In August of this year, over 50 women, men, elders and youth from the Siekopai (Secoya) nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon embarked on a historic five-day canoe journey and paddled 160 kilometers (100 miles) to the sacred lagoons of Ñakomasira, the heartland of their ancestral territory – Lagartococha – on the border between Peru and Ecuador.

In the following story, indigenous photographers Jimmy Piaguaje and Ribaldo Piaguaje from the Siekopai nation share moments and memories from their incredible journey within this mega-diverse labyrinth of blackwater lagoons, flooded forests and rolling hills. Their photos follow their trip, as they fished along the river, slept on the beaches, visited historic places, shared ceremony with their elders, and learned about the history and ancestral lands of their people.

Their journey marks an important step forward as part of the Siekopai’s struggle to reclaim sacred lands they were forcibly displaced from during a border-war in the 1940s between Peru and Ecuador, and the Siekopai’s attempts to return have all been derailed by a lack of formal land rights within what is now a national park. As they fight for Lagartococha, an area so critical to their physical and cultural livelihood that without it their existence is imminently threatened, the Siekopai hope to pave the way for other indigenous nations to do the same.