In the Ecuadorian Amazon, the jungle isn’t always measured in hectares, but in layers of memory. For Linda, a Shuar woman from the Chapintza community in Pastaza, progress used to mean “clearing and efficiency”: cutting down the forest, leaving the soil bare, and planting rows of plantains or cassava to sell by the sack in markets that barely pay a fair price. Mariela Mashinkiash, an indigenous Shuar woman and vice president of the Federation of the Shuar Nationality of Pastaza (FENASHP), explains how Linda was accustomed to planting only cassava, plantains, and Chinese potatoes because they were the quickest to harvest and she needed to sell them to support her family.

“I ruined my forest for nothing,” Linda confessed to Mariela after rediscovering an ancestral technique of the Shuar people where abundance does not come from monoculture, but from an organized chaos they call Shuar Aja.

While Ecuador is establishing itself as the world’s leading banana exporter and a giant in fine-aroma cacao—industries that contribute nearly 10% of non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—on the fringes of the Amazon, this export model is pressuring the Kichwa, Shuar, A’i Cofán, Waorani, and Achuar/Shiwiar Indigenous Peoples to abandon their ancestral knowledge. The adoption of monoculture has not only eroded the soil but also food sovereignty.

In this context, a project to strengthen traditional production systems, promoted by the organization CDES (Center for Economic and Social Rights) in partnership with FENASHP, and funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Ayni Indigenous Women’s Fund of the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI), and funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through the Indigenous People’s Assistance Facility (IPAF), has set out to create a technical and economic survival strategy for the Shuar Indigenous People, through the recovery of the traditional Shuar Aja system: an agroforestry practice that challenges the logic of industrial agriculture.

As Mariela Mashinkiash describes it, the Shuar Aja is a living, self-regulating organism. It functions as an ancestral garden managed primarily by women for the biodiverse cultivation of food and medicinal plants. Unlike the monoculture system, the Aja is not a garden to be abandoned after the harvest, but a space of permanence.

“The difference from traditional farming is that you grow a variety and diversity of crops: fruits, organic products, and medicinal plants. So when you harvest cassava, you don’t cut down or harvest everything at once, but rather you take the smaller ones and leave the good ones to preserve your food. You go to another garden and return to the same one to check on the cassavas you left behind. The crop doesn’t go to waste, and you don’t leave the garden abandoned,” Mariela notes.

In a single Aja, for example, Shuar women manage varieties of cassava with staggered ripening times: some for daily consumption, others for fermenting chicha, and others reserved for the postpartum diet. There is also the “papa jíbara,” a climbing root that can remain underground for several months waiting to be harvested and functions as a living carbohydrate bank that requires no refrigeration.

In addition to food, the Aja also produces medicine. Mariela explains that, in this case, the Aja functions as a living pharmacy integrated into the garden, where varieties of plants are cultivated for healthcare from birth through old age.

The implementation of the project also revealed a deep divide between academia and the local community. Eva Martínez, general coordinator of the CDES, admits that a major challenge for them was creating training guides. At first, the organization’s agricultural engineers—all trained in universities with Western curricula—struggled to grasp the ancestral traditions of the Shuar people. For academia, a pest is an enemy to be sprayed; for the Shuar Aja, it is an imbalance managed through polyculture and knowledge of the lunar phases.

“We had to hold a workshop so that the community elders could teach the consultants, allowing them to incorporate both technical and ancestral aspects. The guide, in the end, is a result of both worlds,” Eva says.

This convergence of knowledge allowed modern agroecological techniques (such as biological pest control) to merge with the ancestral seed selection that the Shuar people have perfected over centuries in one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

According to studies by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), although indigenous women spend the most time working the land, decision-making positions in community leadership have historically been held by men in over 80% of cases.

Mariela Mashinkiash does not shy away from the reality of machismo in the Shuar community of Pastaza, as the challenge has been not only technical but also social. Most men denied their wives the opportunity to attend training workshops to recover the knowledge of the Shuar Aja.

"We had to bring the women out of their world. However, we have seen results because if the men came, we included them. They have come to understand, and now they help their wives bring products to the market."

This change took hold when the project moved from theory to practice, especially with the creation of short supply chains under the Yapit, brand, named after a tree native to the Amazon that nourishes various animal species. This is the trademark of the Federation of the Shuar Nationality of Pastaza, through which products such as sweet potatoes, taro, and Amazonian fruits have reached urban consumers directly without going through intermediaries who typically take 60% of the product’s value. It has also facilitated the production and sale of handicrafts and organic cosmetics made by Shuar women.

Historically, the Shuar economy was based on barter. The transition to a monetary economy without losing the value of their identity is one of the most important achievements of the project implemented by CDES in partnership with FENASHP. Today, it is not just about selling raw materials, but about transforming the harvest.

“Our aspirations are to maintain these gardens, but also to add value to the medicines, fruits, and products. To make flours or engage in other processing so we don’t just sell raw materials. We’re already making progress with jewelry, organic cosmetics, and ceramics,” Mariela says.

This financial autonomy is also political. As Mariela explains, a woman with her own income, derived from her Aja, has greater decision-making power over her children’s education and her family’s health. It is a form of resistance against the expansion of industries such as oil and mining in the Amazon, which are often presented to these communities as the only way out of poverty.

Every market where the mothers and women of the Shuar people sell their medicinal plants or organic cassava represents an act of sovereignty. Although some ancestral prayers have been lost in the noise of the modern world, Mariela says, the act of sinking their hands into the earth to plant a seed that will last for decades remains their way of protecting the future.