The People of the Amazon
The Peruvian Amazon is home to diverse Indigenous nations whose identities are inseparable from rivers, forests, and ancestral territory. Among them are the Bora, Yagua, Kukama, Jíbaro peoples, and historically, the Alamas.
The Alamas were an Amazonian Indigenous people related to the Jíbaro cultural lineage. Over time, they were decimated by disease, displaced, and ultimately assimilated.
Today, they are considered culturally extinct as an independent group. Their history reflects both the resilience and vulnerability of Amazonian peoples in the face of external pressures.
Across the region, Indigenous communities maintain deep ecological knowledge — of river cycles, medicinal plants, forest management, and spiritual traditions rooted in respect for nature. Yet they continue to face environmental threats including oil extraction, illegal mining, river contamination, and territorial displacement.
Meet the Communities
The six communities supported through Amazon Bridge are located along the Momón River in northeastern Peru. They are Indigenous families who migrated from their original territories after oil and mining contamination made traditional lands unsafe.
Porvenir (Bora)
A Bora community preserving ceremonial traditions, maloca-based communal life, and deep knowledge of forest cycles and medicinal plants .
San Andrés (Bora)
Also Bora, maintaining cultural identity through oral tradition, music, ritual body painting, and subsistence agriculture .
Nueva Vida (Yagua)
A Yagua community historically linked to the Amazon River basin, known for their craftsmanship, hunting traditions, and spiritual worldview recognizing the spirit in all living beings
Alamas (Alamas lineage)
Carrying the historical memory of the Alamas people — once related to the Jíbaro family and now considered assimilated — this community reflects the long arc of
displacement and adaptation in the Amazon.
Jíbaros (Jivaro lineage)
Part of the broader Jíbaro cultural family, known today through peoples such as Shuar and Achuar. A reduced population remains settled along the Momón River after migrating from Ecuador decades ago due to oil contamination
Padre Cocha (Kukama)
Deeply river-centered, the Kukama view water as a living being with spirit. Their cosmology describes interconnected worlds above, here, and below the waters
Despite different ethnic origins, these communities now share a common reality: displacement, isolation, and the challenge of rebuilding life along the Momón River.
The Human Connection
For these communities, water is identity. It is culture. It is survival.
They did not leave their ancestral lands by choice. Environmental contamination forced migration. In their new settlements along the Momón, many families rely on untreated river water, increasing vulnerability to preventable illness
Access to safe water is not simply infrastructure. It protects children’s health, strengthens mothers and caregivers, and restores dignity to communities rebuilding from displacement.
These six communities are not defined by what they lost. They are defined by resilience — by their determination to preserve language, tradition, and self-governance while creating a safer future for the next generation.
Awajún Native Communities
This interactive map showcases the community locations in the Peruvian Amazon
