Flying through the jungle is always a challenge.
The pilot, a former Brazilian colonel, when approaching the majestic Puré River, descends from a thousand to a thousand five hundred meters in height.
The river crosses the border between Colombia and Brazil, a place that has become strategic for illegal mining and drug trafficking.
In its channel you can count more than 30 mining vessels illegally extracting gold from its waters.
Tireless, they are seen working from the colonel's plane.
Right in that area, the National Parks of Colombia built in 2015 a cabin called Puerto Franco in honor of the researcher Roberto Franco, the first to discover isolated indigenous peoples in Colombia, people who during the last centuries have decided not to have any contact with Western civilization. .
From the air, only what remains of the roofs and foundations of the cabin built in honor of Franco can now be seen.
Illegal armed groups burned it down during the pandemic because they wanted nothing to do to the government present in the area.
This cabin had a very important purpose: to protect the isolated indigenous people of the Colombian Amazon.
Deep in the Amazon jungle, very close to Puerto Franco, live the Yuri, an indigenous group that lives in voluntary isolation.
For its protection, the Río Puré National Park was created, and with great effort the most remote cabin that existed in Colombia was built.
Park ranger Luis Rivas, 70, lived in this small maloca, a traditional expert from the Cubeo ethnic group who was in charge of keeping illegal miners, drug traffickers and guerrillas away from the isolated indigenous people.
Cabin in Puerto Franco, after being burned by illegal armed groups in Río Puré, in December 2021. PNN Río Puré
One night, in the midst of the pandemic, Rivas dreamed that he was in danger and asked Parks officials to remove him from the area.
When he got to the nearest town, he caught Covid and died.
Some time later, officials from the National Parks found out about the destruction of Puerto Franco during a flight over the Puré River.
Since the pandemic they have been unable to access protected areas in the Amazon due to threats from illegal groups that now dominate this territory.
The rangers of this national park, like those of nine others in the Colombian Amazon, which covers almost 15 million hectares, had to leave their territory from one day to the next.
“We had to send a plane and get everyone out.
There was no time, they had threatened us, ”says a former National Parks official who prefers not to give his name for fear of reprisals from the guerrillas.
This former official believes that these threats respond to the implementation by the Government of the Artemisa strategy, a program to stop deforestation in the Amazon.
In 2020, and for the second consecutive year, Colombia was the most dangerous country to defend the environment and territory with 65 murders of environmental leaders, according to the British NGO Global Witness.
Although this crisis has been brewing for decades, it has worsened since the signing of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas in 2016. “The organizations that try to protect the Amazon have come into conflict with the interests of these powerful groups. and, as a consequence, they have increasingly become targets of attacks”, explains Juan Carlos Garzón, a researcher at the Ideas for Peace Foundation.
"I am threatened by the guerrillas," says anthropologist Arturo, 45, who prefers not to give his real name precisely for this reason.
He has walked through the Amazon region with a security scheme since he reported to the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition in 2020 that the Carolina Ramírez guerrilla group arrived one day at the park cabin where he worked and told them that they had to go out
“They told us that they had declared war on Parks and that they didn't want uniformed whites in the protected areas,” he recalls.
A Ticuna Indian is seen during a jungle expedition in the Colombian Amazon. Anadolu Agency (Getty Images)
They stole their gasoline, cameras, computers and all the material they used to study the terrain.
"They only left us a small boat with a motor to get out," says Arturo, who decided to leave as soon as he could when he saw his life in danger.
Since that time two years ago, every time he has tried to return, the threats have always returned with him.
In charge of the park were the indigenous officials of his confidence.
Arturo, from a distance, tried to continue leading the projects as best he could.
However, recently he decided to leave his post: the situation, he says, was becoming more and more frustrating.
Arturo was part of a group of park rangers who brought a report to the Truth Commission and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in which they asked to be recognized as victims of the armed conflict.
“They took us out under threat and everything was abandoned.
I feel very helpless, ”he assures.
What did National Parks do with those who are threatened for trying to take care of a territory that belongs to everyone?, he wonders, although he knows the answer: nothing.
Between 1994 and 2020, 12 park rangers have been killed, according to official data.
The deputy director of National Parks of Colombia, Carolina Jarro, explains that at the moment they are under very strong pressure from illegal mining, a business that they estimate represents close to three billion Colombian pesos in profits for criminal groups each year.
It is money, moreover, that is used to launder the resources obtained from drug trafficking: “Attempts have been made to control the pressure of illegal mining in the Puré River because the uncontacted indigenous groups are there.
The Puerto Franc hut had been installed there as part of the control scheme, but a year ago they burned our hut and that has limited our presence in the territory”, summarizes Jarro.
The deputy director also denounces that, far from being satisfied with threatening the park rangers, the guerrillas are using some of the organization's cabins where the material they were working with has been stolen: "Groups outside the law prefer not to have anyone to see what happens, that's why they kicked us out.
For now, what we have done is denounce the situation so that the Government provides them with protection.
Two illegal dredgers (facilities whose purpose is the extraction of minerals found under water. In this case, gold), on the Puré River, in the Amazon. Camilo Rozo
Although officials cannot currently be inside the parks full time, they use remote sensing technology to monitor activity in these protected areas.
“We can see when the guerrillas make a house, when they create a road.
Thus, we can file criminal complaints about the damage that is being done.
We have not abandoned the place, we have to go out for protection.
But we are always watching”, assures Jarro.
Juana has worked as an official in a park in the Amazon region for the last 10 years.
She graduated in Sociology, she went through all the intermediate instances of the administration before becoming head of a specific area that she cannot reveal because it is under threat from the guerrillas.
Among her main missions was to protect a group of indigenous people who abandoned their isolation a few years ago, but who had a very traumatic experience after being enslaved by the miners and rubber tappers who exploited the area's resources.
Now, many of these indigenous people, from the Nukak ethnic group, have developed a great resistance to contact: “In the beginning, it was the indigenous people themselves who negotiated with the guerrillas so that they would let us enter and work with the communities.
There was never a bigger problem."
However, after the peace process, everything changed.
“The guerrillas held me hostage for two days, and after that they told me that I couldn't set foot in the park again,” says Juana, who the last order she received from the FARC dissidents was: “Stay quiet if you don't want me to let's kill her."
The Government's Response: Militarize
The only solution on the part of the national government has been to militarize these protected areas.
The famous Artemis operation has been one of the great flags of the Duke presidency.
"We have reduced deforestation by 19% in the last two years and, through the Artemisa campaign, we have executed our decision to make diversity a strategic asset," the president emphasized in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly. United to run as a leader on environmental issues.
In addition, this month the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, announced that 10,000 million pesos will be invested in the military bases of La Pedrera and Tarapacá for the control of illegal mining and the fight against drug trafficking.
None of this has served for anything.
These problems are denounced in a report created by eight international organizations called a Dangerous Climate.
The Director of the Frankfurt Zoological Society in Colombia, Esperanza Leal Gómez, assures that “the protection of environmental leaders is a responsibility of the State as a whole, not just of one entity, and this must generate the conditions so that the workers of National Parks can operate in the territory without putting their lives in danger”.
Panoramic view of the Puré river, border between Colombia and Brazil.
Lucia Franco (THE COUNTRY)
In addition, Gómez explains that the park rangers are not only fundamental for the conservation of the environment, but also that their actions help to conserve the territory and keep at bay those who want to exploit it without anyone's permission: "The most latent threat is the dispute that It is taking over the territory between various illegal armed actors and civilians, who are being left unprotected.”
The director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Colombia, Sandra Valenzuela, agrees on this, denouncing the environmental degradation suffered by the Amazon region and the risk faced by those who try to protect it.
“As long as these threats continue, the national parks, their park rangers and uncontacted Indians will be in danger.
Colombia must find a way to guarantee its security and thus ensure the survival of the lung of the world.
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