A Green Dawn: Solar Energy and Community Empowerment in the Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest is privileged with rich biological and cultural diversity, natural splendor, and the potential to benefit all humanity by helping to stabilize the climate. Roughly the size of the 48 contiguous United States, it covers some 40 percent of the South American continent and includes parts of nine countries. It is also one…
Read MoreColombian Government Signs Decree Recognizing the Ancestral Territory of the Indigenous Communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
On August 6, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree that recognizes the ancestral territory of the indigenous communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), as defined by the sacred sites of the Linea Negra (Black Line), a ring of sacred sites around the base of the SNSM that forms the boundary…
Read MoreTo Take Care of Your Garden, First Get Your House in Order
Carolina Gil is among the women who have dedicated themselves protecting the forests of the Amazon. The challenge that Colombia has ahead can only be met with many hands. She believes in collective work, for a rainforest without heroes. Before the Amazon became a hot topic in the media because of the 144,417 hectares razed in that region of Colombia, the mining threats and the science that began to explain the Amazon’s importance in the regulation of global climate.
Carolina Gil, program director of the NGO the Amazon Conservation Team, knew the other face of conservation, which few others were emphasizing: to try to conserve a territory without taking into account the people who live in it was a formula for failure.
“It is the communities that can ensure that a forest is healthy, with the means of living that they require.”
Deforestation Hotspots in the Colombian Amazon, Part 3: Chiribiquete – Macarena
This report investigates the Chiribiquete – Macarena deforestation hotspot, where new roads are threatening the expansion of Chiribiquete National Park. (2018, English and Spanish)
Read MoreImpact: Sacred Sites
We know that our partner communities can best safeguard their forests when they have access to their traditional territories, sustainable livelihoods, and intact traditions. But there is often more. The elders frequently tell us that in order for their communities to truly flourish, they need to control lands that are sacred to them. From our…
Read MorePresident Santos Announces a Decision Today
After waiting 27 years, the indigenous governments of non-municipalized areas of the Amazon finally will be able to manage the money from their national government transfers without intermediaries.
In Leticia, the Presidency, the Ministries of the Interior, Finance and Agriculture, DANE (the Colombian national statistics agency and the Colombian National Planning Department recognized the governments of 36 indigenous reserves that occupy 26 million hectares of practically intact territory and that had existed in a state of legal limbo with respect to territorial zoning that prevented them, in effect, from governing what is theirs by law.
Breaking News: The Colombian Amazon Has the Same Rights as a Person
Colombia’s Supreme Court issued a historic ruling combating climate change in Latin America. According to the decision, the Amazon region is now subject to rights, similar to those assigned to the Atrato River, and the Presidency and regional entities must act urgently to protect it from deforestation.
Read MoreComida por árboles: la deforestación en el medio río Caquetá
Take a trip to the frontier of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon, where illicit actors are coercing local indigenous communities to cut down valuable trees through systems of insurmountable debt. (2018, Spanish)
Read MoreDeforestation Hotspots in the Colombian Hotspots, part 2: La Paya, Putumayo
This report focuses on a deforestation hotspot surrounding La Paya National Park in the Putumayo Department of Colombia. (2017, English and Spanish)
Read MoreStorytelling empowers indigenous people to conserve their environments
Indigenous storytelling is a powerful tool for preserving biocultural diversity, says Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, an environmental researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Having heard stories in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Kenya and Madagascar, he has now proposed that storytelling could transform how conservationists work with native peoples. The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) embodies this philosophy. ACT partners with South American indigenous communities to preserve rainforests and traditional culture.
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