Maria Elena Esquivel

Peruvian anthropologist who documented Indigenous Amazonian cultures to protect their land rights.

Maria Elena Esquivel (1938–1990) was a Peruvian anthropologist whose groundbreaking work preserved the cultural heritage of Amazonian Indigenous communities. Born in Iquitos, she spent decades documenting the languages and traditions of the Shipibo-Conibo and Yine peoples, producing the first comprehensive linguistic dictionaries and ethnographic studies of these groups. Her 1967 report Amazonian Voices: A Call for Land Rights became a catalyst for legal battles against deforestation. Esquivel’s collaboration with Indigenous leaders led to the creation of the Amazon Indigenous Federation in 1973, which secured land rights for 12 million hectares of rainforest. Her fieldwork methods, detailed in Walking the Forest: An Ethnographer’s Journey, are still used today in cultural preservation. Despite facing threats from logging companies, Esquivel’s advocacy laid the groundwork for modern environmental policies like Peru’s 1981 Indigenous Lands Act. Her legacy is honored through the Esquivel Prize, awarded annually to activists protecting Indigenous rights.