This cartographic project is geographically significant because it sheds light on the knowledge held within the Amazonian landscape. “Official” geopolitical maps misrepresent the region, showing a spacious and vacant territory. With only a scarce few rivers and communities named in these maps, approximately 99.52% of the waterways in the territory of the Predio Putumayo are represented as nameless. Such misrepresentation demonstrates the ignorance and willingness to make invisible the history, presence and significance of Indigenous ways of life, most notably in terms of relationships with and within the landscape. Part of this intricate way of relationality to the land involves the naming of rivers, streams and other geographic features, which we aim to represent in the cartographic section of our Atlas. In many ways, the rivers of the Amazon region are the living road maps that foster communication between its people, species and entities.

We encourage the national government to use these “living road maps” to locate and focus concrete actions that aim to: mitigate environmental risks, combat deforestation, control illegal mining, address human rights violations and health crises. The stories linked to this territory describe the values, social structures, history and ecological characteristics of particular areas, so these maps can inform future projects and interventions to be designed with a differential approach.