’s legal victory has garnered international attention. She says their story encourages viewers to consider, “What does my river or stream or creek mean to me, and how can I protect that?”
Canaquiri hopes her story can have an impact that extends far beyond the banks of the Marañón River, which continues to be a focal point in the lives of the Kukama.
“Defending rivers and territories means defending our own lives,” she said.