The Amazon Waterway is a major infrastructure initiative designed to ensure permanent, safe navigation for cargo and passenger transport across the Huallaga, Marañón, Ucayali, and Amazon rivers in Peru. Covering 2,687 km in the Loreto and Ucayali regions, it was declared a national priority due to the Amazon’s reliance on river transport. However, its progress has been hindered by significant technical, environmental, and social gaps found in both the Feasibility Study and the Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA-d).

Key issues included insufficient analysis of environmental and social impacts, inadequate consideration of hydrological variability, and a lack of proper community consultation despite the project’s potential effects on more than 400 Indigenous communities. The accumulation of over 200 unresolved observations led the concessionaire to withdraw its environmental certification request in 2020.

These shortcomings resulted in delays, potential cost overruns, institutional weaknesses, and growing social opposition. The case highlights the need for strong institutions, integrated social-environmental evaluation, and meaningful stakeholder engagement from the earliest project stages.

This case was developed by Sinfranova in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy Peru in 2022 and published in 2025.

To read the full case in Spanish, click here: