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Surviving inside the Selva de Florencia:A case study in a Colombian National Park

Luis Sánchez-AyalaUniversidad de los Andes

Bogotá, Colombia

Alexandra AreizaInstituto HumboldtBogotá, Colombia

Source National Parks of Colombia

59 National Parks Areas where peasant communties are not permited.

16.000 Km2

11% of the terrestrial portion of the country.

3% of the marine portion of the country.

7000 peasant families inside 34 National Parks.

Presence of ingenous people and afro communitiesinside 26 National Parks.

Conservation and Land use

Aichi Target 11

Municipalities

National Park

¿How the conservation project was born?

Source: www.eltiempo.com

Coffee crisis

Source: www.indepaz.org.co

Armed conflict

Colombia wants peace

“Miel I” hydroelectric plant When hidromiel [the hydroelectric project] started buying, they just jumped around, they bought some land in Santa Isabel, another piece in El Diamante, and they bought some farms there, and now we are enclosed, surrounded [by the forest that regenerated in the farms that were bought](Interviewee 1)

We realized that it was a park because they told us that they would buy it for that ... nobody asked us if we wanted this to be sold so make a park, and then leave some people enclosed... people thought that they were going to buy it all, all the farms. When they start to act like that, they weakened the community.(Interviewee 2)

Perspective of an isolated house in the Selva de Florencia National Park

That was quite complicated; Isagen [a power company] bought our land before 2000, approximately between 1997 and 1998. We were not interested in selling; the thing was that we were obligated to sell.(Interviewee 3)

Social rupture

Home of Interviewee 4

Nobody asked us if we wanted to be inside a park and be completely locked in. There were two schools, but they got closed and the government took away all the social programs. (Interviewee 5)

Isolated families

Home of Interviewee 4

One can hardly do the burnings [for the preparation of the land to plant crops] and do the chores. So, (…) day by day the forest grows. That is not good for us, because that means that we are getting even more locked in within the forest. Everyone I used to the burning because is a faster way to clean up the land, and one can start to work easily. Now everything is forbidden because we are in a park, but the truth is that the land belongs to us. If I cannot work the land, then is better to sell! (Interviewee 6)

Loosing land use access

Home of Interviewee 4

You also have to take into account thatyou have to produce food, it is not likethe people in the city, that they workand they get a salary and that is howthey make a living... Here, if you donot farm, you do not eat.(Interviewee 8)

Social significance

Home of Interviewee 4

We have lived here for 23 years, we have crops, but we do not have any help at all, they [the Park] do not help the community because now the children have nowhere to study, other people left to educate their children... there are people who have farms here, but since we have no help, they preferred to abandon them. Three times we have been on the verge of having energy but National Parks opposed. (Interviewee 5)

The dilemma: stay or go

Home of Interviewee 4

Conclussions

The existence of the conservation area has been entwined at different levels with factors such asthe loss of housing, the loss and deterioration of productive means, the restriction to, or loss of,the access to goods, resources, and infrastructure, the disruption of the social fabric, and the lossof the territory.

The socio-spatial dynamics of the place have been dramatically changed. Before the existence ofthe conservation area, people faced a difficult social and economic situation; however, they had acommunity and their land to rely on, and to obtain a livelihood.

After the conservation area, people living within feel they are being evicted from their homes,their land, and their territories.

The declaration of protected areas should not be against the permanence of the peasantcommunities, they could help the effective management of these areas.

Alexandra Areiza aareiza@humboldt.org.co

Luis Sánchez-Ayala ld.sanchez20@uniandes.edu.co

Thank you!