Yaque Fredelinda Matiashi Vicente is a 25-year-old climate change activist and defender of the rights of Indigenous peoples from Peru. She comes from the native community of Camisea of the Megantoni District, belonging to the Matsigenka-Asháninka people. Yaque is a student of Environmental Engineering at the Universidad Peruana Unión Filial Tarapoto. She volunteers at Laboratorio Takiwasi and Centro Takiwasi, a nonprofit association that researches traditional Amazonian medicine, and at the Institute for the Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP), which researches the ecological dynamics of the Amazonian forests and their bodies of water. Here Yaque reflects on her path to climate activism, Sail for Climate Action, and what the future holds.
My journey to climate activism
My activism began when I was a 12-year-old girl and I started planting flowers behind my house. I would follow my parents into the jungle and learn how to plant fruit and cultivate the farm. I loved nature so much.
As I got older, I saw how things were changing in my community. The crops were suffering and I witnessed the impacts of anthropogenic pollution and transnational companies. Once in university, I learned a lot more about climate change and my activism started to really take root. I formed a group called Voluntarios Forest, where we went into communities to give talks and clean up the land and rivers.
My main focus as an activist is to help people see reason. If we don’t act now, what future awaits for the next generation? That is why I focus on raising awareness about adapting to climate change, reducing pollution, and promoting sustainable projects that are friendly to the environment.
Sail for Climate Action
Sail for Climate Action (S4CA) was a wonderful experience as I made new friendships with good-hearted people who are full of joy and great charisma. I also learned so much by listening to other people’s points of view, all of whom came from different countries. I learned to lose my fears among the many waves of the sea. I learned to value time because each passing day brought something new. For example, watching the dolphins, the birds at sunset, a whale—these moments do not repeat themselves often in life.
Our mini society on the sea
This experience was something new for me, so I simply listened to the different points of view from each person. I wanted to know how the situations were in each of their countries. Since I didn’t master English, sometimes it was difficult for me to understand the context that was expressed in our meetings. But we worked together to plan the workshops and each topic was of great importance in its own way. I learned so much from the different approaches of each activist on board.
Without identifying the problems, we can’t have a direction.
The global pandemic
Peru had already closed its borders by the time I had secured travel plans to return home from Bermuda, so I sailed on the boat to Amsterdam with the other stranded S4CA participants.
I stayed in the Netherlands for about a month before I was able to return to Peru. While there, our Dutch captain Martin Duba took me in. His family took great care of me. I am deeply interested in water access issues, so I took time to learn about the canal and water treatment systems of the country.
When I returned to Peru, I was not able to get back to my community for a long time due to the pandemic, which was and still is having a devastating impact on our people and our neighboring tribes.
What’s next
Right now, I am concentrating on several projects. First, I am helping my Indigenous brothers of the Megantoni who are suffering greatly from the pandemic. Many of their leaders are dying, resulting in the loss of precious knowledge about the Amazon and our people.
To work on this, I started an association of young Indigenous people and settlers called Amazonian of the Megantoni. These young people are carrying out small projects for the communities most impacted by Covid-19. We are about to launch a campaign to raise funds for buying empty oxygen balloons for the native communities of the lower Urubamba River in Peru.
Second, since many of these elders are passing away due to the pandemic, I created a cultural revitalization project called Living Culture. Through this project, young people take advantage of the lockdown to sit in their homes and talk with their grandparents, hearing their stories, myths, and legends and documenting them for future generations.
I have a lot of hope in the new generation of children and young people, who are willing to change their lifestyles. I also find hope in our planet itself—in the forests when they are regenerating, in the rivers when they are self-purifying, and in the animals that we thought were extinct until they reappeared during the pandemic. This shows that if we humans do not inflict harm, we can all have a healthy environment.
I want to make the voices of Indigenous women leaders heard in defense of their rights, in defense of their territories, and in defense of the few resources we have left. And I wish for Indigenous leaders to have international support, because our lives are worth it.
