Project
Preserving the legacy of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Heart of the World
Rising abruptly from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta reaches 5,775 meters (18,946 ft.) at its highest points, the peaks of Bolívar and Colón. It is the highest coastal mountain system in the world, a place where indigenous knowledge and nature’s own wisdom converge.
The sheer changes in elevation create a wide variety of ecosystems within a small area, where the diversity of plant and animal life creates a unique exuberant region. The melting snows of the highest peaks form rivers and lakes, whose freshwater flows down steep slopes to the tropical sea at the base of the mountains.
The indigenous Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa, and Kankuamo people protect and care for this natural treasure with an authority they have inherited from their ancestors. According to their worldview the land is sacred and shared in divine communion between humans, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and the spirts of their ancestors.
Despite this ancestral inheritance, development projects proposed for the region have failed to take the opinions of these indigenous groups into consideration. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is currently threatened by 251 mineral concessions, hydroelectric projects, agriculture, urban sprawl, and infrastructure projects.
Many of these concessions were granted without the prior consultation of the indigenous communities, which represents a persistent and systematic violation of their rights.
Mining, which implies the contamination and erosion of watersheds, threatens the health of more than 30 rivers that flow out of the Sierra; these are the water sources of the departments of Magdalena, César, and La Guajira.
These threats have brought this natural paradise to the brink of no return. With it, would go the traditional lives of its indigenous inhabitants, who are dependent on the health of their land and the sacred sites it contains.
The Sierra hosts the archaeological site of la Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, known as Teyuna, the cradle of Tayrona civilization. According to tradition, it is the source from which all nature was born—the living heart of the world.
The four guardian cultures of the Sierra are uninterested in allowing this natural and cultural legacy to disappear.
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The Invaluable Legacy of Douglas Tompkins
By Florencia Ortúzar, AIDA attorney On December 8th, one of the last pristine places on the planet, Patagonia, lost one of its greatest protectors, Douglas Tompkins. At 72 years old, the conservationist and multimillionaire lost his life in a kayaking accident. Much has been said about the eccentric man who sold the companies that made him rich, and left it all behind to undertake an ambitious conservation project in Chile and Argentina. It was looked on with suspicion when he began frantically buying lands in the Southern Cone for the sole purpose of protecting them. Tompkins thought that effective conservation should be “extensive, wild and connected.” So he decided to create large national parks that would be protected even in his absence. To do so, he acquired large tracts of land and began returning them to their natural state, removing fences and recuperating ecosystems. Without fences, wildlife could move freely, a condition which is fundamental for their prosperity. Donating in exchange for protection Barely more than a month after she was widowed, Kris Tompkins, Doug’s wife for 20 years, met with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to offer the donation of more than 400 thousand hectares of land in Chilean Patagonia, including millions of dollars in infrastructure. With it, she sought to realize the last of the couple’s major projects in Chile: the creation of Patagonia Park, which together with other lands, donated or in process of being donated, would form a network of parks in Patagonia. In Chile, the Tompkins had already donated land for the creation of Corcovado Park in Patagonia and Yendegaia Park in Tierra del Fuego. The land to create Pumalín Park, also in Patagonia, is in the process of being donated. All together, these land donations equal more than 500 thousand hectares of protected wilderness. But the Tompkins’ gifts come with conditions: for each hectare they receive, governments must protect a certain number more. In exchange for the posthumous donation in Chile, for example, the government is required to create new national parks, expand existing parks and reclassify four natural reserves. Negotiations are expected to conclude in 2018. If the Tompkins’ succeed, the agreement will create the most important network of national parks in the country. Protection in Argentina Tompkins also donated vast stretches of land in Argentina. In the Entre Ríos Province, he started a soil recuperation project, using highly diversified organic crops to overcome the damage of industrial monoculture. The Argentine Patagonia also received protection, through land donations of 66 thousand hectares to Monte Leon National Park and 15 thousand hectares to Perito Moreno National Park. Tompkins’ last project in Argentina was completed last December when the Argentine government met with Kris Tompkins to accept the donation of 150 thousand hectares of land in the Estuaries of Iberá, the second largest wetland on the planet. This area, when added to the 50 thousand hectares previously donated and the 500 thousand that already form Iberá Park, will create one of the largest reserves in the country. ¡Patagonia sin Represas! In addition to contributing to the creation of national parks, Tompkins supported the activism of conservation groups in Patagonia. One of the initiatives he sponsored was the campaign Patagonia sin Represas, which managed to stop the HidroAysén project in its tracks. HydroAysén had aimed to construct five mega-dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers, two of the largest free-flowing rivers in Chile, located in the heart of Patagonia. During Doug’s burial the mantra “Patagonia sin Represas” is said to have been shouted by mourners when the last handful of dirt was thrown upon his grave. At the end of the 1900s, when Tompkins’ land purchasing in Argentina and Chile was at its peak, he was accused of buying the land cheaply and displacing its inhabitants, leaving them without work. Later, the accusations became more sophisticated: they accused him of buying land to create a new Zionist state, of being a CIA spy, and of trying to seize enormous reserves of fresh water to export to places experiencing drought. Many looked upon his work with suspicion. Maybe they found it difficult to believe that someone would invest millions of dollars with the sole objective of preserving the perfect natural harmony that surrounds us. Any accusation was easier than giving credit to his true intention: buying land to prevent it from being exploited, and then giving it back to the government, not for money, but for a commitment of protection. Whatever his detractors may say, here in reality, Douglas Tompkins left an enormous legacy to all of mankind. He has conserved more land than any other person in the history of Chile and Argentina. His work has translated into massive patches of green on the maps of Patagonia. For those pristine and wild places, we are eternally grateful. CONGRATULATIONS DOUG, and THANK YOU!
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Indigenous groups ask Pope Francis to help stop Las Cruces Dam
In a letter delivered to Vatican representatives, indigenous and riverine communities affected by the construction of a dam on Río San Pedro Mezquital asked that the Pope intercede on their behalf before the Mexican government during his visit to the country. They explained that the hydroelectric project would cause serious harm to the environment and human rights. Mexico City, Mexico. On the occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to Mexico, indigenous and riverine communities from Nayarit state wrote a letter asking the Pope to intercede on their behalf before the Mexican government, in hopes of putting a stop to the Las Cruces Dam project on Río San Pedro Mezquital. The project, they explain, puts at risk their culture and way of life, and also threatens Marismas Nacionales, one of the country’s most important wetlands. The letter was delivered to the local headquarters of the Apostolic Nunciature, a diplomatic mission of the Vatican. It reads: … We respectfully solicit that you, Your Holiness, during your visit to our country, intercede on our behalf before President Enrique Peña Nieto, so that his Government stops the human rights violations of all indigenous communities in the name of development, and that it abandon further advancement of the Las Cruces hydroelectric dam because of the human and environmental impacts it will cause. Mexico’s Secretary of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) has granted environmental permits and water rights for the construction and operation of the dam. “They did so without having guaranteed the right to prior consultation of the indigenous communities affected by the project, which include the Náyeri, Wixárica, Mexicanero and Tepehuano peoples,” explained Sandra Moguel, AIDA attorney. “SEMARNAT authorized the project with the condition that the Secretariat of Energy realize a process of consultation with the indigenous communities, which should have been done before issuing the authorizations.” In their letter, the indigenous communities honor and celebrate Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Sí, in which he recognizes the important contribution indigenous communities can make towards the promotion and protection of culture and natural resources. “The Río San Pedro is not simply part of our lives, but also fundamental to our spirituality,” explained Julián López Cánare, member of the Náyeri Indigenous Council, who delivered the letter. “All of its territory, from its headwaters to its mouth, is a sacred space where we strengthen our identity and values.” This river also feeds Marismas Nacionales, one of Mexico’s most important wetlands. The area is recognized as a Biosphere Reserve and a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty for the protection of wetland ecosystems. Finally, the indigenous communities explained in their letter that the pressure put on them to agree to the project has escalated to include harassment and illegal detentions by the government. They also cite instances of acts simulating consultation, which would not be valid considering the project has already been authorized. Citing the visions for the future they share with Pope Francis, the letter finished: Your Holiness, hopeful in the power of your intercession, we part here with the passionate hope that your encyclical letter, Laudato Si’, inspires and propels profound changes in politics, practices, and beliefs of governments, businesses, civil society, and the mentality of our fellow man, with hopes of constructing a more just, more humane, and truly sustainable world.
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AIDA celebrates Court decision to protect Colombia's páramos
Colombia’s Constitutional Court on Monday declared unconstitutional an aspect of the country’s National Development Plan that permitted mining in páramos. Bogota, Colombia. The Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) celebrates the decision of Colombia’s Constitutional Court to ban mining in the country’s páramos. The ruling—which nullified an article of the 2014-2018 National Development Plan protecting previously granted mining licenses—is vital to the preservation of Colombia’s freshwater resources, and should serve as an example for other countries in the region. AIDA and partner organizations presented an amicus brief in support of the corresponding lawsuit, filed by the Cumbre Agraria, Campesina, Étnica y Popular. The court’s ruling brings justice to these important freshwater ecosystems and the many people that depend upon them. Although they occupy just 1.7 percent of the national territory, Colombia’s páramos provide 70 percent of its fresh water. The sensitive ecosystems are also strategic reserves of biodiversity, and act as carbon sinks essential to the mitigation of climate change. The high court’s decision is key to the protection of the Santurbán páramo, on which hundreds of thousands of people in the Bucaramanga metropolitan area depend. AIDA has long been working to defend Santurbán from large-scale mining and to provide support to affected communities. AIDA urges the Ministry of the Environment to promptly enact the court’s ruling and protect all the country's páramos from the impacts of large-scale mining operations.
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