Strengthening Indigenous Land Rights in Colombia

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Kogui Census 2019 to 2019

In Santa Marta, Colombia, earlier this year, preparations began for a series of expeditions into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. More than a dozen teams—each composed of indigenous peoples and western professionals—prepared their gear for weeks-long trips into the remote mountains.

Read More

Oral Histories: Helping the Kogui Manage their Territory

Two of ACT’s objectives in our work at Jaba Tañiwashkaka, a coastal sacred site of the indigenous peoples of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region, are to increase the territorial management capacity of indigenous leadership and to establish conservation agreements between the local indigenous and non-indigenous communities. In contexts like the Sierra Nevada de…

Read More

The River School: Indigenous Communities Learning & Working Together for the Protection of Key Ecosystems in Colombia

Winding river drone view

Throughout ACT’s more than 20 years of conservation and indigenous rights work in South America, one of the greatest challenges our partner communities voice is the gaining of effective control over their territories. Conspicuously, many countries have legal means through which local autonomy can be achieved, but the communities still need the basic skills necessary…

Read More

Colombian Government Signs Decree Recognizing the Ancestral Territory of the Indigenous Communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

Sierra Nevada Mountain View

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 More

Impact: Sacred Sites

Kogi people in a group

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 More