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Members if the Wiwa indigenous community. Inset: the black line of the Sierra Nevada
Article researched and written by Angeline Daino, Ronald Rocchi & Leidy Tirado.
Our planet is suffering. Nature and the world that saw us grow are being destroyed by ourselves, the so-called children of nature. Each year we see how our actions result in drastic climate changes, which have already had observable impacts on the environment in terms of extreme weather patterns, and threaten much worse such as the loss of sea ice, rapid sea-level rise, and heatwaves. Ecosystems and species have also been affected in many ways, for example, warming has forced many species to migrate from their homes or the mixture of fresh and saltwater has negatively shaped the food chain. However, there is, perhaps not a solution, but a much more beneficial and productive perspective in which this situation can be addressed; the indigenous perspective.
We know that indigenous communities are intwined with their culture, more specifically to the environment. Their relationship with nature, which they name as mother earth, is maternal, as children who serve and care for their mother. Their deity if you like. Based on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Indigenous people have strong links to their territories, and they tend to live surrounded by natural resources, and ecosystems. They all have a strong connection to the place where they are living, and this is beautiful and special because they were the first people in these lands. It is therefore so sad that they are not as valued as they should be, especially when their knowledge could be of vital use to all of us. Every part of our planet is sacred to them, so they treat and protect it as such. The way indigenous people see the world could be the key to combating climate change. Learning from them and allowing them to have a voice within this context would be the beginning of a different path, and probably a more successful one.
Now, focusing specifically on Colombia, it can be said that it is a territory full of biodiversity. Indigenous communities live throughout Colombia, but the biggest indigenous populations are found in the departments of La Guajira, Cauca, and Nariño, and in those areas, there is so much diversity and different kinds of biomes. Colombia, like the rest of the world, faces a lot of challenges that involve the environment, including for example deforestation and emissions of greenhouse gases, and although we all are affected by these problems, the indigenous communities are even more affected because their way of living revolves around the environment. Indigenous peoples are the key; they play a fundamental role in the fight against climate change, but they are not being heard. In Colombia, the government does not offer these communities the rights, protections, or guarantees necessary to safely carry out their work as environmental defenders. They are being killed at the most extreme end or simply being ignored. It is time to change this. It is time to give them a voice. Furthermore, it is time to make the government listen to our indigenous brothers and sisters, and it is time to care more.
The situation for indigenous communities has been mixed in recent times. In Colombia, during the past years, the government has created strategies where the indigenous people are involved, in order to contribute and respect their culture and their territory. This is pertinent because according to a 2017 report by Minambiente and Ideam (Institute for hydrology, meteorology, and environmental studies), 53.4% of Colombia's natural forests are in ethnic territories; of this figure, 46% is found in indigenous reservations and 7.3% in collective territories of Afro-Colombian communities. That’s why indigenous groups are so important and need to be cared for by the government. In some respects, as mentioned above, this is happening and this sounds promising, but in Colombia, it is more difficult than it seems because the authorities and the state do not always have territorial control over those territories and do not, therefore, help indigenous people a great deal in the protection of their lands and rights. And in fact, indigenous people face a lot of threats to their rights. The rights they have to their culture, their lives, and their way of life, are threatened because they want to protect the environment.
The dangers faced by indigenous communities in Colombia are both historic and current. The numbers show that the armed conflict left 5011 indigenous victims between 1958 and 2019. 2300 people were murdered throughout selective murders, 736 of whom were indigenous leaders and authorities. Also, there were 659 enforced disappearances and 742 massacres. The violence increased in 2002 due to the breaking of “Diálogos de Paz” (failed peace talks with the FARC guerrilla) in El Caguan and decreased in 2012 with the beginning of the Havana peace talks which led to the successful demobilization of the FARC (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica). However, since the FARC guerrillas handed over their weapons and vacated regions which had long been under their control, the security situation for indigenous communities has worsened. Indepaz reported that 269 indigenous leaders were killed from 2016 until June 2020, many of them being killed for objecting to the presence of illicit economies or the private interests of international companies in their territory. Indigenous communities have long been persecuted by guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, unknown armed groups, and agents of the State. Indigenous communities have their base on the land, and for them, their territory represents the beginning of life. Therefore, their territory is not just a piece of land, but the axis of their culture. Taking their home away is taking their culture away. In this respect, indigenous communities have participated in different movements protesting for their rights. A recent example of that was the national strike which began on April 28, 2021, against the tax and health reform. In accordance with Global Voices, indigenous communities, in addition to the previously mentioned issues, protested against the use of glyphosate, a substance that the current government favors for the eradication of illicit crops and one that has potentially hazardous effects on public health and the environment. Indigenous communities have established unarmed indigenous guards, some of their members, in order to protect the community due to the lack of state assistance, or even the empathy of many Colombians. The challenges and dangers they face are staggering, but so is the potential of their knowledge and experience.
As mentioned above, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities occupy much of the areas that harbor Colombia’s precious biodiversity. According to IWGIA (A International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs), almost a third of the national territory is categorized as indigenous reserves, and most of them have to face serious environmental conflicts and land grabbing due to extractive activities in the zone as was previously mentioned. To highlight this situation, it is useful to explore the case of the Wiwa, an indigenous community that lives in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada Mountain range where there are two national parks, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Tayrona National Park. This area is the home to four different indigenous communities.
This territory has been historically affected by different problems such as colonization, illicit crop plantations (marijuana and coca), and encroaching farmland. These issues, which remain pertinent in many ways, have affected a lot of the Wiwa community because they considered these places sacred, and they decided to move from there due to the presence of dangerous actors involved. In an article by Mongabay (2016), Edinson Videl Daza, a member of the Wiwa community and a spokesman for the environment mentioned that as they are part of, and live in, the Sierra, they have the responsibility for conservation and maintaining the equilibrium between man and nature as the interlocutors. They see the earth as their mother. Their father, the sea. The rivers and streams are living beings. The animals are their younger brothers. All of this illustrates how deep their connection with nature is and how they feel they must do everything they can to protect it.
The Wiwa work with NGOs in the fight against pollution because these organizations know that the indigenous communities are the right people for this task. They don't see the land they live on as a simple territory; they think it is home and the place they must protect because it gives them everything. Eduardo Ariza, from the American NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC) explains: “The indigenous communities have a vision, all their culture is about conservation. The strategy is to recover their traditional territory, which they believe is marked by the ‘black line’ [an invisible line that marks the outer reaches of the Sierra where there are sacred areas important to the communities]. While it’s not feasible that they will recover all this territory, they are moving in that direction, with the support of certain government offices and other NGOs.” This “black line” has been violated for years by different groups that believe they can appropriate the indigenous territories because they are considered “stronger”; groups such as (now defunct) AUC paramilitaries, the (now defunct) FARC, the ELN and various other structures which emerged following the break-up of the AUC.
These groups not only lead to the displacement of communities, but they also kill and spread terror, so we can see how this has caused a massive violation of indigenous rights. But these criminal groups are not the only interests that threaten the community. Large enterprises which want to exploit natural resources in these zones tend to see the interests of the indigenous communities as an obstacle to their own interests, which are often shared by politicians at the local and national level in terms of establishing profit-making as being pre-eminent over the interests of local communities and the defense of nature. These contrasting views have led to some drastic actions on behalf of these multinational companies and drastic consequences for local and indigenous communities. For example, the US coal company Drummond has been accused of funding right-wing paramilitaries during the 90s, groups which were responsible for fierce violence and the forced displacement of many rural communities at that time. In the nearby department of La Guajira, home to Colombia’s most populous indigenous group, the Wayúu, the Swiss-based coal multinational Cerrejón has been accused of diverting water sources and causing the displacement of many communities.
In the end, we must acknowledge the stark difference between indigenous people and the global economic order in terms of how to understand the world in which we live. Indigenous people have the role of guardians of nature, and they believe so deeply that all of their needs as a community are ruled by the belief that the health of their environment, be it the Sierra Nevada, or anywhere else, affects the whole world. Whereas too many of us see nature as something we are going to have benefits from if we exploit it, and we don't see the limits of our actions.
So how about if we start to become more conscious of the fact that the place in which we are living is not ours, and we cannot do what we want. We must care and care a lot because Colombia is beautiful, but all the resources we have are not there forever. How different would Colombia be if we started to care more?
REFERENCES
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Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad (2021). If Indigenous People Are Key to Combating Climate Change, Why Doesn't Colombia Listen to Them? |.. https://www.ambienteysociedad.org.co/if-indigenous-people-are-key-to-combating-climate-change-why-doesnt-colombia-listen-to-them/
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