The 2016 Colombian Peace Accord (CPA), signed after nearly six decades of armed conflict, marked a critical transition toward peacebuilding and more inclusive governance. In the Colombian Amazon, this transition brought renewed attention to the role of Indigenous Peoples and their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in shaping post-accord social-ecological change. This study framed the CPA as a governance “tipping point” within interconnected social-ecological systems and examined its perceived impacts on Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems. Using a cross-scale analytical approach, the research drew on interviews with Indigenous community members, academics, government officials, and non-governmental organizations.

Findings revealed divergent perceptions of the CPA. For some participants, it represented an opportunity for greater recognition of Indigenous rights, territorial governance, and the value of TEK in peacebuilding and sustainability efforts. For others, the CPA was perceived as having created a governability vacuum, facilitating the expansion of new armed actors and reinforcing long-standing patterns of marginalization, in which Indigenous Peoples and TEK continued to be sidelined under “business-as-usual” governance.

The study concluded that realizing the CPA’s transformative potential required cross-scale governance adjustments that supported coordinated planning processes and placed Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems at the centre of peacebuilding, territorial governance, and socio-ecological resilience in the Amazon.