Guardian of the Forest

First Place: 2024 ZEKE Award for Systemic Change

​Apu Quinto Inuma was a former lumber trafficker turned park ranger and Forest Guardian, advocating tirelessly for the environment and Indigenous rights in Santa Rosillo, Peru. In a region where many work for illegal loggers and drug cartels, Quinto and fellow Forest Guardians self-organized to patrol the forest, protecting ancestral land and “their brothers who could not speak,” the trees. Armed with old guns, machetes, and courage, they documented illegal activity and reported it to authorities. In November 2023, Quinto was killed in retaliation, but his spirit lives on in the forest and in those who continue to fight for the land he defended.