Influence Award

Amazon Research Internacional (ARI) is a Peru-based organisation founded in 2021 which unites traditional knowledge with modern science to regenerate the Amazon Rainforest sustainably, safeguarding biodiversity, culture, and communities.

ARI is focused on preserving biodiversity, ecosystems and indigenous knowledge through conservation, research, education and community empowerment. Its mission is to mitigate climate change, regenerate species and ecosystems, elevate traditional knowledge, and empower livelihoods that benefit both nature and culture.

Operating in four regions – Loreto, Junin, Madre de Dios, and Cuzco – ARI has also partnered with Ese Ejje women in the Bolivian Amazon as a fifth regional pilot. It collaborates with Kukama-Kukamiria, Ashaninka, and Harakbut communities, each with unique worldviews, yet united by the belief in the interconnectedness of nature and humanity.

The organisation has a particular focus on stingless bees, vital to Amazonian ecology and culture. The bees’ decline threatens soil health, food chains, traditional medicine, and centuries-old cultural knowledge. ARI documents traditional knowledge on stingless bees and complements this with groundbreaking scientific research.

It is also currently partnering with the Earth Law Centre to develop the first Rights of Nature declaration for stingless bees. This is led by Ashaninka communities and will be presented to local municipalities and eventually to Congress for legal protection.

Glasbren (the Welsh language word for ‘Sapling’) was founded to offer accessible pathways into permaculture skills, nutrient-dense local food and to explore the role community-scale farms could play in ecological, social and cultural regeneration.

In its first years, it established a 3-acre, holistically-designed, living landscape of food, from which it fed up to 50 households weekly through a Community-Supported veg box scheme.

Through the pandemic and a cost-of living crisis, it partnered with organisations including Social Farms and Gardens, UWE Bristol, the local council, food bank, charities and wellbeing hubs to pilot a solidarity veg box scheme and explore the role farms could play in tackling inequality, food poverty, waste habits and diet-related health issues. Glasbren offered free workshops, videos and resources in cooking with the seasons and food growing, also engaging children and local schools. Through this, it has organically nurtured an engaged permaculture community-of-practice through regular and open communication, volunteer programmes, community events, feasts and open days and through nurturing strategic partnerships, locally and nationally.

In 2023, the organisation was selected to become the long-term guardian of a 134-acre National Trust farm with a mandate to work for nature, people and the planet. The new site is just nine miles from the original farm and, drawing on its existing community network, Glasbren plans to create a community hub, an accessible and secure source of local food, and to become a beacon for what farms like this could be as vehicles for regeneration.

Extractivism represents a constant threat to the Kukama territory in Peru and the loss of the Kukama peoples’ cultural identity.

The Kukama people conceive of the territory as a whole and women having an intrinsic connection to it. The term “kukama” for example is composed of two words: “ku” meaning ‘field’ and “kama” meaning ‘bosom,’ and it signifies ‘field-bosom’ or ‘nourished by the field.’ Given the Kukama peoples’ lives are reliant on the forest ecosystems of the lower basin of the Marañón River, and considering how they have adapted and coexisted with them for decades, the territory and the rivers are inseparable from their culture and way of life. They consider the rivers to be living beings with spirits, and therefore sacred.

Founded in 2001, Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana embarked on a long journey of collective actions, protests, and mobilisations in pursuit of environmental justice as the river’s health declined as a result of extractive industries.

In September 2021 Huaynakana filed a constitutional lawsuit to urge Peru to recognise the Marañón River as a living being and subject of rights. In March 2024, the provincial court of Nauta ruled that the Marañón River has intrinsic rights, including the right to flow, to be free from pollution, and to be restored to environmental health. This decision also recognised Indigenous communities as the river’s legal representatives, defenders, and guardians. This landmark ruling was ratified by the higher court last November.

Huaynakana plays a key role in defending the Marañón’s rights and supporting the regeneration and conservation of the waterways through reforestation efforts because without the river, these unique forests cannot exist.