Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative

The Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative is building a shared vision among indigenous peoples, NGOs, the philanthropic community, social entrepreneurs and governments towards establishing a bi-national protected region – off-limits to industrial scale resource extraction, and governed in accordance with traditional indigenous principles of cooperation and harmony that foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.

The Initiative is led by Amazonian indigenous federations CONFENIAE (Ecuador), AIDESEP (Peru), ORPIO, and COICA, in partnership with Pachamama Alliance, and Fundación Pachamama.

Activity period 2018–present
Last CoAct update 2025
Web URL https://sacredheadwaters.org/
Output effectiveness
0.46
Accountability Index
0.35
Inclusiveness Index
0.58
Num. actors 9
Functions Knowledge production, Knowledge dissemination, Institutional capacity building
SDGs 8 10 11 12 13 17
Themes land use
Policy focus Mainly mitigation
Sectors Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Implementation countries Ecuador, Peru
Target Target type
No targets have been defined