OUR WORK
We purchase and protect Arhuaco ancestral territory in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
This was a treeless pasture in 2008
Forest cover on Arhuaco ancestral land expanded 63% in twelve years, according to satellite images compiled by a recent study comparing land management from 2010 to 2022.”
We have already protected 8,000 acres.
We live and work in the Arhuaco community of Seykún, where we want to be a model of Indigenous-led conservation that can be replicated in other communities. Over 70% of the land is dedicated to natural regeneration of native forests. The remainder is used for growing organic food, fibers, and medicine for our families.
Animal populations have declined globally 70% since 1970. Forests can provide 30% of the solution to keeping global warming below 2°C while providing valuable habitat.
The most effective way to restore the land is by supporting the Indigenous peoples who have a multigenerational mission to care for the health of their ancestral territory.
According to several scientific studies, ecosystems are healthier on more than a quarter of the world’s lands that Indigenous people manage or own. Researchers have found that Indigenous-managed lands have as much or more biodiversity than national parks. As we bring health back to our ancestral territory, we are also healing the wounds of history and bringing strength to our culture.
Our goal now is to purchase and protect 5,000 more acres in the community of Seykún by 2028.
From years of experience, we have developed a land-purchasing plan that has proven successful for our community. Equally important is our land-protection plan to ensure the long-term health of the territory. Both the purchase and protection plans are rooted in our cultural worldview that we call the Arhuaco Territorial Protection System.
We live in one of Earth’s biodiversity epicenters
Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a small, isolated mountain range on the northern tip of South America which because of its extreme variation in elevation, as well as its location, contains almost every ecosystem found in tropical America.
In a span of just 26 miles, the Caribbean coast ascends to glacial tundra atop earth’s tallest coastal mountain. This mosaic of ecosystems is home to three-quarters the number bird species as the United States, yet is only the size of Los Angeles. In fact, it has the highest concentration of endemic species on the planet.
Our community of Seykún is located in the southern foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. It is one of ten communities that were created as part of a strategy to recover and restore Arhuaco ancestral land outside of the reservation. Each new piece of land purchased around these ‘satellite’ communities is inhabited by a young Arhuaco family from the reservation.
