Liz Chicaje: Activist whose fight created a national park

An activist whose efforts to protect land sacred to her indigenous group resulted in the creation of Peru's Yaguas National Park has been awarded a prestigious environmental prize. Liz Chicaje is a member of the Bora indigenous community which lives just outside what is now Yaguas National Park, in the north-eastern Loreto region of Peru, near the border with Colombia. The park itself is uninhabited but its 2.1 million acres - roughly the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States - are home to some 3,000 species of plants, more than 500 species of birds and 550 species of fish. Ms Chicaje says it was no coincidence that it was a coalition of indigenous groups which fought for the creation of the park. Ms Chicaje would now like to see more direct investment and help going to the indigenous communities to protect those areas, too.

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