“Mother of humanity” means the word Puinawai in the Puinave language, an indigenous people of Colombia who currently live within the Puinawai National Natural Reserve, created in 1989 with an area of nearly 1.1 million hectares, being the second largest protected natural area in the Latin American country, on a continental level.
The park is located entirely in the department of Guainía, in the Amazon region, between 100 and 500 meters above sea level, which allows it to have temperatures between 18 and 30 degrees Celsius throughout the year. It is covered with jungle and multiple rivers, displaying spectacular Amazonian landscapes.
The park’s history is marked by a constant struggle. Since its creation, it has faced pressure from illegal mining, which has already devastated 93 hectares of forest, according to a recent investigation by Mongabay Latam.
“The conflicts in Colombia that affect this protected area are more than 100 years old, ranging from drug trafficking to illegal mining,” says Mario Madrid Ordoñez, head of the protected natural area. In 2012, the Puinawai rangers had to abandon the territory due to threats and attempts on their lives by criminal groups dedicated to drug trafficking and the illegal extraction of gold, coltan and chemical elements known as “rare earths”.
In Puinawai violence against National Park officials broke out when the Illegal miners began to seize the park rangers’ boats to threaten them and prohibit them from sailing on the rivers. A few years later, in 2020, during the pandemic, the increase in illegal activities also affected other areas of the Colombian Amazon, causing park rangers to no longer enter their workplaces.
To this day, full administration and surveillance of the park has not been restored. However, since 2018 there have been meetings with indigenous reservations and communities of the Puinave, Curripako and Kubeo peoples to return to shared management of the area, as was the case between 2001 and 2012.
Read more | The situation of women environmental defenders in Colombia remains critical
First stop: the fauna
Since the departure of the park rangers from the Puinawai National Nature Reserve in 2012, scientific studies on the species existing within the area have been paralyzed, but by 1996, 90 species of birds had been recorded, including species such as the Carrion Guan (Penelope jacquacu) and the red-rumped curassow (Multiple tomentosum) that are important in the diets of indigenous communities.
There are also the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), the green macaw (The military arena) and the Surinam anthill (Myrmotherula surinamensis), which are included in the Vulnerable category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
At that time, 36 species of mammals were also recorded, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca), the palm bear (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), the ocarro (Priodontes maximus), and Critically Endangered species such as the tapir (A terrestrial tapir). Likewise, in the reserve there are aquatic mammals such as the porpoise (Inia geoffrensis), the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), the manatee (Trichechus manatus) and 28 species of bats.
Read more | Yasuní: economists propose alternatives to end oil exploitation
Second stop: the flora
In the Puinawai National Nature Reserve there is a great variety of flora native to the Amazon. According to a 2001 study, 688 species of plants such as açaí (Euterpe oleracea), the seje (Oenocarpus bataua) and the moriche (Mauritia flexuosa), which are used by indigenous communities.
“One of the challenges is to update the characterization of the species that exist in the park. The ones we now mention and know are the ones most used by indigenous communities,” explained Mario Madrid Ordoñez, head of the reserve.
The official added that a baseline needs to be built to advance research on species in the area and achieve indigenous governance so that specialists can reach the area. Currently, Eight people work in the Puinawa reserve, Most of them are specialists who are dedicated to improving relations with communities in order to return the administration of the territory to indigenous governance.
“Access to the territory is complex because there are no roads. Communities must travel by river for days to reach the reserve. There is also no communications infrastructure, no telephone or internet, which complicates community management,” explained Madrid Ordoñez.
Read more | New species of otter discovered in Latin America
Third stop: a new management
Within the park there are 44 indigenous communities that make up the reservations of the Middle and Upper Basin of the Inírida River, the Upper Basin of the Guainía River, Cuiari and Isana, and Tonina-Sejal-San José. These overlap 100% with the protected natural area and are the ones that have been most impacted by illegal gold mining in the department of Guainía.
“Illegal mining is the main pressure on the ecosystems of the Puinawai reserve, which has generated conflicts in the sociocultural organization of indigenous communities and contamination of soil and rivers due to the use of mercury and other heavy metals,” says the head of the area.
Although the park rangers withdrew in 2012, four years later, in 2018, talks were restarted with the communities to strengthen the indigenous governance that they had lost due to the actions of criminal groups. During those years, no public institution worked in the park’s buffer zone. To date, there is no administrative headquarters of National Parks within the area, nor is it permitted to carry out tourist activities; but There is already an intention to allow tourism as an alternative project.
The park currently provides training to community leaders to strengthen the exercise of indigenous authority, improve the management of indigenous guards and promote alternative projects to illegal gold mining.
“The exercise of conservation is for everyone. We hope to join forces in the recognition of indigenous communities to resume joint administration of the area,” noted Mario Madrid, head of Puinawai, who also has experience as a park ranger in protected natural areas for eight years.