Last week, politicians, conservationists and business people from around the world came together to discuss how to protect nature at the Cop16 biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia.
But for those working on the ground, this is the most dangerous country in the world to fight for the environment. A third of the 196 environmentalists killed last year were Colombian. Here, four conservationists offer a glimpse into their working lives and the dangers they face.
“I'm a little woman trying to save monkeys”: Angela Maldonado
At the age of 28, I joined a unit controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). We went to the area of Vista Hermosa to look for woolly monkeys, which are endemic to Colombia. A lot of people said I was completely crazy, but I had to deal with Farc to get into the area where the monkeys were.
I went to talk to the Farc commander. His nickname was Smurf because he was very short. He was also very dangerous. Five days before I met him, I was told that he had killed someone. He has been kind to me from the beginning and I always think there is good in even the worst of people.
He told me where the monkeys were and contacted other Farc commanders to let me into their town. I was always alone. I'm not a threat to anyone. I am 160 cm tall and weigh 52 kg. To these people, I'm just a little woman trying to save monkeys. That was in 2001 – I have been working in the Amazon for over 20 years fighting wildlife trafficking, mainly monkeys. I was successful in enacting a hunting ban on woolly macaques in the southern state of Amazonas on the border of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
I hope the international community will support peace agreements with all illegal armed groups. When the rights of local people are respected, we can move towards peace with nature.
Angela Maldonado is entropica foundation
“The body had to be carried away.”Protect yourself and wear a bulletproof vest. ” Fernando Trujillo
When I was five years old, I went to the Orinoco River with my grandfather and saw river dolphins for the first time. It's amazing to be in a tropical forest with toucans and at the same time see dolphins in the water. To the people of the Amazon, dolphins are like jaguars in the water. They believe that dolphins have underwater cities and live like humans.
Pollution is one of the biggest threats to Amazon river dolphins. Gold miners use mercury to extract the precious metal from river silt and dump it into rivers and lakes. I found out that my mercury levels were far above safe standards, probably because I had been eating fish in the Amazon for so many years. It can damage the central nervous system, but I'm lucky that it hasn't affected me.
In 2016, my life was threatened after I provided the results of an analysis of mercury in Amazonian fish, and the Colombian government banned the sale of that fish. When entering the Amazon, I had to bring a bodyguard and wear a bulletproof vest. It was a very sad moment in my life. I was so worried about my daughters that I stopped taking them to the Amazon for several years. More than 500,000 people are involved in organized crime in the Amazon, dealing in gold, cocaine, timber and animal trafficking. Our main protection from armed groups comes from working in partnership with local communities, and that is how we work.
I have explored more than 84,000 km (52,000 miles) of waterways in seven countries in search of river dolphins. Almost a year ago, we got 11 countries in Asia and South America to sign a landmark treaty to protect river dolphins. At Cop16, we were pushing resolutions to protect dolphins in 29 major locations across Asia and South America.
Fernando Trujillo is the founder of Omacha Foundation
“There are some people who have no hesitation about ending their lives.” Sandra Bethoud
Malpelo is an island located 500 km off the Pacific coast of Colombia. When I first visited there in 1987, I fell completely in love with the place. The life below the surface is incredible and the island is surrounded by sights of hammerhead sharks, snapper, barracuda, rays and moray eels. When I was there, I saw a large tuna boat with a full load of dead sharks on its deck dropping anchor over the coral. That was shocking.
After that, all I wanted to do was go back and do everything I could to get the government to protect me. I started a petition to the president. And thanks to my work, Malpelo has been protected since 1995. There is a 47,000 square kilometer “no-go” area surrounding it.
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I faced a difficult time when threats were made against me and my team because of my work. When I started fighting illegal fishing, we were faced with many large boats, not only from Colombia but also from other countries. There was no protocol on how to proceed, so I literally got on the boat, explained to them what they were doing wrong, and made them swear before God that they would never get on the boat again. I was a young woman at the time and a little naive, but I always treated them with respect and in a friendly manner. We received threats, and eventually the Colombian Navy told me to be more careful and not to trust them too much.
Unfortunately, there are people today who have no hesitation in ending the lives of others. I hope no other environmental activist would die to save lives.
Sandra Bethoud founder of Malpelo Foundation
“Don't take sides and never discuss politics”: Rosamira Guillen
My mission is to save the cotton-top tamarin monkey, which weighs only 1 pound and is the size of a squirrel. They have Einstein-like white hair and faces like little warriors, and are very territorial. When I first saw this monkey, I thought, Wow, this is a special little monkey.
When I started working on the conservation of these monkeys, I was the director of the Barranquilla Zoo, and when I started seeing monkeys in the wild, I realized that being in the forest is something that satisfies my soul. Fifty years of civil war in our country has displaced farmers, who are clearing forests where monkeys live to create space for traditional cattle grazing and farming.. We have established protected areas and prohibited hunting within our forests. Progress is slow. It takes one day to clear one hectare of forest, but it takes at least 20 years to create a forest.
The areas where we work were in the past 'red zones', or areas operated by illegal armed groups, until a peace agreement was signed in 2016. It is a landscape where illegal armed groups hide. We heard lots of stories from people who lived there about how horrible it was. You cut off the electricity in the middle of the night and they come to your house and take random people away and you never hear from them again. Sometimes their bodies were discovered. There was fear and silence in these communities.
COP16 was important because it created an opportunity to raise funds for small, grassroots organizations like ours that desperately need support to continue their conservation efforts.
We have already protected over 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres) of land for monkeys. Safety remains a concern for us. Politically speaking, we are trying to remain on the periphery. We don't take sides to avoid being labeled as sympathizing with one side or the other. We never talk about politics in our conversations to avoid accidentally stepping on someone else's toes. Just work and have fun, that's what I tell my team.
Rosamira Guillen is a co-founder of Titi Project Foundation
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