Peruvian farmer Máxima Acuña wins Goldman Environmental Prize while fighting for her land

When the Spanish came to the Cajamarca region of Peru looking for gold, they found the vast Incan empire instead. By 1532, Francisco Pizzaro and his men had captured the last indigenous emperor, taken his gold, and the Spanish conquest of the Incas was all but complete.

According to myth, however, the Incas hid some of their wealth in nearby lakes, counting on spirits living in the water to protect the gold.

Centuries later, these lakes are still the cultural and spiritual epicenter for the indigenous campisenos who survive as subsistence farmers nearby. And in recent years, four lakes above Cajamarca have been threatened once again by foreigners looking for gold.

Máxima Acuña lives in the hills above Cajamarca, roughly 500 miles north of Lima, in the heart of the Andes. Along with her husband, four children and granddaughter, Acuña spends her days cultivating the land and tending to her sheep, making daily walks to Laguna Azul and the other three lakes nearby.

“I walk around nature, I love being here with my plants, my animals, being outside. I go walk down to the lakes,” she says in a translated email to Boulder Weekly. “The lakes are life. The water, nature, environment is life. We go down to the lakes, drink the water, we use the water for everything, the lakes give life to everyone here.”

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